Teacher Interview
For my Technology in the Classroom class, I returned to my hometown to interview the music teacher that I had throughout high school. Arriving at the school early for my meeting, I waited out in the hallway and listened to my old teacher working with the seventh graders in choir. My school is not known for its music, though I have listened to the stories of a time when music was highly valued and 90% of the students were involved in it. Now we have a high school band of four kids, the lowest since my sophomore year in high school when we only had seven.
I listened from the hallway to the sound of the stereo playing a modern pop song, a few voices carrying out over it in such a way that I classified them in my mind as being students who never learned the difference between yelling and singing. Upon the ringing of the bell, I stood out of the way as a good twenty kids came barreling out of the door, completely ignoring my teacher’s calls to “Walk!” and “Don’t push!” At least they weren’t yelling or actually running, but then there was a strange young woman standing in the hallway.
Meeting up with my old teacher, we spent awhile discussing my own future plans for music education, and I was given some good advise that my teacher wished that he had known when he had first taken control of a classroom. Some of the things he advised was that I should take a few administration courses while in college to gain further knowledge and skill on being in control for a classroom setting. I found the thought to be a good one, and while I won’t be able to fit in such courses in the immediate future, it is something to keep in mind when I take classes later on. His discussion with me on how children of today are unruly and difficult to get to sit down, stay still, and do what you want them to do made me think of the discussion we had in my Tech class just that last week on how children of today are raised to be multi-taskers and have no training or ability to stay focused on just one thing for any reasonable length of time. It makes me wonder just what kind of classroom tricks I might use in the future to help with this problem.
Getting to the actual interview, I asked my teacher what kind of technology he had available to him for classroom use. Most of it was already visible to me from where I sat, the most obvious one being the wonderful stereo system that is set up in the classroom. The same one that was used back when I was going to school here, though I have yet to learn just what all it is capable of doing. There is also the electronic piano that is set in a short baby grand case. The poor piano used to suffer from unskilled hands and despite being electronic is actually a bit out of tune, but with no pianist to play it, it is seldom used as it is. Next to it is another keyboard, a less expensive one that has fewer buttons but is efficient for use when my teacher wants to set up a basic rhythm to play while the students sing something. I don’t comment on the fact that the electronic baby grand has hundreds of such rhythmic options. It also has dozens of buttons to figure out to find them which ended up being the entire point of him getting a simpler one to use. Other forms of technology for his use are the basic ones. He has an overhead, the old kind you sit at, and a TV with a VCR/DVD player, and that’s about it for classroom use. As well as a couple white boards, which in a way is a technological advancement compared to the chalkboards.
My next question to him was to see what technologies he actually used in the classroom. This is only slightly different from the previous question, since the only item on the list of technologies that he has available that he does not use is the overhead. He also uses a computer to keep his grades in and to record attendance, but that is not something used to help him teach his students.
What do students learn using technology? In his classroom, they learn the tune, rhythm, and pitches to the music that they are singing. Barely a handful of them are actually able to read music, relying entirely by their ears to figure it out to the best ability that they are willing to learn it. In learning these things, they listen to a CD recording of the music, both with and without the words, and when they are having particular trouble with realizing that not all parts sing the melody, the keyboard is used to bring out the individual parts. My old teacher also has the students watch movies to learn about music in different cultures, and to learn about different composers and periods for music. Such as watching documentaries on Beethoven, Bach, or on the Classical period.
My teacher’s philosophy on the use of technology in a classroom is a good one. He strongly believes that technology is an important tool to be used in a classroom, and he wishes that he could have a better understanding of modern technology in order to better apply it to his teaching.
The school district that we are in is quite small, covering two small towns, but those who are the administration over the district and the individual schools are also very supportive of technology as a tool in the classroom. My own school now has two overhead projectors in the classrooms, with a third one on the list to be added. While our schools do not have the funding to purchase the latest and best technology available for classroom use, when we do add something, we know that it is going to be used instead of becoming a dust collector in the corner, or the ceiling, once the newness wears off.
School had already ended by the time we were finished talking, the hallway lights already turned off by the time we left. I had a wonderful conversation with my old teacher, and I believe I gained several good ideas from him to add to my gradually growing list of ‘things to remember’ for when I someday take up the teacher’s chair in a classroom.
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September 19, 2008 at 11:47 am
It must be frustrating to the teacher to only have four students in HS band. It is probably even more difficult in small schools as students are in multiple activities and have to choose between them.