Classroom Leadership

I've been thinking a lot about leadership lately ...

• I am directing an 8th grade choral group of 85 students this year
• I am mentoring a new MS/HS choral director in our district this year
• I am in my 3rd year of K-12 leadership in our music department
• We have some transitions at my elementary school (my "home" school)
• Our keynote speaker for the week focused on attitudes and leadership

I am thinking about leadership mainly because I will have a choir of at least 85 eighth grade students, all in one section.  This was not the fault of a guidance department error or some other schedule anomaly.  I asked for it.  The principal checked my sanity several times.  The guidance people checked to be sure, too.  District-level people checked to be sure this was not a mistake.  It was not.  I asked for it.

For the past several years, my Middle School choirs have been split into two sections.   It would be two sections of about 35 students each.   We would combine for ONE joint rehearsal right before a concert.  It worked.  Barely.  But it wasn't fair to the students.  When students are learning to sing in parts, there is strength in numbers.  Last year, I decided that academically ... musically ... it was the right time to make a change.  So I asked for it.  And they're coming next week.

That brings me back to leadership.

Educators are expected to be natural leaders.  Music educators are expected to be natural leaders with large groups of students from day one.  Principals and coaches are expected to do the same as well.  In a society where most people would say leadership is earned, teachers are dropped into the midst of the storm.

I am a true believer in servant leadership.  That fits the role of a teacher perfectly.  Strong leadership, but always from a foundation of service.  My favorite quote about leadership comes from Max DePree, a CEO famous for his leadership skills.  He said "The first responsibility of a leader is to define reality.  The last is to say 'thank you'.  In between, the leader is a servant."  That's the role of a teacher - to define reality (here's where we're at and here's the vision), and at the end to thank all those who made it happen.  In between, the leader is a servant.

Does Your Classroom Have a Dream?

50 years ago, on August 28, 1963, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered his tide-changing "I Have a Dream" speech.

Yesterday, Principal Baruti Kafele was the keynote speaker for our district inservice.  Principal Kafele spoke about identity and dreams.  He said "Our dreams our as divergent as our identities."  You can't share a common dream unless you first establish a common identity.

Ask the teachers in your building what the identity of your school is, Principal Kafele suggested.  If you get a variety of answers, then you do not have a common identity.  And you will never share a common dream.

Perhaps we need to ask our students "What is the identity of our classroom?"  As a music teacher, it is a little daunting to think that the 85 students in my 8th grade choir this year all could have differing ideas of the identity of our class.  How does each of those 85 students fit into our common identity as a performing ensemble?  But the challenge can loom just as large for 20 kindergarten students.  Students across the board are developing their own identities, and we need them to share a classroom and school-wide identity as well.  How could a student who attends four or eight different classes every day juggle "identities" if we do not have a school-wide common identity?

Identity is going to translate to purpose, vision, mission, and dreams.  Dr. King eloquently laid out his dream for the world.  It was through his leadership and vision that the rudder of humanity set a new course.  In our own schools and classrooms, we must show leadership this year to establish common identities and, only then, share a common dream.

Music & Mentoring

I was cleaning a bookshelf in my office the other day and came across a set of the "Journal of Research in Music Education" from MENC (now known as the National Association for Music Education).  I'm guessing I must have been getting this journal when I was writing my Master's thesis several years ago. As I flipped through the table of contents for each journal, one research article caught my interest:  "Perceptions of Experienced Music Teachers Regarding Their Work as Music Mentors" by Colleen Conway and Al Holcomb (Journal of Research in Music Education, Vol 56/1, Spring 2008).

As I begin year 15 of teaching, I am mentoring our new MS/HS Choral Director.  This person is not new to the profession - just new to our district and we are so excited that he is in our district.  But this is the first time I am serving as an official "mentor".  I have taken classes about being a mentor, but never had the occasion to serve in this capacity.

Some of the questions in the method of the research article caught my attention:
• What do you believe to be the characteristics of a good mentor?
• What do you think you have to offer as a mentor?
• What will help you to help your mentees?

