Roland Champion Schools: Wrong Direction
I will start by pointing you in the direction of a good blog post by Jonathan Savage, covering the recent Ofsted headlines regarding Music in our schools.
Avoiding any political ramblings, I will head straight onto my progress so far with Roland. I have been tweaking the lessons in response to the work that has been happening and the various issues of classroom logistics. It appears to be a bit of a H&S nightmare having that many leads, pupils and flailing arms around a confined space.
With the Y7′s the lessons have been a joy to teach. I have been running hour long rehearsals with a focus on collaboration and good rehearsal technique. My break down of a good rehearsal is as follows.
DISCUSS
WARM UP
REHEARSE
PERFORM
DISCUSS
Despite this agenda I may have to dedicate half the rehearsal to understanding the importance of one person talking at a time (always a challenge) and how stopping the performance does not mean time to talk. Sticking to these principles doggedly and absolutely has been a struggle, but one that has paid off. The pay off for the pupils is getting to hear themselves perform a song with real instruments backing them. We are actually jamming as a class. It might only be for a short time of the lesson, but when it happens the pupils have seemed genuinely delighted in their work.
Using a song I hated but the pupils knew was also another good tactic. I am indulging myself with Prince for the Y9 group, so I felt I had to be rather selfless with Y7′s and opted for One Direction, or as one pupil called our group in a lesson, ‘Wrong Direction’.
The pupils have enjoyed it and actually the structure of the song means a performance is simple for keyboards and drums, but offers lots of variation for the singers. With each lesson the pupils are improving their pitch, timing and one group are even organizing themselves into duets and solos for certain sections.
One way I tried to acknowledge the effort the pupils were putting in was to allow them to run some warm ups themselves. This just hit me as an idea in one lesson so I went with it and was surprised at how well they did. They performed 2 songs from their language classes which absolutely blew me away, and made me ashamed I haven’t asked them earlier. We got some of the boys giving some football warm ups as well, even some squats with one class.
If nothing else this work has been helping me create a more positive and productive whole class learning environment so my next challenge will be to keep this going when I split them into smaller groups to experiment with the instruments in a creative way.
RCS #3 …..and we’re off!
This term is going to see a real push in my practice to get pupils more practical in lessons. Poor behaviour and tight school expectations seem to have led me away from my utopian dream of the perfect classroom. So it is with this in mind I plunge back into school and the best opportunity to get some real music made through the Roland Champion Schools program.
And so far so good. The week before the half term break (in which a trip to Canada led to the mini blog hiatus) saw me get my hands dirty for the first time and letting the Y9′s have a go on the Roland equipment now set up in the classroom. I spent the night before setting up the mixer and loop pedal to allow me to model the performance they had been working on with each of the instruments. It was an easy set up with a 24 track mixer, but any mixer with an Aux send (that’s to go to the loop pedal. Confused yet?) would work just as well.
This video was taken by a pupil and has subsequently come in handy as a listening task with the KS3 to show them what they might be doing. The performance shows clearly the role of each instrument and the different parts that are added, it also got the pupils even more eager to give it a go. I look a bit serious and it might have been better with a but of narrative, but I guess that’s the nerves. It’s still a bit scary!
Then the real hard work started as the pupils took to the ‘stage’ and put their still rather under developed ensemble skills to the test. The pupils were focused and working hard but as we got on the instruments and started playing together I could see the drummers starting to struggle. Their instruments could only be heard through main speakers so when everyone was playing at the same time it was impossible for them to hear their own part. This is hard for even a trained musician let alone a y9 pupil. The timing was all over the place so it took a good 1o-15 mins with them alone to get it together.There a number of things that had I realised earlier would have helped. Having individual amps for each instrument is one thing I’m going to try, as is a sectional rehearsal with the drummers alone in their own space would have helped. As it was we had to work through it and to the pupils credit, they kept at it.
So a mixed bag as far as a first session goes, but a huge learning curve for both them and me. Lots of good ideas for how to run this with KS3, so more to follow!
Teaching the Unteachables
When you Don't have Phil Beadle and a nice country retreat, what do you do?
While waiting out the clock before I could leave school today I got chatting to one of my pupils.
‘What you doing tonight’ he asked.
