Thoughts on Common Core

I've been doing quite a bit of summer reading, as I'm sure that all of you have. I recently came across this article: NFL Adopts Common Core Playbook - Copying Education Reforms by John J. Viall. It's a good satirical look at the thinking process behind the Common Core. Mr. Viall's criticisms are interesting, and I agree with much of the content, however, I think that he's missing a key point...

In February, I was in Washington D.C. for the Kennedy Center's annual Partners in Education conference. During a lunch meeting I heard a presentation by a member of the Common Core's creation team, a woman from Colorado whose name escapes me. I had gotten to the luncheon late and ended up at a table away from my fellows. By happenstance, the only available seat was one at a table with a contingent from Colorado - the very school that this woman was from. Prior to her speech she was discussing the Common Core with her table mates. Again, by luck, I was sitting there quietly looking at my salad and deciding if I wanted to eat the weeds or not. What I overheard, was the following:

ELA instructional shifts -

1. Informational texts will be 50% of the common core. There is a push to put History and Science back at the lower levels. 
2. Deep reading of a text. (what needs to be defined here is "What are considered texts?")  
3. Increased value of "domain language". More content vocabulary.
4. Speaking and Listening. 
5. Emphasis on "Academic Language." compare, contrast, analyze... 

Math Shifts -

1. Automatically function; can they recall math facts at speed? 
2. Think logically - mathematically. Creative process + logic

There were a couple more math shifts, but the waitress invited me to take some coffee and desert and I stopped paying attention at that point to peruse the menu for which pie I wanted... 

These were the highlights of the conversation that I was privy to, though. My fears about the Common Core were quelled quite a bit just listening to these educators table talk. My understanding is that these Common Core Standards are to be more general so that teachers can function according to their own teaching styles within them. 

For example: There are nine National Standards for Music Education. (The standards are really broad. "Read and Notate Music." There are several ways to notate; lead sheets, changes, common notation, symbol...) Each state has based their State Standards on the National Standards. I have never felt pigeon-holed by my standards as a music educator. I use content vocabulary. I have students read informational texts (music) regularly. I teach with domain language (which is inert to music; have someone play/sing forte or piano) In many ways, my colleagues and I are already doing this.

This is the point that I think Mr. Viall is missing. In his satire, he suggests that all of the coaches will use the same playbook. In a way - they do. Every coach has a cadre of running plays and passing plays. Every coach has the goal line formation and special teams plays. Every coach has Punt, Punt Block, and Punt Fake plays. Sure, they may have a quarterback or running back as a place holder for the fake, but it's essentially the same play. The end is accomplished by a uniform means. Different men on the field, different operations, different institutions, but the same play.

There will be different outcomes, of course. Mr. Viall is right about that. I think he was pointedly stating that you can give students equal access to everything and still have varied outcomes. That's true. There is no dispute.

Also, it is true that the coaches need to play to the strengths of their players. In schools though, this translates differently. I was not a strong student in math. That doesn't mean that I didn't need to take math classes. When I coached soccer I placed kids in positions based on their skills, but I still took time to train all players in the basic skills. Every player learned how to shoot, pass, dribble, and chip because those pieces are fundamental to playing the game.

And I think that is where we are right now. Everyone is trying to define what "pieces" are fundamental for success. Education has become the battleground. Politicians treat it as both disease and cure. The thinking is that the Common Core blue print will be everything that a student needs to know to be successful in the 21st Century. The reality is that we don't know what they are going to need. We don't know what jobs will be available in 20 years. Will robots be welding in manufacturing jobs? Will we need to teach that? Will periodic elemental atomic structures be enough for Chemistry class, or do we need to teach them down to the God particle?

My thinking is that our tax money would be better spent developing learning communities for educators to advance best practice among themselves and their colleagues instead of creating bureaucratic legislation for education.

Addressing Critics of PBL: Part 2

A few weeks ago I began a discussion addressing the common criticisms of PBL. Today I would like to continue that discussion...

Item E: "The student's aren't being assessed!" 

