Embracing the Struggle

Part 10: Choir Kids Are Made, Not Born, and Middle School is When We Make Them Consider the choir kid. I don't mean simply "a kid who is in choir," but rather the choir kid.  You know the one I'm talking about, the one that eats, sleeps and breathes choir. Who is obsessed with music and singing and seeks out as much choir in their lives as they possibly can. They probably end up a student leader and/or volunteering a great deal of their time to the choir program in high school, and they might even major in music in college. They will, at the very least, end up lifelong lovers of (and hopefully singers or supporters of) choral music, and will look back fondly on their choral experiences. They are that kid, who truly loves being in choir and giving their all to the choir, even if they never end up studying music past high school. Those kids aren't born, they are made. Kids who love to sing and sang from a very young age? Sure. I've encountered kids like t...

Part 9: Middle School Choir Colleagues are Awesome Middle school choir teachers are my tribe. One of the many benefits of my time as a middle school choir teacher was the fact that I met a great number of incredible people over the years. I think it takes a special type of personality to teach middle successfully...you have to be a little crazy, no question. Flexibility, a lot of energy, a good (and somewhat ridiculous) sense of humor are qualities I find most middle school teachers possess. I know a lot of great people who teach other levels, and I am sure I will meet many more, but I will always cherish the friendships I have built with other teachers who have been in the middle school trenches.  When I started teaching middle school, I knew only a few other middle school choir teachers in the whole state. I feel like at the time this was pretty standard for most of us. It seemed like the high school teachers all knew each other and hung out with each other at conferences ...

Part 8: Middle School Kids Can Sing Challenging and Interesting Repertoire My introductory story may come off sounding a little petty (and it is), so you've been  warned: Two years ago I took my auditioned mixed choir, Prairie Voices, to our state festival for adjudication. I had programmed some fairly advanced literature, as I usually did for that group: we sang Ungheresca (the song most people know as Tambur with Italian lyrics), a fast rhythmic a cappella song that I had sung in University Choir back at CU, the Michael Barrett/Raif Schmitt arrangement of Indodana (gorgeous South African piece), and Ain't You Got a Right to the Tree of Life by Caldwell and Ivory. It was a heavy set, but pretty standard for the type of rep that I liked to do with Prairie Voices by that point in time. So we sang our set, and sang it well. It wasn't an incoherent mess, we didn't sound like a choir that was just way out of its depth, not even close. It wasn't perfect either. Beca...

Part 7: Middle School Kids Will Rise or Fall to Your Expectations The thing I most hated hearing during my twelve years of middle school teaching was any variation on the phrase "they sounded so great... for middle schoolers ," or "that was so good... for a middle school performance." I know parents and audience members don't mean it to be, but I found it insulting, and I actively worked to make my groups and my performances so good that people wouldn't even think  about saying it. I would even tell my kids that was our goal.  A lot of people out there just don't expect middle school-aged students to be able to do much of anything, especially where the performing arts are concerned. I wanted to produce quality that would cause my audience members to appreciate our performances on their own merit, that would overcome the inherent biases and low expectations that people far too often possess when it comes to middle school performers. And then there...

Part 6: Middle School Kids Have an Unrivaled Capacity for Growth New to the series? Go here to start back at the beginning! One of my favorite things as a middle school choir teacher is when I am voicing a returning student at the beginning of the year and they completely blow me away. Sometimes it has been close to a year since I heard that student sing individually, and the progress they've made in class (and sometimes just the crazy changes that can happen over a summer) is an absolute joy. The primary feature of adolescence is the incredible growth (in all senses of the word) that takes place during these years as children go through the developmental transition to become young adults. It is astonishing to see how much young people can change during these years, both musically and as humans.  The growth that a middle level student can make from the beginning of a school year to the end of the year can be impressive, but what I love about my job is that many of my studen...

Part 5: Middle School Kids Have a Unique Loyalty This post is a direct continuation of Part 4 of the series , so I recommend you jump there and read that first before reading on.  In our attempts to harness Middle Schooler Energy ™  and channel it towards something productive, one of our greatest assets is loyalty. Middle school singers can be difficult to win over, but once you do, they are incredibly loyal. You need to be patient, but I can't stress enough how important it is that you win over your middle school singers and earn their trust and loyalty. I tell my students not to talk about other teachers in front of me, but I still hear things. You don't want to be on the receiving end of middle school kids that intensely dislike you...it's awful. You'll need a thick skin in the beginning but so much of your energy should be focused on earning the trust and respect of your students, especially if you are walking into a situation where there has been a lot o...

Part 4: Middle School Kids Have a Unique Energy  One of the reasons I am writing this series is to try and change the perception about teaching middle school, in some small way, among peers and pre-service teachers entering the profession. I feel like middle school often gets shortchanged in the music education profession, and I have a few ideas for why that is:  1.)  Based on a completely unscientific survey of teachers I have known throughout the years, I feel like the majority of undergrads who major in choral music education entered the profession because they had an amazing high school music experience. It's the most recent experience in their minds, and it was most likely a high level one that inspired them to become a music teacher. They either didn't sing in middle school (like me), or often had a poor or at least unmemorable middle school music experience. This isn't always the case, but I think it's fairly common. So when a choral undergrad is thinking...

Just joining the series? Go  here to start at the beginning! Part 3: Middle School Kids Are Inconsistent As choral directors, we are trained to approach rehearsal as a linear process. We introduce the music, the singers learn their notes and rhythms and text, we work on it together, diagnosing problems and introducing interpretative ideas along the way, we polish the pieces and then we perform them for an audience. And then after the concert we start the process over again from the beginning (okay so linear and/or cyclical).  But implied in this approach is the notion that each rehearsal builds on what transpired in the last rehearsal. Information is retained, skills are developed, ideas are remembered and transferred, and the overall cumulative effect builds towards a performance which is then the culmination of everything that took place throughout the process.  Now we all know it doesn't really work that smoothly at any level, high school, college, church...

Part 2: Middle School Kids are Hilarious Just started? Click here to read the Introduction to the Series Click here to read Part 1: Middle School Kids Won't Sing for an Asshole *After my first day of student teaching, I was feeling kind of down because I wasn't connecting with the fourth period 7th/8th grade choir the way I wanted to (first day, mind you, and not the kids in general, just one specific class ...yes I am a dramatic overachiever, nice to meet you). Some of the most dedicated choir students were in that fourth period class, these eighth grade girls who were incredibly loyal to my CT. I wanted to win them over, but no matter what I tried I just couldn't seem to break through. A couple of weeks went by and I just couldn't seem to figure it out.  "Your shoes are boring," one of the 8th grade girls said to me one day. "What?" I responded quizzically as I looked down at my black dress shoes.   "Yeah, you need cute shoes...

Part 1: Middle School Kids Won't Sing for an Asshole (Alternate Title: Middle School Students Need to Feel Loved and Safe Above All Else) But Phil, don't ALL students need to feel loved and safe? Why yes, reader who already understands the most important part of teaching, all students DO need to feel loved and safe, especially if you are going to ask them to be vulnerable and make music with their voices. But with middle schoolers, just go on and crank those needs up to 11. These kiddos are just little raw exposed nerves walking around all day, every day, dealing with constant changes to A.) their bodies, B.) their emotional state, and C.) the tectonic shifts from elementary school in both their social interactions and academic pressure that starts to take place in the middle years. Yes, high school students can be dramatic too. Elementary school students can have meltdowns too. But the middle years/early adolescence are this perfect storm of awkwardness, mood swings, discom...