25 Things About Music Teaching and Education

It is unusual to be empowered to do great teaching. Good teaching is not only easier, but in many schools it is actually preferred. I think some leaders think great teaching is taking place when all the teachers are doing things in a consistent/compliant manner, and with minimal internal or external (parent) conflict. While that could be a trait of a productive teaching community, it's more often detached conformity. I think many school districts see conformity as the goal instead of empowering great teaching where the uniqueness of each teacher and content area is valued. And when I say "valued" I mean in action, not in words. All leaders will say they value the great teaching, but what we truly value is seen in what we do not what we say.

But I digress.

Back to the idea of faculty compliance. I think teachers are inclined to conform because (usually) they were successful students. Successful students are traditionally the ones who conformed and aimed to please. Over time a faculty will generally consolidate to wherever the leadership expects everyone to "be." So if great teaching is a clearly defined and "acted upon" value in a school system teachers will reach for it. Conversely, if good teaching is the goal they will gravitate to that, and you know which is more likely. We as teachers have to accept part of the blame. We know that going the extra mile can make our peers uncomfortable, and so we hold back sometimes. Our unions have had a hand in this move towards mediocrity too.

So the bottom line is that although administrators often argue that they can recognize great teaching in any content area, I could go on for some time about the ways that great ensemble teaching has little resemblance to great traditional classroom teaching. For example, many of us have had great rehearsals... learning-ful rehearsals... where almost nothing was said (verbally). There aren't any observation rubrics that would characterize that as great teaching, yet we know that musicians create, problem solve, inform, and yes think in sound. And therefore we evaluate that sound and help to shape it through the gestures we make in the conducting process. We spend a lot of our instructional time teaching non-verbally. Many days it is my primary mode of instruction.