Another class has gone by without casualties, but there were certainly a few moments today when I had my doubts…. Everyone was back from the holidays and full of energy, so I thought that the prospects for a good class playing “Musical Cranium” were promising. Right and wrong. As usual. The game was a big hit for the first round, which lasted between half an hour and forty-five minutes. I should have stopped there – the boys had mostly been paying attention and, while they were not exactly learning from each other, they were engaged on their own turns, thinking about the questions and mostly getting them right. (Mental note: work more on teaching them about the instruments and instrument families of the orchestra. Begin to talk about the concept of a scale. (How?!)) In my dream-world, I had hoped they would listen to all the questions, learning from each successive turn…not the case, of course, because pushing all the chairs together, yelling at each other, and playing the electric guitar are all WAY more fun…. When I decided to go for Round Two, I began to dig my own grave, because shortly after starting the round, most of them began to lose interest, to play their own games, to throw the pieces at each other and nickname them (Cindy and Bob and I’ve already forgotten who else) and make up (loud) stories about them. I really need to work on the discipline thing. But how?!! Today I threatened that I wouldn’t give out any more candy if I had to tell them to be quiet one more time.

I told them to be quiet about one hundred more times, and no candy. This didn’t seem to have a tremendous effect, except that they all complained, moaned, and groaned about how it wasn’t fair that James got a piece of candy (he won the first round) and no one else did. I told them, “Tough luck, life’s not always fair.” I figured that it’s never too soon to begin learning that lesson. A few more minutes into Round Two and David announces that he doesn’t want to play any more, he’s tired of it and not feeling well, and can he take Andrew with him to go get a drink of water and plus he’s bored. Andrew then chimes in with his usual “Teacher, Teacher” (which generally precedes some kind of sarcastic comment or knock knock joke) but this time tells me “you, know I don’t even know your name. I just call you ‘Teacher.’ And I don’t really care.” Great, thanks for the ego boost. But it gets better, when at this point I give up the game to begin the violin lessons, and proudly whip out half a dozen worksheets and Escher designs for them to color or trace while I work with them individually. I spread them out happily on the table, longing for a bit of peace and semi-quiet so that I can teach. “You want us to do WHAT?!?!” demands Andrew. (“What?! What?! What?!” shouts David. David is always shouting.) “That’s totally lame. You’re lame. I don’t want to do that. I want to go home.” Shattered, I begin to wish vaguely that he would just go home, that they would all go home. I have no idea what to do with them, and I have run out of ideas of ways to get them to settle down, to care, to listen to me, to be quiet when I’m trying to teach. By this point in the class my head hurts from all the noise, I’m beginning to feel like the rest of the school must hate Mondays, and Ms S’s class of NOISE, and I want to go home, too.

Not so lucky! It’s time for the violin, regardless of what the rest of the kids are doing. And working with them individually is still, fortunately, quite wonderful – even rewarding. I love watching them concentrate; I am constantly amazed at how different each of their “natural” approaches is to the instrument. I marvel at how Terrence seems to think so hard about what he is doing, but then seems to have no memory for physical sensations – he’ll be playing, then stop to scratch a mosquito bite, and then put up his left hand again, but on the wrong side of the instrument. Sometimes I wonder if I told him to pick up the violin on his own, if he would remember which hand holds the instrument and which, the bow. So this is a good thing to think about, as I work on how to develop his physical memory. (The problem with this, of course, is that it requires a great deal of Patience, and of desire, on his part…a bit more difficult to come by.) While Terrence doesn’t quite remember right from left, Andrew naturally holds the violin spectacularly well, but seems to have a good bit of trouble understanding where the notes are on the violin. He remembers the strings with some thought, but despite our lessons on the notes of “musical alphabet,” despite all the spelling games and flashcards and things we spent the first month or so on (which seemed to teach the other boys almost effortlessly), he doesn’t seem to get it that “B” follows “A,” or that there is more than one “D” on the violin. Another challenge! How do I reinforce that? He has great ears, so would it be best to begin him with more ear training, to begin doing things aurally, and then transition into note-reading? Or would that just intensify the problem? As a teacher, I am beginning to love and look for these unique challenges that each student presents, because not only do they keep my life interesting (like I need anything else!), but also because on some level the boys recognize what they are not good at . . . and they want to get better! And THIS seems to be the best motivation, the best way to get them to pay attention and to work. So my task for the week, perhaps, is to find a way to incorporate that into the first hour of the lesson. It would be nice, after all, to keep up the “no casualties” record.