‘Planning’ I said, trying my best to ungrit my teeth and sound relaxed about the prospect. I enjoy planning on the most part, but tonight I am planning for a group that are increasingly becoming the unteachable in the school.
‘If I was a teacher, I wouldn’t bother planning.’
‘Wouldn’t that be great’ I said, ‘but you remember those rubbish lessons we’ve had? well those ones I didn’t plan well for. It’s a big part of the job’.
It really is, but what do you do with a group that no matter how fancy, engaging, RAG’d, differentiated, AfL’d or inclusive you try and make their lesson, they are still able to s**t all over it? Well here’s my advice, and it comes down to something I am very good at, self preservation.
First it is important to stay in the game. It is absolutely unacceptable to write any child, group or class off. That is the beginning of the end for teachers and no matter how tempting it might be it is our job to try and give pupils some structure and discepline to their lives, even if the school systems or senior staff don’t back this up. Take this group and go to town with them. This is actually a superb opportunity to try something new and if you can view it as such, it will make those hellish hours of self flagilation worth while.
I saw a tweet today from @kennypieper stating he had the worst lesson of his career. You could just hear the disappointment in his words. Here’s a guy who has been in the game a while, writes a cracking blog and is passionate about his job. He wants to be the best he can (as the blog title suggests!) We all know that feeling and it is a testement to our proffesionalism that we feel this. We don’t what to be rubbish at our jobs, we take it personally if pupils don’t enjoy or take something from the lesson, and we are sensitive, compassionate souls. It can take a while to shake that feeling off.
So when you have a group of unteachables, hit them hard. Set the rules and stick to them, don’t give them an inch and follow through with every sanction you hand out. relish in seeing this through. It’s basic behaviour management (thanks to Tom Bennett for that advice!)
Next, protect yourself. Don’t plan 3 hours for a 1 hour lesson. This is a sure fire way of resenting the pupils for not playing ball and they will smell it on you, all that planning and expectation. Any unteachable group worth their weight in demerits will sense your pride over the heavy resources and 7 part lesson structure and take every opportunity to undermine it.
Set a limit, make it 1 hour. 1 hour planning for a 1 hour lesson seems fair. It’s enough to cover all bases and make you feel like you give a damn, but not enough that you are left an empty shell if they sack you and your lesson off. This job can take every ounce of energy and time you have and rarely gives this back so plan, then do something for yourself. Friends, family, twitter, GTA, anything, just get some prospective.
The planning should leave you bit of openness. As a musician you learn to role with the punches when performing. Anything can happen and no performance ever goes exactly as planned, ever, so be flexible. Allow some play in the structure of the lesson. Show them you can handle their attempts to derail your lesson, take the tangent, apply a sanction if necessary then calmly get back on track without so much as a ‘so where were we then…’ A bit like this guy. See, violinist ARE cool!
No lesson is a waste. Every hour a pupil gets to spend in your illustrious company is a blessing, even if they don’t get it at the time. They will.
Roland Champion Schools #02
It has been a busy time in the school with OFSTED hanging around and disrupting everything, so it was the perfect end of inspection present to get delivery of all the Roland gear. Opening it was like a spoiled kids Christmas, all the boxes and wrapping, but there was a hint of apprehension with it. Will this idea really work??
The progress the pupils have been making with their parts for When Doves Cry has been good. Guitarists know the chords, vocalists have the harmonies down, keyboardists know the riffs and drummers have the groove. We are now in that dangerous part of the rehearsal process where they can get thoroughly fed up of the tune. To keep them on their toes I changed tack this week and added another element to the project, songwriting. This will give them a chance to compose and arrange their own piece to perform along side the Prince track, and explore the creative possibilities of the Roland instruments.
Here is the PREZI for my first songwriting lesson. It starts with writing a chorus and chord progression as a whole class which for us come out surprisingly well. Within 20 mins were were singing the whole thing as a class and the group work that followed showed they had really got to grips with the process. I reminded them that there are no clear cut formula to song writing, and this method was simply one approach.