Mentor programs are not new.  I was a mentee in my first position in Iowa.  Iowa Choral Directors Association was piloting a program that paired up new choral teachers with seasoned professionals.  I had a great mentor - the only problem was she was in a different school district.  It's hard to develop good communication between mentor/mentee when you rarely see each other.

When I came to my current district, we had a strong mentoring program.  The problem this time was that due to a wave of retirements, there were four new music teachers in our mid-size urban district, and therefore, not enough music teacher mentors to go around.  As the most experienced teacher of the four, I was assigned a mentor that was not a music teacher.  He is an excellent teacher and has a great music background, but not a member of the music faculty.  But at least we were in the same building, and I did not have that many questions at the time.

But now I think mentoring takes a village.  Our district has seven music teachers, and besides our new hire, the rest of us have been there a decade or more.  Having gone through some tough budget years, we lean on each other more than ever - team teaching, teaching in areas that people may not be as comfortable, etc.  We have had to mentor each other through some new situations.  And, even more importantly, we think about the K-12 music program before we think about our own programs.  Everything we do affects each other and the program at large.

But what did the research article say?  Some of the results said that:
• mentors need mentors (creating a community of practice - our department)
• time management (taking time can be hard, but essential to future success of program)
• observations are important (including mentees observing mentors)
• technology is a positive resource for mentors and mentees (we are working at getting our entire department active on Google Hangouts, too)
• a supportive, rather than evaluative role for the mentor is best

In the last few years, I have come to believe that having an impact beyond the walls of your classroom is essential in the growth of a teacher.  Mentoring another teacher to discover and deliberately use that impact will be a new adventure.

Notes take Flight

I have been intrigued by Noteflight, a web-based tool for composition for about a year, but it was not until recently that I have had the chance to use it with students.

For those who have used Sibelius or Finale, working in Noteflight is very intuitive.  But let's be honest - Sibelius 2 offered me pretty much everything I needed as a teacher (when I first used Sibelius 2, I was a high school choral teacher arranging for show choir).  Over the years, there have been great upgrades to composition software, but they are expensive, even for the student versions.  It was only a matter of time until something simpler, less expensive, student-focused, and more collaborative came along.

So here are my experiences with Noteflight in the first few weeks of use with my 8th grade general music class:

Noteflight Classroom options

• Yes, you could try to go the "free" route, but that gives each person a limited number of scores and the Terms of Use say it is not for children under the age of 13.
Trust me - the features offered with the educational version are outstanding.  Ordering through a purchase order was incredibly fast and easy.  There is nothing I can find about age restrictions in the Classroom version.

• Setting up a classroom was very easy - you just enter user names and passwords for every student in your virtual classroom.  You can set each student to a simple password and have Noteflight prompt them to change it, but I put in each student's district username and password.  I also choose to not allow my students access to the Noteflight forums.

• When you purchase a classroom license, you set up a closed community just for your students.  If your district uses Google Apps, the sharing options of Noteflight Classroom feel very Google-ish to both teachers and students.  You get a web address that looks something like this:
yourdistrict.sites.noteflight.com

Noteflight's teacher homescreen

Teachers can create and assign projects, and when students complete the assignment, it is automatically sent back to the teacher's account.  You can share scores with selected individuals or the entire class.  Students can choose to share with just selected people in the classroom or the entire class.  Editing, viewing, and commenting rights are very similar as well.

• One problem I see coming is when more teachers in my district start using Noteflight classroom, what will we do?  I hold the teacher account, but could have up to 250 students connected in one classroom at our license level.  If other teachers or classes wanted to start trying it, it could get quite messy.  Of course, Noteflight has options for multiple classes which cost more money.

• I am pretty sure Noteflight is supposed to work on mobile devices, but I have not been able to get it to work yet on iPads or iPhones.  I have not had any problem on laptops or desktops (both PC and Mac) and since Noteflight lives in the "cloud" students can work from home as well.

My next blog will be about what I have done with students so far using Noteflight.

Interviews and Questioning

I spent the day yesterday interviewing candidates for a music position.  Of course, I won't say anything about the position or candidates.