Well, I certainly had no problem with discipline this week! I also only had one student show up. Good news: he’s my favorite. Bad news: teachers aren’t supposed to have favorites. And yet, even a few weeks ago I found myself struggling with this concept – it is just so hard to treat each kid the same, when one really wants to learn and another thinks that he’s the most amazing thing since sliced bread. James is a bit of an introvert, is always early to class, and on the first day said that he really wanted to learn the violin because his dad is Irish and played fiddle music around the house when he was growing up. He also told me that he thinks “music is amazing and can make a bad day good.” Who couldn’t love this kid, with his green-hazel eyes peeking out from a head of long and shaggy hair? A few weeks later we were talking about goals and he said he wanted to be a musician, a pilot, or a “computer guy” when he grew up. He’s not the best violinist out of the boys, but he concentrates hard and well, and he’s a quick learner. And (on the days when all the boys attend) it is so difficult not to favor him, to treat Andrew (who last week told me he didn’t like me: “So what are you going to do about that, huh?”) with the same respect, acknowledgement, encouragement as I give to James. Similarly, it is difficult not to give extra attention to Terrence, who the others often make fun of, who is a little slower but truly thinks about what he is doing, and cares about it, and is simply so genuine in his actions and words that you can’t help but want to give him that extra piece of candy even though he’s missed the last twelve questions.

So this week I had planned to play “Musical Cranium” (after a bit of thought I threw the “Jeopardy” idea out the window), and had made cards and categories, questions and prizes. But I couldn’t just play it with one student. A few minutes into the class I realized the others weren’t going to show up and felt a mild internal anxiety begin to rise. What in the world was I going to do with this kid?! We couldn’t possibly spend the entire time going through flashcards, talking about the instruments of the orchestra…I couldn’t just quiz him on musical terms or vocabulary for the whole lesson. I had no back-up plan. So what was I going to do?! After a few more minutes of chat I realized that we were just going to play the violin. And talk about playing. And if he started to get tired, then we’d break out the rhythm games or work on note-reading. Miraculously, it was one of the fastest and easiest classes of the year! It has been amazing to the watch the boys’ progress on the violin – despite the fact that they don’t take the instruments home and/or practice at all, despite the fact that they have one brief lesson each week, in which they are trying to concentrate after a long day at school and while the room resounds with noises of cowboy games, they still get better from week to week! Yes, the progress is slow, and each week I re-evaluate how much or little I can truly expect from them by the end of the year, but it has been so precious to be a part of their discovery of what it is to play the violin. The expressions on the boys’ faces when each held the violin for the first time, and drew a scratchy bow across a string (or, well, two strings…and maybe the bridge, too) was utterly priceless. As much as they goof off in class, as much as they want as much candy as possible, as much as they talk right through my own words, they still want to learn the violin, and they are incredulous when I play something for them, when they watch their own fingers making a sound. I hope to bring in some young performers this year, too, so that they can see some kids their own age playing, because I know what an impression that made on me when I was younger. Any suggestions? Any of you out there have students who need performance opportunities (for other kids)??

But back to James and this week. We had a lovely time! And by the end of our lesson, he was playing “Twinkle Twinkle, Little Star” and reading through lines of my sight-reading book fairly easily (we’ll see how much he remembers next time!), figuring out how to make a good sound (this is so hard to teach! As I am learning. But then again, what isn’t hard to teach?!) and correcting his own bow hand. It was amazing!! Last week we were playing duets that only required the students to play open strings (still fun for all of us, I have to admit – it was also fun to witness their first introduction to chamber music, to that feeling of amazement when you realize that you are playing something with someone else, making something together!), and this week James was telling me that “next should be a high two, which is a C-sharp, and is close to the third finger.” And that may not sound like much if you are not a musician, but it’s a big step if you are an almost-middle-school boy in your second month of violin lessons. And it’s a big step if you are a post-middle-school girl in your second month of teaching beginning violin lessons!