Indeed, this was a criticism from administration. I should give some context for this: Like most schools, our administrators change every three years or so. When one of them leaves, a new one comes in and we teachers find ourselves adjusting to new ideas and sometimes new methodology. Our venture into Project Based Learning was actually put together by a succession of a superintendent, and two principals. They stayed for about 5 years, but then left. The new administration was not adequately trained in PBL and found it challenging to embrace.

The assessment piece is particularly difficult for administrators because they cannot fit it onto a nice spreadsheet for state reporting. The solution will come in creating a numeric system that administrators can use on their spreadsheets, but that teachers can still use to assess "mastery". We are currently devising such a system and my friend and colleague Bobby Thompson has devoted a great deal of study and time to this. (Bobby's work is focused on a model produced by Dr. Robert Marzano.)

The reality is that the students are being assessed more than ever before. Assessment does not look like it did when we were in school. It's not a paper that comes back with a big red A on it and some other red marks. This form of assessment is one dimensional. It assesses student knowledge on one item at one time. Assessments in PBL look at several dimensions of the learning experience at once. Soft skills, Standards, Core Skills, Personal Growth; these are all measured broadly and at one time. These criticisms come back to students on Rubrics. The rubrics identify the learning standards and press students toward a maximization of their project by rewarding mastery level work. Sarah and I worked very hard on our rubrics to make them positive and also to prevent kids from task listing. Alas, rubrics are a whole other blog. If you'd like to read more about Sarah and I and our quest for the perfect rubric you can read my article entitled: "Rubrics Cube".

The bottom line is: Students are being assessed in several dimensions of learning at one time.

Item F: "The kids have too much freedom!" 

This took an adjustment for me too. Indeed, to walk into a PBL classroom can be scary for teachers that have spent all of their time organizing students into rows and working to keep them quiet and on-task. To see students in groups around the room, scattered, some working, some waiting, and some perhaps off-task - it can be daunting.

The big buzz word in education right now is "differentiation". A teacher teaching in a lecture is hoping to hit about 70% of the students. The very high level students (top 15%) and the very low level students (bottom %15) are stuck. The teacher delivers a single lecture for a single middle level group in the hopes that it hits home. This is not very efficient.

In PBL we differentiate in several ways. Assigning groups of various levels is one way. The type of tasks that a student completes, the projects themselves, and the products produced by the students are other ways of differentiating. In order for the teacher to produce these varied types of differentiation, the students must be able to work independently. Independence requires trust. A PBL teacher has to be wary of what students are doing, but still trust them to complete the task at hand. The students have to work together. This takes time. The teacher will have to give them time to accomplish the tasks that they are requesting the students to finish. It is a hard concept, but the reality is that the students will need time to accomplish what they are doing, thus it appears that they are unsupervised. Good PBL instructors are on their feet, though and work methodically through the room, motivating students and helping where they can.

If you should visit one of these classes, look at the students, yes, but watch the teacher. They have more control then you know.

Item G: "My kid has too much homework!" 

A favorite criticism of parents. Following up on this, I have discovered that most students have simply mis-managed their time. Kids are inefficient at best when it comes to time management (a problem that seems to get worse through college). On some occasions I've discovered students that had honest issues with homework overload. This was always due to some circumstance. Sarah and I, as well as others on my team, have always given extensions and assistance to those kids as needed. Most of those students self-advocated and came to us, explained their situations, and won their extensions. This is excellent practice for students that may need to lobby for extensions in college.

Usually, though, a student has wasted class time and has to make up the work at home. The parents see this, ask their kid what's going on, and the student blames the teachers. How could a student have so much homework in every class? The answer should be evident, but to many parents, it's not.

Item H: "This place is a mess!" 

Looking back to Item F should iron this out. Students should be DOING. And, when they are doing, the room is going to be a mess. I had trouble with this in the beginning. I'm a person that desires everything to be orderly and in it's place. The students have mocked me (playfully) because I reset the desks after every class period. I like order and logic. Yet I have to admit, I'm learning to enjoy seeing students make complete messes as they learn. The messier, the better.

