Is It Elemental?

This winter, I was fortunate to have an article published in the Orff Echo, the professional journal of the American Orff Schulwerk Association. I was also given permission to share the article on this website, so here it is!

Iowa's Research and Development School

Yesterday, the parents, teachers, administrators, and students at my school were surprised by an online newspaper article, featuring an interview with the President of the University of Northern Iowa, who included our entire PreK-12 school as part of a planned budget cut. Here is the article.

Malcolm Price Laboratory School, which is referred to in the Iowa Legislative Code as "Iowa's Research and Development School", serves 366 PreK-12 students this year, not 250 as the article in the Courier originally stated. Next year, MPLS has a projected enrollment over 400. Meanwhile, classes in surrounding districts are over physical capacity already. MPLS also serves over 1200 UNI education majors annually, with field experience, classwork, and observation time that the public schools would be challenged to absorb. The field experience piece gives UNI graduates an edge in the workplace that is acknowledged by most Iowa public school districts, where 25% of all teachers are UNI graduates (locally, I'm sure the percentage is much higher).

In addition to working with PK-12 students and UNI pre-service teachers, MPLS faculty implements important research that aids all students in Iowa. One current project is implementation of "The Leader in Me", based on the popular "Seven Habits of Highly Effective People", for which MPLS is the first K-12 pilot school in the nation. Another project involves researching the differences between laptops and iPads for 1:1 initiatives. Both of these projects, and many more done by departments or individual teachers at MPLS, get disseminated by the MPLS faculty to teachers around the state through presentations, inservices, and collaborative work.

Linda Darling Hammond, a reknowned education expert from Stanford University, just yesterday compared Iowa's Research and Development school to the highly successful models of teacher education in Finland, one of the highest achieving nations in the world in education.






President Allen's idea of a virtual, decentralized Research and Development School does not make sense to me. Having worked for many years in both the Iowa public schools and at Price Lab, I can attest to the fact that research and development of new teaching strategies will NOT work on a large scale in the public schools, without a huge infusion of new money and more staffing. Teachers in public schools are expected to focus on the immediate needs of their students, and often, unfortunately, on test scores. While most quality teachers are creative and original, coming up with new ways to tackle problems, these teachers, for the most part, do not have the time, resources, and professional motivations to process, document, and share this creativity through detailed research. At MPLS, I have been encouraged to tackle all of this as a fundamental part of my role as an educator. My students still benefit from my creative ideas, but OTHER teachers and students can benefit as well when I share ideas with my colleagues.

As of the 2012-2013 school year, the transformation of Malcolm Price Laboratory School into "Iowa's Research and Development School" is scheduled to be complete. In many ways, we are ahead of schedule, creating innovative new research projects, connecting with statewide educators, and providing quality education to PreK-12 and UNI students. The one thing that has not happened on time is the hiring of quality staff. For example, according to the state plan, we were supposed to hire a director for the school this year. UNI has taken no action on this dire need, and the year is more than half over.

The real underlying issue here is lack of funding for UNI and the other state universities. For UNI to be considering the elimination of MPLS means that they are at the extreme of giving up their standing as the premier teacher education institute in Iowa, due to budget shortfalls. If you care about education in this state, please talk to your legislators about better funding for ALL levels of public education.

The Language of Educational Success

Recently, I came across this article in the Atlantic on educational reform and the amazing achievements of Finland. The gist of the article (which you should read anyways), is that the key to Finnish success in education is not competition and high-stakes accountability, but exactly the opposite. Finland has virtually no private schools, no standardized tests except a high school exit exam, and no voucher system, school competition, etc. Instead, what the reformers of Finnish education have focused on in the past few decades is equality of educational opportunities for all children! Pasi Sahlberg, a Finnish Ministry of Education spokesperson, points out that

There's no word for accountability in Finnish. Accountability is something that is left when responsibility has been subtracted.

This is a radical idea to many Americans, that maybe we don't need accountability and competition as much as cooperation, equality, and responsibility. Yet it makes perfect sense with everything I have experienced as a teacher. The language of vouchers, charter schools, and school choice,  is a language of finding something better than the norm. The problem with this is that most students will still be experiencing the "norm" of public schools.

Imagine all of our children were on a large ocean liner. We want them to have the amazing experiences that we had on that boat decades ago. One day, some people start noticing that the boat is slowly sinking. Do we:

A. Pay a private ship to come rescue just our son or daughter, and continue them on the journey at a costly fee?
B. Demand that the boat be fixed without resources, in fact while simultaneously building "better" boats that aren't big enough for all the kids?
C. Pool our resources and repair or build a better boat for ALL the kids?