When asking them how many tracks in the top 40 they thought were actually any good, they unanimously agreed Not Many. (a pretty smart bunch!) This begged the question, if over half of the top selling songs in the UK are actually rubbish, then what does this say about song writing? My answer would be that it’s pretty damn easy, being done by people that are pretty damn bad at it! (Just read my Black Eyed Peas rant)
On another point, I found a great use for the Handsonic 10 and a loop pedal with my Y7′s this week. They have been working on some rhythmic compositions using the samba instruments. What I was able to do was easily model the task by looping various sounds from the Handsonic. It was helpful to show how to start building up pieces starting with a simple bass drum part. The motivation shown by the pupils was some of the best I’ve seen once they realised they might get to have a go on it. Another testament to the value of loopers in the classroom.
More to follow……
Hands OF(STED)
No joke, it is hard to find a serious photo of this guy
This week saw me pass another milestone of teaching, a process that has finally heralded me into the bosom of professional educators. The OFSED Inspection. I have to thank the many, many bloggers and tweeters over the past 6 months who have helped me come to terms with this necessary evil, and make my peace with this arbitrary and inefficient system of observation and assessment.
Many in my school seemed less open minded: coming in after a weekend of 12 hour days with that nervous smile stretched across their drawn, sallowed faces. Now I admit, being lazy comes very naturally to me and over many years and many jobs, I have perhaps been guilty of putting more effort into finding ways NOT to do things than actually do them, but in this instance I felt I had to take some control back, and managing my time and resources was going to be the key to me surviving the process in tact. I planned; I was conscientious; I was diligent, but I wasn’t stupid. Planning 3 hours for a 1 hour lesson which may not even be observed didn’t work for me. Neither was chasing the coveted ‘Outstanding’ grade. I’ve never been outstanding in anything I’ve done so achieving it in something I am still trying to fully understand would only serve to undermine the notion that watching anyone do their job for an hour gives enough evidence for a grade on a 1-4 scale.
The recent changes to OFSTED bought about by the wonderful Tory-Bot Sir Michael Wilshaw has cemented my view that they are in fact a corrupt organisation placed there simply to serve the ideals and agenda of the erratic and delusional Gove-atron. The agenda now is that any school achieving satisfactory will be required to improve to ‘Good’ within 18 months or be thrust into the hands of the private sector and given Academy status.
My concern is this, (and I would be grateful for anyone who can put my mind at ease and tell me I am wrong): this agenda firstly implies that academies are better than LEA schools. Where is the evidence? Secondly, can OFSTED be truly impartial when inspecting an Academy if giving them a low grade only serves to weaken this view that academies offer better schooling? If academy status is what the government will enforce upon ‘failing’ schools, what happens when academies are judged to be failing? It seems to me to be a conflict of interests, and given the obvious strong relationship between Gove and Wilshaw, isn’t this even more concerning?
This is pure speculation on my part and I hope this paranoia is unfounded, but history tells us it is more than a possibility.
Roland Champion Schools #1
I’m about to start some exciting research into the use of music tech in our classrooms as part of the Roland Champion Schools (RCS) initiative, a collaboration with RolandUK, the instrument manufacturers, and a network of music professionals and teachers. The project is looking at new and innovative ways that Roland products can be used in the music classroom and fighting the good fight to get music technology fully integrated into our curriculum.
In a series of posts throughout the term I will be covering the work the pupils are doing and discussing the impact this has on T&L as well as the pupils confidence, performance and composition skills.
While awaiting the arrival of the equipment I’m using this time to prep the pupils for whats to come. The pupils will have never seen these instruments before . To avoid the nightmare that would ensue if I let them loose on this stuff, I’m slowly introducing them to it before they get their hands on it. I’m starting with the HPD-10 Handsonic and using Bloom’s Taxonomy to structure questions about what the instrument does and how it might be used. The aim is that by structuring the questions in this way pupils are able to think of the practical applications for the instrument and how they use it themselves.
Bloom’s Taxonomy Questions:
- What is the instrument called and who makes it?
- What type of traditional instrument is it most like?
- How could you use this instrument in your group?
- What styles of music could this instrument play and why?
- Would this instrument help you improve as a musician? Explain your answer.
- How would you use this instrument in your next performance? How could you use it to improve your work?
In preparation for a whole class Roland Orchestra we still had to look at how we can perform music as a whole class. For this I chose Prince’s When Doves Cry and used the Musical Futures style of workshop from a previous post. I first modeled the task on the loop pedal and as a group we looked at harmony. I laid down the bass drum and snare drum groove with beatboxing and sang the Am and G chords in 3 part harmony to ‘Ah’. I repeated the process but got the whole class to build up the harmonies.