Take my colleague, Michael Buck. Michael teaches Spanish. His students were doing a project that involved them creating a Spanish version of Mt. Rushmore. Who would the Spanish put on their Rushmore? The students had researched Spanish culture and revolutions and so forth, and had chosen their historical figures. They had written speeches, in Spanish, and were coming up with visual arts displays - not Power Points - actual art. During this time I dropped in to give Michael some paperwork and saw his room was a disaster of paint, card board, paper, tri-fold, yarn, magazine clippings, styrofoam... but the projects! The projects were fantastic! Students had carved and cut and weaved Spanish looking art. There were diorama, and paintings and statues... it was messy, but the creations were unbelievable. Michael invited me to come down and see some of the presentations and I did. I don't speak Spanish well, but I understood that the students were learning.

And that's what's important.  

Until next time...

Addressing Critics of PBL: Part 1

It's summertime. Time to reflect, refresh, and renew. Time to take account of your work. What worked? What didn't work? What should you maintain? What should you change? As I look back over my own academic year, I find myself contemplating the critics of my work and my class. I certainly had several discussions with parents, administrators, students, and even some of my colleagues.

I appreciate their criticism as it is important to examine constantly what we do as educators. I heard a minister refer once to the "sacred desk". In context, he was declaring that he had a holy obligation to tell the truth when he stood behind the pulpit, and he did not take that lightly. I agree, and I see that we as teachers also stand behind a sacred desk, if you will pardon the illustration. We have a sacred obligation to pass on to the next generation what we know, to the very best of our abilities, in the hope that they will move it forward.

So, let us examine this model. I have labeled here, a few criticisms common to PBL. I wish to address them in this post.

 Item A: "The teachers aren't teaching! The computer is doing the work!" 

First, the computer is a tool. The computer computes. Therefore, data must be applied to the computer before it can "do" anything. A teacher must present data to the students so they may apply it. The computer will return information, but you must ask it the right questions. Great PBL teachers lead students to the right questions and let them find the answers on their own. The discovery of these answers should drive more questions. As students get stronger in their thinking, they need less and less of the teacher's direction.

Item B: "The teacher won't answer my kid's question!" 

This seems to be the hardest shift for parents, students, and some teachers to make. It's really quite simple: Most of us came through an educational system that was based on Aristotle's model (Yes, Aristotle). I've heard this model referred to as "Drill n' Kill". Essentially, students memorize data through reading, and then regurgitate that data back on the test. Does it work? Yes, to a degree, but the learning is often low level and leaves students incapacitated when it comes to creating. Many students who come through this style think very logically, but they have trouble with synthesis and creation - the highest exhibition of mastery.

PBL works through the Socratic model (Yes, Socrates). Socratic academia demands that answers and questions be followed up with more questions. The learner defines both the question and the answer. The teacher guides the learner to the appropriate questions concerning mastery of the content that is given to us via the standard that we are examining or the problem that we are trying to solve.

A clever critic once told me, "Aristotle's model worked for you." and that is correct. I did come through a system like that. However, what that person fails to realize is that I also had various areas where I could make up what was lacking. Music was a place where improvisation was encouraged; creation was encouraged. I was often asked to create a solo through improvisation. Also, we were allowed to embellish certain songs. Sports were another area: In soccer, there are no set plays on the field. Strikers have to create avenues to the goal and higher order thinking was necessary. I played midfield and was often thinking, "How do I get these defenders moved so that my striker has a clear path to the goal?"

Someone might say, "We still have all of those opportunities! We still have Music and Sports!" To you I say: These opportunities belong to every child, in every classroom.

Item C: "My kid just needs [the core class]. He/She doesn't need [the integrated class]!" 

It was quite common to hear parents complain about this. Since Sarah taught English and I taught Music History and Music Theory, there were many parents that failed to see the value of the music portion of the class. Indeed, Sarah and I spent a lot of time defending what we were doing. The best defense came in showing parents that music is a language and that it exists, not only parallel to language, but as a language all its own. We weren't the only ones combating this, our Geometry and Introduction to Engineering and Design (IED) team had trouble too. "We just need Geometry." parents would say, "We don't need Engineering."