To accept competition as the basis for education, you must be willing to accept the outcome that some students will get an inferior education. What Finland has demonstrated is that it is quite possible, with a focused public will, to create a system where every child has an opportunity to succeed!

Language is so important to the way we see the world around us. Acountability implies distrust, reward and punishment. Responsibility implies trust, mutual respect, and working toward a common goal. I know which one I want my son to learn. I know which one works in class. Take it a step further; for most of my career, I spent a lot of time and effort focusing on what I learned in college as "behavior management" or "classroom management". Again, language epitomizes the problems I was facing. When I tried to "manage" my students, I was the one trying to control, and getting frustrated when the students saw no intrinsic reason to cooperate. When I finally realized that I was driving myself and my students crazy, I was able to back up, and start from language like "classroom atmosphere", "respect", "mutual trust", and "self control". I realized that my students had no idea how I wanted them to act in class, unless I showed them not only what I expected, but why it was important to help them learn and succeed. And to do this, I had to first show them that I trusted them and cared about them.

Ten years ago, I would have thought that was all a bunch of feel-good nonsense. I have heard (and agreed with) the argument that we are creating a generation of coddled brats, by always worrying about their self esteem and always being positive. Yet now I see that you can still be realistic, with high expectations and honest assessments, while simultaneously guiding children to trust you and work even harder toward the goals that you jointly set in class.

In my classroom today, things aren't perfect. Students get out of hand. I occasionally have to raise my voice. Yet the classroom atmosphere is one of cooperation and responsibility, where we each take responsibility for our own actions, including me! With this foundation of trust, I can take the class on a journey to things that they otherwise would shy away from, because they are new, strange, or different. And they can return the favor by surprising me with an even better way to proceed than what is written in my lesson plan.

Trust. Cooperation. Respect. Honesty. Fairness. Equality. This is what I want for my students, my classroom, my child, my life. This is what I believe most public school teachers want for themselves (from administrators, parents, the public), and for their students. Shouldn't this be the foundation of the next generation of school reform? Finland proves that the tests are not what matters. It's how you treat the people involved.

Iowa Core K-8 Music Guidelines

The Iowa Department of Education has posted guidelines for K-8 Music Education aligned to the Iowa Core Curriculum!

Arts and the Iowa Core

Notice that K-8 music was the first fine arts area to complete their work and have it approved by the DOE! A direct link to the document is here.

I'm very excited to have been a part of this writing process. It was an excellent chance to work with some fabulous minds, including Esther D'Agrosa and Linda Murphy, who spearheaded the process, Tom Sletto from Drake who brought in lots of Kodaly experience, and of course my good local colleague Aaron Hansen, who is an amazing Orff Schulwerk teacher. There were many others on our committee as well (listed at the top of the document), and we represented a diverse set of teachers from around the state.

This past week was the Iowa Music Educators' Association annual conference. The conference takes place at Iowa State University in conjunction with the OPUS Honor Choirs (5-9 grade) and All-State festival for choir, band, and orchestra. I had two students participating: one in the 5-6 Elementary OPUS Choir, and one in the high school All-State Choir. Both students really enjoyed the experience, and represented our school well!

During the conference, while not shepherding students around, I was able to attend several sessions on general music and choral topics. One was a choral reading session based on multicultural music from around the world. I really enjoy reading sessions where you get to keep copies of all of the music, because then you can really take it home and look through it at your own pace.

I also spent time in three different sessions by Kodaly-trained teachers. I really appreciate their organization and focus on sequential instruction. Tom Mahalek, one of the presenters, made a great comment about Orff and Kodaly teachers. He said (paraphrase):

Come January 15, if it suddenly starts snowing outside, the Orff teacher throws open the curtains, maybe throws on the coats, dances in the snow, writes a poem about snow, and creates a snow-themed performance. The Kodaly teacher closes the curtains and continues with the planned lesson, which happens to be about rain.

I love this story. Of course, I have never had any official Kodaly training, but my natural tendency is to be more like the Kodaly teacher in this story than the Orff teacher. I think that's why Orff Schulwerk has spoken so much to me over the years. When I see teachers and students who can create a meaningful, aesthetic, learning experience out of practically anything, I am in awe. And I know, for me at least, this will always be a bigger and more important challenge than making sure that my fourth graders can read every combination of sixteenth and eighth notes perfectly.

That being said, in the past few years, I have definitely strayed (probably too far) away from a clear, sequential curriculum. Partly this has been due to circumstance: I began my current position at Malcolm Price Laboratory School only one year ago, and it includes two multi-level groups of classes (PreK-K and 1St/2nd). Anytime you start a new position, it's starting over from square zero, spending a lot of time finding out what the students already know/don't know. The multi-age classes have the added effect of making a single-year, repertoire-based curriculum obsolete after one year. Sure, a bit of review in repertoire is expected and enjoyed. But the kids would get pretty bored if I taught everything the same way for the second year in a row.