When Doves Cry by DaFunk
A learning objective for the lesson was to ‘Understand how music technology can help us improve as performers’. After the singing activity, I heard one of the pupils say ‘Yeah, but he gets to work on that at home to make it sound that good’.
I don’t think she realised how relevant her point was, so I asked her to try and explain her statement. With a bit of directed questioning, she was able to apply this to the LO and said that if she had this technology to work with, her singing of harmonies would improve.
So here are some of the resourses, worksheets and a Prezi I used. I’ll be posting a class recording once I’ve worked out how I’m going to do it. As the project develops I’ll post some more, but for now…..
My New Year with Rubik’s
come and have a go if you think your hard enough
It comes with age I suppose: getting naff presents for Christmas. The amount of chocolate I have eaten over the hols is filthy. While trying in vain to dent the masses of sugary treats we had, I found at the bottom of a bag a Rubik’s Cube. I discarded it at the time with a ‘yeah right!’. Why this response? Well, I ‘can’t’ do the rubik’s cube. I don’t have the patience or systematic approach it requires. It’s too damn hard and takes too damn long.
This, as I have just found out, is nonsense and in an odd turn of events I have found myself actually taking my own advice. I practiced what I preach and it worked. Surprisingly.
lt felt like a bit of a cheat looking up the solution online but as I tell my pupils, there is no shame in asking for help. If there is something you want to achieve you can save a lot of time if you find someone who can already do it. So I did and this is what I found.
All I had to do was spend some time following the instructions and making sure I could recognise the starting patterns for the moves. It is the first time I have been aware of using algorithms. I couldn’t really tell you what one is, but never the less, I am using them.
So you have the guide, the moves and the structural approach to the solution. So far so good. When I really started to enjoy it was when at the end of each stage there was something to take a bit of pride in. I had completed one side, then one side and one layer and so on. It was these small achievements that spurred me on and as I started to see the solution take shape I realised I was doing something I never thought I could do. Shows how little I know. By going back and practicing these moves over, I started to become aware of what the algorithms were doing to the cube, and how it moved a single block around and finally into position. This improved my understanding and helped me submit the moves to memory.
My point is that even in this puzzle the importance of a good approach to learning and the right approach is vital. It doesn’t stop with just completing the cube however. Others who have learned this process and studied the cube are able to move into Bloom’s final domain, creativity. All sorts of patterns are possible, and in the hand of these skilled cubers, artistic merit is evident. 
Now comes the sense of inadequacy as I think about those agile minds that could figure this out without the solutions. B*****ds.
You wouldn’t see that in football…
I was sitting the other night watching my beloved Newcastle United getting yet another kicking at Anfield – the silver lining was Andy Carrol failing to score. While trying to find other distractions from my frustrations, I was reminded of a post I read by Informed Education which discusses ideas on targets and assessment in this video from John Seddon.
I got thinking about what would happen if the game of football was run like our schools?
If you have ever watched the pundits on Sky after the game (they’re the ones sitting awkwardly, looking like their underwear wasn’t quite dry before they put them on, and trying to justify their presence with such insights as ‘well if you get your body in front of the ball, it’s harder for the opposition to score’) at full time, you will see all sorts of stats and analysis come out. They are able to track almost all aspects of a players game; they can tell you how far they ran in the 90 mins; where they were on the field; how many times they touched the ball; what percentage of passes they complete; how many tackles they one… you get the idea.
In the right hands this info can help to assess a teams performance, highlight areas of weakness, particular strengths of players etc and can then be integrated into future training sessions. In the wrong hands it would be disastrous.
So to liken this to our schooling system, what would happen if teams started playing to the stats? You take the average statistics and percentages of the team that won the title. Each player runs an average of 6 miles a game, touches the ball 80 times and completes 40 passes (these are all made up btw). From now on, every player has their target. They must go out each game and aim for these targets as they are clearly the way a successful team works. Now the player’s focus changes. He is 20 mins in and hasn’t touched the ball – he needs to meet his targets, so what does he do? He runs out of position. Now, this might mean his distance travelled has gone up, and now must spend the last 10 mins of the game nearly stationary. The instinctive movement on and off the ball becomes a conscious action, slowing down reaction and decision time. At an extreme it may completely debilitate a player.