The great failure of Aristotle's system is that it compartmentalizes education. Classes are separate. Of course, the reality of knowledge is that it is interconnected. Disciplines interconnect. Ideas interconnect. Facts interconnect. The thing that made Leonardo Da Vinci a "Renaissance Man" was the fact that he was both an artist and a scientist. He was able to put it all together. Really, the greatest human beings put things together; they create. Peyton Manning creates touchdowns that win games. Albert Einstein created theorems and philosophies on the universe that we are still testing today. Michelangelo created works of art that inspire us to consider our humanity. Creation is stifled in a compartment. Our brand of PBL paired the "Art" with it's "Science" in hopes of helping the students easily see the connections. What do you do with Geometry? Design stuff. What do you do with Poetry? Set it to music.

This is very difficult for people to see, but it is the truth. Students will have to use all of their knowledge to be successful; Therefore any knowledge that they graduate with, will be useful at some point. "I never use Algebra!" a man told me once, but that man built houses. He was using algebraic calculations all the time, he was just too daft to realize it.  

Item D: "My kid's doing your job!" 

Indeed, the best way to learn something is to teach it. Having students lead workshops allows us to both assess whether the student truly understands the content or not, and allows the student to have a hand in the profession of teaching. Teaching something solidifies it in the mind. Having an experience leading your peers in a topic, speaking in front of the class, and dealing with questions can't hurt the student either. Some parents seem to think that we set kids up to speak and then go out for coffee. This is not the case. Teachers sit by assess the students that are both speaking and listening. In an ideal PBL classroom, the students will be exercising their knowledge and skills more than the teacher. The teacher should be helping kids that are behind, propelling the students that are ahead, and monitoring all students for retention.


Next week...

Item E: "The student's aren't being assessed!" 
Item F: "The kids have too much freedom!" 
Item G: "My kid has too much homework!" 
Item H: "This place is a mess!" 

Until then...

The Importance of Arts Integration on Deep Learning

When I was a student at Butler University I had a psychology professor named Dr. Neil Bohannan. While Dr. Bohannon and I did not see eye to eye on many things, I readily admit that I learned quite a bit from the man. One of the phrases that struck me, and I recall it often (because I utilize it often), is "Learning = a change in behavior based upon acquired knowledge." This equation, if you will, suggests two things; first - in order to learn anything, one's behavior must change.  An example of this behavioral change might be: We studied the United States Constitution in History Class: I decided to vote, because I recognize voting as a right that is given through the Constitution. (Was it Mark Twain who said, "A man who doesn't read good books has no advantage over a man who can't read them."?)

The second tenet is that behavior will change based on the assimilation of acquired knowledge. The input is the knowledge, but the output will manifest learning through the exhibition of an assimilation. In essence, there must be prior knowledge that sets the original behavior. Synthesizing my first example: perhaps I understood voting, or voted prior to my study, but due to my study I will now vote a certain way. Perhaps I will join a political party? This is a behavioral action taken due to my increased knowledge utilizing my prior knowledge - thus - I learned.

Let me break this down into a simple - yet profound example, so it's easy to understand...

My daughter was 7 at the time. She and her mother were making cookies. I was drinking coffee and grading papers at the kitchen table. The ladies had melted chocolate in a pan on the stove top. My wife took the melted chocolate and turned to the sink to pour it into a mixing bowl. She told my daughter, "Don't touch anything." My daughter looked at the red hot coils on the stove top. I noticed her staring at them. Then she did something insane... she reached out and touched them. Now, my daughter - even at 7 - was a smart girl. For her to do something so inane was unfathomable, but she did it. I quickly grabbed the entire ice tray from the freezer and stuffed her hand in it while my wife called the pediatrician. "Why did you do that?" I asked her. "I don't know?" she answered, with tears in her eyes. 2nd degree burns. A beautiful coil singed on my little girl's hand. It's still there to this day.

Following the ordeal I thought about why my daughter would do something so ridiculous, and what my daughter learned. Obviously, she learned not to touch a hot stove. To a degree she learned how to treat burns. We had a follow up discussion on listening to mom and dad. She knew the stove was hot. She could feel the heat. She could see the red coils. Her mother had given her a verbal directive saying, "Don't touch anything." And yet KNOWING that, she still touched it... So the question becomes: WHY? Did she really know that the coil was hot? Surely, she did.  What does it mean to know something? Can you know something without experiencing it?