Besides, is a standardized repertoire really what I want for my students, or for myself? There will always be more cultures, styles, and individual pieces of music (and dances) than I can ever hope to teach to all of my children. Likewise, each curricular goal in melody, rhythm, form, etc., can be achieved with a wide variety of pieces and activities. Sure, I might have some favorites that I believe all of my students should learn. But most importantly, I want them to value music so much that they continue to make it and learn about it for the rest of their lives.

I think where I'm heading (and where I was at my last job)
is a sequential curriculum based on grade level expectations of skills, and experiences, combined with a large database of songs and activities, catalogued by all their possible curricular uses. Of course, I have this started in about twelve different formats. I want something that's digital, easily accessible, easily editable, and thorough in its content.

What do you think? Should I start an online database of songs, dances, and activities, open to the public online for viewing and adding? There are very few such repositories in existence. I really think, if our goal is improving education for children, then we need to share our resources.

AOSA Conference Wrap-Up

The American Orff Schulwerk Association national conference has come to a close. It was an amazing conference, with quality sessions on pedagogy, process, multiculturalism, the history of Orff Schulwerk, and the future!

What really struck me this year was not the teaching sessions and process, although both were excellent (Sofia Lopez-Ibor, Nick Wild, Stephen Neely), but the conversations. Several conversations were begun or made public at this session that will have an impact on the future of music education.

• The Name of the Game: At the President's Panel discussion, after an excellent insight into questions such as "How do outsiders perceive AOSA and Orff Schulwerk?" and "Where do you want to see us in ten years?" the audience brought up the idea of moving away from the name American Orff Schulwerk Association towards something that would be more easily understood by a layman, and more in line with our future dreams of touching the lives of as many children and adults as possible. No concrete answer was proposed, but something along the lines of "American Elemental Music and Movement Association" would be the direction I am personally seeing, if this is pursued. Interestingly, in that particular meeting, I heard no objections raised to this concept, yet in following discussions with my colleagues and mentors, many were concerned about this as a "cutting-off" from the roots of Orff Schulwerk. Many people who have studied OS in Europe already feel that this is happening, that AOSA is splintering off in its own direction. The challenge is to allow AOSA to continue to serve the American music education needs of our children, while maintaining collegial dialogue with the Orff Institute in Salzburg, the Orff Forum, and the international Orff Schulwerk community. While I can see both sides of the issue, I certainly hope this becomes an association-wide conversation over the next few years.
  
• Building New Institutions: Along the same radical lines, there was un-sponsored, private discussion concerning the building of a new American Institute for Elemental Music and Movement. The title, location, funding, and mission are all still being determined, but this discussion has also begun.

After all of these great conversations, I finished my trip with a seat on a plane next to Barbara Haselbach, head of the Orff Schulwerk Forum in Salzburg, and professor at the Orff Institute! It was an exciting conversation! Barbara shared with me how thrilled she was by the energy and enthusiasm of American Orff Schulwerk teachers, and the strengths that she saw in our association. She then encouraged me to come visit the Orff Institute in Salzburg. We discussed many differences between European and American systems, private and public schools, and of course, our favorite parts of the conference. I told her my favorite was Sofia Lopez-Ibor, one of my mentors during my AOSA apprenticeship, and a student of Barbara's.

Today it was back to reality, but with a renewed sense of purpose. I started the day by guiding my middle school choir to add creative body percussion to the simple Christmas tune we were working on, and it was fun!

Amazing Happenings at AOSA

"What is Orff Schulwerk?" OS teachers hear this question all the time. The name comes from Carl Orff, the founder of the educational philosophy and approach, and the German word for "School Work", to distinguish it from Orff's compositions and other professional work. When the American Orff Schulwerk Association was founded in 1968, having a European training was a sign of prestige for American musicians. Conductors at all the major symphonies were European, and European educational models (OS, Dalcroze Eurhythmics, Kodaly) were becoming increasingly popular here.

Now, 40+ years later, the terminology is limiting the public understanding of what we do. At the President's Panel session today at the AOSA National Conference, it was proposed that the organization change it's name to something along the lines of "American Elemental Music and Movement Association". Of course, this was a completely impromptu and unofficial proposal from the audience, but everyone who spoke on it was positive about the possibilities of "rebranding" what we do to help get out our message of creative music making. The conversation has begun, and I predict the change will happen within the next decade (or hopefully sooner)!