Today was certainly an exercise in patience, but I suppose we need those kinds of days to balance the picture perfect ones (wait, picture perfect ones? Do those exist?). However, there is a lesson to be learned in everything – and I learned today that Mr. American Man is the favored hero of the class, and that Mr. American Man is awesome. (I am also still working on learning exactly who Mr American Man actually is…) Chris Farley, Minnie Me, Chuck Norris, Donald Trump, and a video game character named Makar are also up there on the list of heroes with my boys. But as much as the list didn’t quite include the kind of people I was envisioning, when we really discussed these favorite people and the attributes of their personalities or lives the boys found inspiring or attractive, they still managed to come up with a hoard of respectable answers. I think the kids even surprised themselves a bit, as they realized that many of their heroes were people who made others feel good, were people who gave of themselves and surpassed the expectations of those around them.

But apparently making lists of the “qualities of a hero” while talking about Napoleon and Beethoven wasn’t exactly enough to keep them quiet today, because at least every third word from my mouth was directed at trying to get one of the boys to stop talking, yelling, throwing things, making fun of someone else, crawling onto the table or under the chairs. More lessons of today: I need to find a better way to exercise authority as a teacher. I need to find another way to keep them quiet(er, at least) while I work individually with each student and the violin. (Which, by the way, is going better and better! Today we actually read music for the first time, while playing! They could do it! They hadn’t done it before! And I played little mini “duets” with each boy, thrilling them to no end. But then I proceeded to panic internally when I realized that open strings were one thing, and how I would get them from ‘A A E E’ to using their fingers was about as terrifying – and huge – as anything I could imagine…. More on the violin lessons coming next week.) Those music word searches, crossword puzzles, and hangman worksheets that I’ve been making for them have now worn off, and after circling “bassoon” and “timpani,” they are more interested in throwing their shoes at each other. (Lesson #4: bring a hard helmet to class?)

And I need to do a better job of planning a lesson that speaks to my kids on their level – but preserves a subject that I want to share with them. Of course, this has always been a goal of the class, but it turns out it is also a constant work-in-progress. I certainly don’t want to give up all of my own ideas about what I want them to learn this year, and cater entirely to their interests (a bit of this does happen every week as I plan the lesson, which I think is healthy? but I don’t want it to take over completely). Perhaps what I most need to work on is how to understand the mind of a 12-year-old. My roommate pointed out to me last night that, while I might find making a list of adjectives of the qualities of a hero fun (“But we were using different colors of markers!” I protested. “And they did think it was cool that parts of the 4-minute clip of ‘Eroica’ that we listened to could be described with those same adjectives!”), a 12-year-old boy wasn’t going to find it so fun. “You have to get inside their heads,” she counseled me. “Because my 12-year-old head tells me that I am not interested in adjectives and list-making. That sounds kind of boring, actually. My 12-year-old head needs something that is concrete, and something that is obviously relevant. Something that makes me engaged, too.” But I know this! I silently protest. That’s what I’m trying to do! “Maybe you could think about being less creative in your lesson plan material, and more creative in the presentation. If you want to talk about Beethoven, talk about Beethoven. But talk about him in a fun way.” [Insert a pained look from me here…] “And listing adjectives is not fun,” she insisted.

Right. So, lesson learned, and I think that next week we’ll be playing music jeopardy. (Anyone care to join?)

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Part one! NEC meets blogging, boys from South Boston, and the Albert Schweitzer Fellowship

Today I learned that stickers do not impress boys. I also learned that saying “I said so because I’m the teacher” does. And, as it turns out, this is quite a powerful tool when you are a 25-year-old girl trying to control a group of slightly rowdy 10 and 12-year old boys in an after-school classroom. I have quickly figured out that these boys are not nearly as interested in the relationship of Picasso to music or in the difference between a canon and a fugue as I was hoping (included in my initial curriculum plans, of course!), but their uncensored reactions to the things I present are so honest and insightful that I am constantly surprised (and often delighted!) by their responses.