Let me give another example:

I know my sums in math. I can add, subtract, multiply, and divide - but I don't know how to utilize math, like the guy in that show Numb3rs. I can't function with math. I can't use it in my life to do much more than make sure the person making change at the cash register is correct. According to Dr. Bohannon's theory - in the purest sense - I did not really LEARN math in school. It does not affect my behavior and I have a limited knowledge from which to acquire utility where mathematics are concerned.

By contrast... I can write music. I can create music. I can manipulate music. I choose music to listen too based on my mood. I can communicate feelings and emotions with music. I can help other people appreciate, analyze, create, and synthesize music. I hear music in my head at all times. I dream about music. I think in song patterns and sound waves. I hear lyrics when I'm in certain situations. I can connect my own behaviors and the behaviors of others to songs. I can hear colors and see palettes in music. I type in rhythms. I walk with a beat that changes according to my motion. I am a marionette of the Muse. I have learned music. I live it. I breathe it. I think with it. I think about it. I love it.

See the difference?

Two things should come to your mind. The first is that I did not like mathematics, but I love music. The second is that mathematics and music have deep connections. Since math and music hold such deep connections, why did I not also develop a love for math? That's an excellent thought. The difference may lie in what I love most about music... A person does not have to understand music to create it.

It's true that music has a form and order to it. I can show that order in the chord structures. There are seven tones in a scale. Utilizing those tones we can build seven chords. Each of those chords can be manipulated into major, minor, half, and fully diminished chords. Also, the chords can be stacked with additional tones to create new chords. Additionally, music has functionality. Each chord works in an orbit around what we call the "tonic" or home-base chord. I did not learn any of this until I was in college, yet I was playing professional gigs through high school. Not fully understanding music did not hinder my creation of music, and my desire to perform it fueled my practice of it.

Because of this universal understanding in music - and, really, all of the arts - they become approachable, meaning students can see themselves utilizing the art. Not everyone acts well, but most people are comfortable acting. The confidence in their ability elicits practice, and the practice elicits better acting skills that can then become refined into even better skills. Because of this principle, the arts can be utilized to create learning experiences in your classroom. These experiences give us a measurement - place, time, sequence of events in order, that students can set their learning anchors on. The experiences will also add to the student's knowledge base. Once the knowledge base is assimilated, they will remember and adapt their behavior based on this newly acquired knowledge.

They will learn.

Do I have proof of this? Yes. Sarah and I have a student, let's call him John. John is completely unmotivated. John's parents have stated that John shouldn't have to do anything that he's uncomfortable with (including graduate, evidently?). I had all but given up on John, but during our Midsummer Night's Dream project, while we were reading through the play, Sarah and I decided to have the students get up and tableaux the scenes to help them understand what was going on. John did not read aloud, but he did participate in a scene or two. After that, I noticed that John was paying attention. When the project ended we had the students debrief, which is a norm for our classes. On the debrief John said, "I din't think midsummer d be cool, but we got to act it out. that was cool." (sic) Did John understand the content? Yes. Would he have understood it if he had not seen it? No. That much is very clear. When did John begin to become involved? During the tableaux. I can give you the date and the time. What will he retain from Midsummer10 years from now? We will see, but my moneys on the tableaux of Midsummer Night's Dream.

Dr. Bohannon was right. The question is: How do core-curriculum (traditional academic) classes utilize aesthetic experiences to create these learning anchors? I think the answer lies fully and completely in the curriculum that creates aesthetic experience: the Arts. Arts integration, by being approachable and creating experiences for learning, is the key.

Until next time.

PBL + Shakespeare = SWAG

Did you know that Shakespeare had swag before anyone else? According to my friend and colleague, Sarah Papin-Thomas, Shakespeare invented the word "swagger". He also invented "eyeball." Pretty cool, eh? What can you do with Shakespeare in a PBL classroom? Turns out, quite a bit... I cannot think of a more pronounced PROJECT than the creation of a play. The sets, research, character building, voice, tone, inflections, nuance... Music! Lights! Costumes! Putting on a play is a huge multi-faceted project.

Sarah and I had done Julius Caesar in years past, but we wanted to do something else this year. The Indiana Repertory Theater was putting on A Midsummer Night's Dream. We decided to do that instead. We converted our Caesar play materials and began to fit the rubric for Midsummer.

