Reflective Practice Logs

As a first year teacher in a public school in New York City, I face daily challenges often related to my inexperience. For example, I have no idea how to fix a flute. 

I do however have experience that can help me in other ways. I've taken the trip around the sun more than 40 times and half of those have been as a practicing musician. I know the value of regular musical practice, as well as the value of reflective practice. 

To that end I have all instrumentalists in my program logging their practice times in a Google calendar that they share with me. They are required to log at least three practice sessions for 15 minutes each. They are also meant to reflect on each practice in the description in one to two sentences. I'm asking them to write about how it went, not just what they practiced. 

Also, for one of the practice sessions per week, I'm asking them to attach a recording - easily done on a mobile device - of 20 to 30 seconds. The recording can be of them playing a scale, an excerpt from one of our pieces, or anything else. I just want them to be documenting their work. I don't have time to listen to 140 recordings per week, but as I've told them, the recordings are not for me. They are for the students, so they can listen back in a few months and hear how far they've come. 

One week's practice for Symphonic Band

While it has taken a few weeks to get all students on board with this, both in terms of the technical requirements and the rigor, it is proving to be a valuable experience for student and conductor alike. 

I find it so much more effective than the paper logs that I used as a child playing trombone in the school band. My parents had to sign it and I turned it in, never to be seen again. With this electronic practice log, students can revisit September in the spring to view what they were reflecting about, listen to their recordings and feel good about how they have progressed as reflective, conscientious and technically savvy musicians. 

Spicoli

I think my favorite moment from my first full week of being a high school music teacher happened in symphonic band rehearsal. I was showing the students some body percussion concepts I learned in Brazil on a state-sponsored cultural exchange trip in 2004. We don't need our instruments to make music. We can play our bodies by thumping our chests, snapping our fingers and clapping our hands. I asked the students in what other ways our bodies make rhythm (keep it clean).

One boy eagerly raised his hand, "Beat boxing!" 

He then spit a pretty dope beat. 

"Excellent!" I said. Then, "Wait...who are you?"

"Bradley?"

"Bradley, are you in this class?" I expected him to say "I am today." 

He said nothing and everyone laughed. 

I initiated a round of applause for "Bradley" as he left the rehearsal room. I hope he registers for the class. Every symphonic band needs a good beat boxer. 

Happier Than The Morning Sun

Listening to Stevie Wonder on the way to my new job as a high school music teacher. Stunning synchronicity as the music matches my environment, my feelings and the complicated emotional dynamics of career change. 

Here's the sunset I saw at Coney Island on the last day of summer three days ago.

And here's the sunrise this morning from the Manhattan Bridge. 

"There are no ordinary moments." -Jack Kerouac

Ready

"Are you ready?" someone asked me the other day.

They are referring to the next stage of my professional journey. I have been hired as Music Director at a high performing New York City high school. I will be conducting two levels of band, guitar classes and ensembles, jazz band, a chamber music society, and initiating a music technology class they are calling "Audio Science."  Two days of professional development start tomorrow, and students arrive on Thursday.

The thing is, despite having spent the last year doing an intensive teacher training program at Brooklyn College, no one could ever be "ready" for what I'm about to do. My mentor at Brooklyn College said, "Teaching is messy," and it's true. Regardless of how thorough your backwards-designed lesson plans are, and even if you have your Bruner, Vygotsky, and Howard Gardner theories intact and the Depth-of-Knowledge chart tattooed on your forehead, effectively engaging in a teaching/learning process in front of a group of 9th-graders who need you to communicate to them how to put their flute together is something that can only be learned by doing.

While I have the naivety of first-year teacher (I'm going to change these kids lives from day one), I am going in with an open mind - solidly rooted in the knowledge that teaching is a learning process. And I will learn something new everyday. I will succeed and I will fail. I will convey to my students that while they are on a path of learning and I am their teacher, I am also on a path of learning - we're in this together. I will remain open to feedback and new ideas. I will write and reflect in personal journals and on this blog on a regular basis.

In fact, I have a history of written reflections for this gig. This is the high school where I completed my secondary education student teaching placement. As a part of that process I had to reflect daily in a journal. I wrote over 8000 words on the process and challenges of teaching music. Here is an excerpt from the work I did at the school at which I'm now employed:

"Unrelated to how prepared or not I was, there was a discussion today on whether or not it's ok to leave students confused. I taught a lesson on musical texture, and there was a question about whether a melody over a drone was monophony or not. Some students said yes, some said it was homophonic. They wanted an answer and I didn't give it to them. I said we would keep listening to examples and maybe the answer would reveal itself to us. One girl actually said, 'this is killing me.' These students are so attached to always having 'the answer' that they freak out if there is anything unknown. My cooperating teacher says it has been her goal to try to get them to take initiative and do things for themselves, and I think this can be taken a step in a similar direction by getting them to become familiar with what Alan Watts called the wisdom of insecurity. It's ok to not know the answer. It's ok to leave a class after being introduced to a new concept and have your head swim a little bit. Life is not black and white. It doesn't matter what you got on your SAT, sometimes you have to deal with things that don't make a bit of sense." 

While confident in my abilities as an educator after 20-plus years of teaching music, I have some insecurities. And there is wisdom in knowing that and being ok with that. No one could ever be fully ready for a job like this, but I am ready to continue learning.

Are you a teacher? Please leave feedback on the teaching/learning dynamic in the comments. Thanks for reading!

Read The Signs

Paging through an old notebook this morning I found these lyrics, which I wrote on August 23, 2008. They were once a part of a mediocre song, but perhaps stand up a little straighter as a poem.

Read The Signs

Old Man's sneaking up on me
The gas light's on the porch
Baby is all grown up
I still carry a torch

I'm not too sure what day it is
I used to wear a watch
The past shares my barstool
As my finger stirs my scotch

I don't know what's ahead of me
And I'm done with what's behind
The drum beats ever softer
As I try to read the signs

There's a dusty man in a trenchcoat
Hanging fingers of paper and bone
He wrestles with an angel
Who's already turned to stone

There's a saxman on the corner
Patchwork quilt of blues and soul
I see Manhattan from my window
As harbor bells begin to toll

What Whitman is a ghost
Under lights on the promenade
You're too young to remember
His stories fantastic and odd

The sun's too bright today
I'd rather stay inside
And huddle with my nightmares
Like the one my father died