I am a violist at NEC, studying with Martha Katz for the second year of my Graduate Diploma, and fortunate enough to be one of the 2006-07 Boston area Albert Schweitzer Fellows. The Albert Schweitzer Fellowship was founded in 1940 to support Dr. Schweitzer’s medical work in Africa during World War II, and has since expanded to include programs across the United States, encouraging students in health-related professions to follow the example of Dr. Schweitzer in living a life of service. Dr. Schweitzer wrote extensively on topics from philosophy to nuclear testing, music to politics, and is especially known for his belief in service and in setting an example through this service: “[my philosophy of life] does not allow the scholar to live for his science alone, even if he is very useful to the community in so doing. It does not permit the artist to exist only for his art, even if he gives inspiration to many by its means. It refuses to let the business man imagine that he fulfils all legitimate demands in the course of his business activities. It demands from all that they should sacrifice a portion of their own lives for others.” (Civilization and Ethics, p. 269.) The mission of the Albert Schweitzer Fellowship is to reduce disparities in health and healthcare by developing “leaders in service” – individuals who are dedicated and skilled in helping underserved communities, and who influence and inspire others by example. [Lots more info! Go to www.schweitzerfellowship.org, and check out the bios of current fellows and project descriptions, inspiring Schweitzer quotes, Fellowship news.]

And good news for all of us musicians, because a few years ago, the Fellowship became interested in including a few students from NEC in its mix of students from med school, PA school, optometry school, dental school, and every other traditional “health profession,” as well as many that are less-traditional. My Fellowship project involves teaching an interdisciplinary music class at an after-school center in South Boston called the Paraclete Center (www.paraclete.org). An old convent-made-after-school community center, once I stumbled upon it (after the perhaps prerequisite lesson on “how things never work out as you would expect”), the Paraclete Center now seems like the ideal place for me this year. The Center is the brainchild of Sister Ann Fox, who is exactly what you might expect of a Sister: quiet, compassionate, humble…and a powerhouse. She began the Center in 1997 as a place that could offer the neighborhood middle school children of South Boston an enriching, diverse learning environment to supplement their daytime education and provide them with the extra assistance and tutoring needed for them to gain acceptance into one of three “exam” Boston public high schools. Through the Center’s various after-school offerings, its mission is to provide its students with the possibility of an alternative future. 40% of its students live in public or subsidized housing, and 35% come from immigrant families that do not speak English in the home.

And so what am I doing there? Teaching my class of 10- and 12-year-old boys about Bach and Beethoven, about Janis Joplin and Dave Brubeck, about meter and rhythm and musical form and modes and melody. And to play the violin. (or, sort of how to sort of play the violin!) I believe so strongly in the power of music, and in the need for it especially in the lives of children, as a part of their development, as an emotional outlet, as a way to stimulate creativity. And while many schools have some sort of music program, band class, or after-school choir, I believe that music is not often taught to children in a way that relates to their lives or to their other academic subjects, and so it is often difficult for them to connect to music in a meaningful way. This year I wanted to design a curriculum that integrated music with life – with art, politics, history, social dynamics, literature, science – so that the kids I taught would find a way to connect with music and would develop a lifetime involvement in and appreciation for the arts.

And of course things do not proceed entirely as planned (back to lesson #1), and after several curriculum-writing (and site-identifying) pitfalls, I quickly learned that if I was truly going to engage the minds and spirits of these boys, I was going to have to do it with a lot of activity, a lot of interaction, a lot of hands-on. Me lecturing on the connections between music and Shakespeare was going to get me about as far as a car with a flat tire. Offering violin lessons, however, in conjunction with some music appreciation that both explored various kinds of music and also covered the basics of musical form and theory, of note-reading and violin-playing – now this has proved to be a much better plan. So each week I spend hours and hours planning my classes (lesson #2 – as much as I respect and admire music teachers in public middle schools, I could never be one. Good to know), which go by in a whirlwind of exercises, games, violin-playing, flashcards, quizzes, boy-talk, singing, viola-playing that to me feels like some sort of nervous mayhem and to my boys feels (I hope, I think) like a pretty cool, pretty fun, pretty interesting, not-too-serious music class with Ms S.

And in these following blogs, I will be recording various thoughts and impressions from the class and the opportunity, insights into the Schweitzer Fellowship and dips into days at the Paraclete Center, reflections on how this particular effort of mine to find a way to get my music out of the practice room and into the community has been working (or not). I began teaching in September, so the first few entries date back to those earlier days of teaching as I reported them to my mentors at the Fellowship and at NEC. So I hope you enjoy! Welcome to the ride.