Theseus and Hippolyta in Chicago Dream

Entry event: We handed the students a playbill with the date that they would be doing their plays. Then we handed everyone a copy of "A Midsummer Night's Dream." We began the Know, Need-to-know, and Next Step process which lead us to read the play. We held a reading where students stood and acted out the parts while reading their lines. The acting part is important, because they must physically go through the scene to process what is going on. Since Shakespeare left out stage and prop directions, the students had to pull it out of the text. It's more tableaux than acting, but it works. Students begin to visualize what is happening in the context of the King James' English. The reading took us 3 days. (300 minutes of class time.) Anything that the students were unable to complete was given to them as homework - yes, we still assign it.

At the end of the 3 day reading session we took our students to see the play at the Indiana Repertory Theater, which was most accommodating for us, and the play was a great experience. Director, Peter Amster's vision was superb! The students found themselves completely enthralled with the play and came back to school the next day ready to dig in. (Thank you IRT!)

Stage 2: After seeing the play, the students took a fresh look at their entry event - the playbill. "We have to make a play, don't we?" They asked us. We just smiled. The students then asked the typical questions - "Is there a rubric?" "Who is on my team? How many are on a team?" and "Does it have to be in iambic pentameter?"

Concerning the language, Sarah and I decided that the students could put the play into modern day language. (I pause here to note that Shakespeare was writing in MODERN English. We are speaking something else. "American" I suppose? Or, at the very least, Post-Modern English. Beowulf is Old English. Chaucer is Middle English.) The reason that we decided that it was okay for the students to change the text was twofold; first, the students must create a one act play (7 to 15 minutes) script covering an important incident or event in Midsummer. Time is a factor, so they were allowed to utilize the language that they speak. The second reason that we agreed to let them convert the text is that students must comprehend what they read to translate it. Asking them to put the scene in their own words demonstrates that they understood what was happening in the scene. The words that they choose to utilize define their understanding and become a very quick and easy assessment for us.

Each student was also instructed to be creative. We asked them to put their mark on the play without ruining the heart of the play, much like the example that Peter Amster gave them at IRT.

Puck freezes the scene

Once each student had created a script, the students worked in small groups. Each group read the scripts that they had aloud. Then the groups voted on one to move on. The "winning" script was sent into a larger group - which was 2 or 3 groups combined. We repeated this process until we had 2 scripts in the class. Then we divided the room into 2 teams. We assigned the groups insuring that each group had a personality that could play each role. The "winning" script writers became the directors of the play associated with their script. Some titles for this year: "Romeo's Dream," a juxtaposition of Romeo and Juliet and A Midsummer Night's Dream. "Time-travelling Puck," a play dealing with Oberon's instruction to Puck to fix his error. "Schitzophrenic Dream," a play where the dreamers wake up to find themselves in an asylum under the care of a doctor worried about their strange dreams. "Chicago Dream," where Egeus isn't just an angry father, he's a mobster. "Zombie Midsummer," a play where Pucks mischief creates a whole new problem...  

Team Meeting

Once the teams were established the students began the hard task of putting on a play. They struggled with rehearsals, lighting, sound, and costuming. Directors had to deal with whiny peers and people that didn't do their homework. Per usual, the students had to create original music to fulfill my music theory standards.  The students opened Finale and began scoring their music and matching it up with the blocking and stage choreography. Also, students were constantly writing and communicating with e-mails, texts, and hand-written notes. Sarah and I received notes, storyboards, scripts and all manor of artifacts from students during the process.

To aid them in staging, Sarah and I elicited the help of our colleague and friend, Tina Mahr. Tina holds a degree in Theater from Columbia University and specializes in working with kids. She flew out from California and taught workshops on make-up, projection, fake blood making, safe falling, stage blocking, stage combat, and the keys to being a good thespian. During this time, Sarah and I managed the classes and the hallways and put out any small fires that erupted between group members.

On Stage: Finally, the day came. We scheduled 2 shows per block and invited the entire campus - elementary, middle school, and high school. The crowds came and the plays were performed to the delight of thespians and audience alike.

As a debrief, Sarah and I asked the kids, "What did you learn?" Here are some of the things they told us...