I just want to say is that interviewing candidates is one the best forms of professional development.
It always makes you think deeply.  It is one of my favorite things to do as a teacher.

We know great teachers ask great questions.
We know great teachers let the answers lead to even more great questions.
And that is what an interview is - questioning and answering in its purest form.

That is what happens on an interview committee - the members of the committee are challenged just as much as the candidates.  While the candidate sits in the "hot seat", the committee members silently ponder, "How would I answer this question?"  Interviews call us back to our roots as teachers by examining the reasons we teach, the content we love, how we work with students and parents, and so on.

Would we get hired for our own position if we were interviewed today?

If You Want a Child to Change the World ...

If you want a child to change the world, teach them to be a creator.

I am even more convinced of this after the conference I attended at the Milwaukee Art Museum last week which was about student creativity, engagement, and student-generated content.

Creation is always a community-oriented event.
The only reason we create anything is to provoke or elicit a response.
Created things are supposed to have an impact on our lives and on our world.
Just think of the times you have been impacted by a work of art, a piece of music, a great meal, an editorial, a movie, a new app, and on and on.

When teachers create something, we do it to change the future - one child at a time.
Is it possible that as teachers, our highest calling is to create creators?

If creation is truly the way to impact the world, then we have no other choice.  We must model creation in our classroom, create experiences, and celebrate creativity.

But on that path, it is our duty to instill the values of what good creativity is.  We must not allow it to be diluted to the point that creation does not have an impact upon others.  We must teach creation, but also appropriate appreciation of worthy creations.

Making the choice to be a creator means you are making a choice to impact people beyond your own walls.  If you are going to make an impact, you need to make the choice to be a creator.

Milwaukee Art Museum Connects

The Milwaukee Art Museum is our #1 "go to" place as a family.  But it is also becoming the "go to" place in the Milwaukee area for discussions about revolutionizing education and 21st century learning.  The so-called "Calatrava effect" seems to beckon not only great artists, but also great educators in recent years.  But, great ideas do not come to take shelter under the wings of the Calatrava.  Rather, they come to take flight.

On April 20, the art museum hosted a conference called MAM Connects: Creativity, Connectivity, and Student-Generated Content.  Chelsea Kelley, the museum's manager of digital learning brought together over 200 educators along with three keynote speakers: Logan Smalley (director of TED-Ed), Rushton Hurley (direction of Next Vista for Learning), and the director of the Milwaukee Art Museum, Dan Keegan.  The conference was presented FREE with the support of Kohl's Cares.  I was one of the teacher leaders who led a small-group breakout session after the keynotes.  The twitter hashtag for the conference was #mamconnects.

Some of the great ideas and questions that came out of Saturday's conference included:

• How do we make problems portable?  Both Mr. Smalley & Mr. Hurley believe video is a prime way that students can make their problems portable, and since video elicits an emotional response, it also can make our solutions portable.  This is essential if we want students to succeed beyond the walls of our classrooms.

• Do we celebrate creativity in our classroom?  Truly celebrate?  Sometimes creativity results in an answer that we never expected, and that can be scary as a teacher.

• Do we create experiences, or are we merely curating knowledge?  Humans crave experiences.  We use knowledge to create new experiences.  Are we participants or spectators?  Dan Keegan, the director of the Milwaukee Art Museum is the most eloquent arts advocate I have ever heard, and he believes the mission of community museums have always been to create experiences.  Perhaps the transition we are going through in education is much the same.

• How do we balance process with product?  Especially if you are an elementary teacher, the process of creation in not only messy, but time-consuming.  We need to strike a balance that works for all involved.

• How do we hold high standards for creation as more and more students become "creators"?  It used to be that few students reached that top level of Bloom's taxonomy.  But as creation becomes more of a norm in education, how do we ensure that it does not become diluted?

• Who are the "educators" in your classroom?  Students have so much to offer - to each other and to us, the traditional "educators".

Thanks again to everyone who helped make this great conference possible!  I look forward to more great discussions about education at the Milwaukee Art Museum.
Here is a link to the museum's teacher page.
And here is a link to the information about the conference, at least until the museum removes it from their calendar.