Thomas J. West Music

This is part 4 of a series. View the other entries here.

The deadline approacheth!

In just four days, all of my middle school students must have their concert music checked off in order to play it as part of our sping concert, which occurs in twelve days. In general, most are well-prepared, but there are definitely spots in the chamber orchestra repertoire and woodwind small ensembles that there are individuals who have not progressed adequately.

Accountability in this fashion has definitely been effective. It has provided us with a way for students to pace their achievement in a non-competitive setting. There is, however, one factor in this equation that has affected the quality of the assessment and accountability.

Me.

In an effort to keep students from being "singled out", I have done most of the music check-offs in large groups of three to six students at a time. While I feel capable of assessing their playing adequately in groups of this size, I found myself still grouping them together and saying "you all pass" rather than taking the time to isolate one student whose performance was less proficient than the others. In other words, there are times when I've undermined my own accountability system. The interesting question is: "Why?"

A Self-Reflection

Why avoid the uncomfortable situation of telling a student they haven't gotten it yet? Why is it uncomfortable for me? I think it will be uncomfortable for the student, but that is just supposition.

I have been able to tell a few of these students individually that they need to keep working and are not there yet. In most cases, this was an older student (7th or 8th grade) that is self-confident enough that telling them "You're not there yet" is not a major issue.

I did establish a standard for what it takes to be checked-off. Students in general are used to the adults in their lives telling them "That's good enough" and wait for those cues so they can stop doing what they would rather not do. In general, middle school students can't be relied on to make qualitative self-assessments of this kind without some structure to guide them. Even with the standards, they're still looking for approval. Qualitative self-assessment is even difficult at the high school level, where students have developed enough self-regulation to actively choose to do the bare minimum effort required and will settle for less if given the option.

Why do I have an aversion to creating a potential conflict or bruising a student's ego? The answer lies in my own non-academic experiences with my peers in middle school, I think. Why does it become difficult for me to just "stick to the facts" of assessing the students' performance and providing feedback without my own emotional attachment?

I certainly could set up these check-offs to be completed on Smart Music, thereby taking away the live feedback and interaction. There are several problems with this from a logistical standpoint. First, the amount of time it would take me to set up Smart Music assignments for every piece or excerpt we are doing is too great. Second, in my current classroom setting, we have Smart Music on two classroom computers, but no privacy for students to record. We really need to have at least one music practice room. Even if the class continues without the student recording on Smart Music so that the focus of the room gives them a certain amount of privacy, the student's recording performance is still distracting.

Besides, using Smart Music as an option here takes away an opportunity for me to grow as an individual.

It's interesting - I don't have the same hesitations about assessment of performance when I serve as a marching band judge. I think this is because there is a layer of protection because my comments are recorded on a digital recorder and band directors listen to them after the fact. I'm not required to give costructive criticism "in real time". The judges' critique at the end of each competition is generally a low-stress event, but there are times when a band staff comes in and are not pleased with their evaluation and put judges on the spot, demanding that they justify the scores they gave out. The pressure to "get the numbers right" (referred to by adjudicators as "numbers management") is one of the on-the-job learning experiences inherent in being a paid adjudicator.  

Self-Image And The Evaluation

Another reason I believe that I hesitate to give my students bad news about the shortcomings in their performance is because so many of my students suffer from low self-esteem to begin with. Just today, one of my middle school saxophonists came in and told me that she had listened to the resource recording of the trio she is working on, and she "realized how bad [she] was at the saxophone." Not only is this an over-generalization, it is an overly critical dismissal of all previous efforts to become a proficient saxophonist.

If you ask most kids why they play an instrument, their typical answers are "because they like music," "they like the instrument they play," or "they think they are good at music". Some also observe other performers on their instrument and want to be capable of the same skills. It's when they begin to compare their own development to those around them and to professionals with decades of music performance experience under their belts that they come up with a defetist attitude. There is so little in our culture now that encourages students to stick with it, to push to the next level. Perseverence and a strong work ethic are easily lost in a culture where more and more is available to us instantly with the touch of a button. When students do see someone who has taken the time to develop their skills to a level of excellence, they tend to dismiss it frequently as "talent" bequeathed from a higher power and a level of ability that they can never achieve.

In other words, students create negative self-images of themselves so that they do not have to extend out of their comfort zones and CHANGE.

The future of commerce in the world is about flexibility, collaboration, and change. What better way to prepare young people than to have them work collaboratively as musicians and creatively as composers?

Before my students can become better performers, collaborators, and creative thinkers, I need to work on becoming better at providing them accurate, yet still subjective and flexible feedback on their development. I'm taking a closer look at the way we group students by age and ability as well as the way we assess their basic tonal and rhythmic aptitude and achievement.

Final music check-offs are this coming Monday. I still have to commit to a way to assess them for this final push towards proficiency for the concert.

This article (c) 2011 Thomas J. West. All content on ThomasJWestMusic dot com is licensed under a Creative Contributions Attribution-No Derivative Works 3.0 License. Please contact the author before publishing on or off-line.

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