Would a team like this work? Can you take the stats of a winning team and use it to create another? In football, this would be laughed out of the club house, but in education, we seem to be married to this idea. Turn teachers in to target hitters and stat runners.
Ofsted was set up to observe, not govern. It is my opinion that we should get back to using any Ofsted feedback constructively; not change a system to meet the criteria. As teachers, we should be free to explore our practice, feel free to be creative and impulsive and use feedback, stats and targets to inform and guide our development. Teaching is an art form, and any attempt to condense it into numbers, structures and stats takes focus away form our primary job: to set the pupils up for their futures.
‘We started out with the aim to make the important measurable, we ended up making the measurable important’. (William D, 2000)
educreations: Yes We Khan!
Let's hope Khan doesn't do an Obama
Great. Just when I was trying to switch off and remove myself from what was the madness of the last few weeks of term, I fell across a new App for my iPad, educreations. I had plans, distractions, games, loads of things that were going to take my mind off school for at least a week. While catching up on HBO shows, battling the criminal underworld of Gotham City and getting my fingers around some nasty jazz chords, the ideas for educreations just wouldn’t go away.
What I have discovered is an interactive whiteboard that can record annotations with audio and create a video for you. If you haven’t seen or heard of Khan Academy (where have you been!?) check this out. For those who already know this, yeah, that. That’s what educreations does.
I have finally given a day to getting to grips with this and seeing what I could come up with for next term. And here they are…
All the backgrounds were designed on Prezi, so I can have the lesson there as backup. To get the images I took a screen shot on the iPad Prezi App (this has been an increasingly useful technique) and then just drop them straight in. Perfect if like me you struggle with hand writing and spelling!
All videos are shared on a cloud so, in the same way as Prezi, a community is forming where videos can be shared. I emailed some feedback and questions to Eductrations, and they answered all questions straight away. I was even directed to the feedback page where votes are taken to prioritise what issue they tackle first. A useful feature for such a new App, very democratic.
As soon as I’m back in school, I’ll be able to find out how this is going to work in a practical setting. In the mean time, my planning has just got a lot more interesting!
Analogies #3: Packing a Punch….
Aaaadrian……
Ahh Rocky, you man mountain of bristling taut muscle and testosterone…. what have taught me about music education? For any boxer, Stallone’s poor foot work, punch drunk combos and poor defensive stance might be hard to get beyond; much like I feel when someone tries to mime on an instrument. Ever seen that guy try and look like he can play cello in Airwolf? Cringing.
So Rocky is good for highlighting the demands and diceplines of boxing, even if he ends up disregarding them all in the final scenes by some rather scrappy and dangerous looking punch-for-punch fighting with Apollo Creed. What IS important here is how boxing can be used to view some common and difficult aspects of teaching pupils in our music classrooms. If, like me, you are often teaching a group of pupils who could quite happily press demo buttons and mash the keys of the keyboards all lesson (my dislike of keyboards in the music classroom may be topic for another post…) then this might help you.
The instant gratification that pupils get from hitting, mashing or destroying instruments is much the same draw that a punch bag has. It is hard to not be controlled by the base instinct towards violence and agression when posed with an object that, well, was built to take a pounding. This is fine, and any pupil wanting to get into boxing would be encouraged to get stuck into the bag for starters but soon, once they have shown an interest, they must take significant time away from the bag to actually learn the sport. We need to be doing the same in the music classroom. Let them punch themselves to exhaustion on the keyboards, percussion or voices, then start breaking it down.
In boxing, you can never learn through punching the bag alone. Fundamentally, boxing is about footwork, fitness and technique. Punching is a good addage to these, but if you get the others right, the punch will come naturally as it is built on strong foundations. Similarly, hours on a keyboard doesn’t make a good musician. This has been made all the more relevant to me when I see my groups perform what they have been working on. Few groups show that understanding of the importance of footwork, or in musical terms, the pulse. To get any music to work, you have to pay utmost attention to what you are building your musicianship on.#
Lets try and stop getting out kids to punch a bag for an hour and pretending this is music. It’s not. And if they are ever faced with a meaningful music experience, this will become all the more apparent.