A Mid-School Year Daydream

"I truly learned, and understand now, how artists can create things - inspired or alternative - versions of a  form of art." - C.H.

"I learned that you cannot get far in life if you cannot communicate well with others." - K.F.

"During this project I have learned how to be a leader." - T.H.

"I had no idea how much work needed to go into a play." - L.B.


Theater and Music Appreciation: Check. Reading and understanding a Shakespearean play: Check. Getting students to recognize the amount of work that real art takes: Check. Script writing, communication, music composition, set design and creation, costume design and creation, teamwork...

We felt like it was a success.

A toast during Chicago Dream

 

Those "soft skills"... they matter!

Is it important that students are able to convey their thoughts with dialogue? Is it important that students manage their time well? Or their technology? Is etiquette important? Of course it is; soft skills matter. Being able to communicate appropriately with people matters. Knowing how to use your table service during a dinner party matters!

Our classrooms are petry dishes. They are places to grow hearts and minds. Some folks believe that testing can show growth, but there are too many things that tests cannot cover. To truly test students, you must know them. I'm not sure who came up with the idea of the "3 R's" (Rigor, Relevance, and Relationship) but the most important R - the one that supersedes the other R's - is RELATIONSHIP. If you don't have a good relationship with a student, you are not going to reach them.

How can you tell if you have a good relationship with the kids? I gauge that by what they are willing to ask me. If students ask you for help with menial tasks or things that they are embarrassed about asking others, then it's safe to say that you're in good standing with a kid. Most of these "menial tasks" are soft skills. At least twice a year I find myself helping a young gentleman tie a tie, or a bow tie. I'm telling them to button the top two buttons of their suit jacket, or leave their tux coat unbuttoned. Last week a kid asked me what he should wear for his job interview, and that led to a conversation prepping him for the questions that management might ask him during the interview.

What do tying bow ties and knowing which buttons to button on a suit coat matter? Because it may be the difference between getting the job and getting the "Thank you for your interest..." letter in the future.

Forgive the personal reference, but when I was in high school I was job hunting. I had received an application from a local bank and, early one Saturday morning, I was going to go turn it in. I was halfway down the stairs in our home when my mother said, "Young man! What are you doing?"
"Going to turn in this application." I replied.
"Not dressed like that, I hope." my mother chided.
"What's wrong with my clothes?"
"You can't go to apply for a job like that! Put a suit on!"

Now, my mother could be VERY persuasive. I huffed and puffed over how stupid it was that I had to put on my dumb suit just to drive down the road and hand them an application, but I did it.

I got the job.

About a year later I was having a conversation with my supervisor about how I had come to work at the bank and she told me, "You know, we had actually closed the window for applications the day before. The only reason we accepted yours, was because you looked so nice in your suit."

I tell my students that story every year. They all laugh, but the point has been made. It's okay to take a few minutes to show them how to iron a shirt, or wear a pocket watch. Some of our students have never been told about things like deodorant, or proper amounts and application of perfume. Students need to know these basic skills.

Now, you may say, "That's not your job, that should be taught at home." and I concede that the home is the ideal place for students to learn such things, but they are not getting it at home. So, we come to a place of decision: Do you just teach your content and let students remain in their ignorance concerning everything else? Or are you teaching wholistically? Are you teaching students, not just about the Arts and Sciences, but how to be a human being? I afford them dignity, and I expect them to share that dignity with others.

Their music is not teaching them to be courteous or dignified. The political institutions are not teaching them to discuss and work out their issues. Many of them are not receiving instruction in the home, nor at their place of worship. Their recreational activities are not teaching them sportsmanship or priority. To the contrary, I have witnessed firsthand as a coach the ridiculous, callous, and foolish expressions of (poor) sportsmanship from parents that are trying to relive days-gone-by through their children. Many school Arts programs are no better. As a father, I can't hardly watch a high school dance review...

We have forgotten how to be gracious to one another. We have forgotten how to win graciously and lose with dignity.We have forgotten how to dress for dinner and wash our hands, and comb our hair. We have forgotten that some things are sacred. We have forgotten to look out for our neighbor. We have forgotten courtesy; and it seems to take unspeakable crimes, like the Boston Bombing, to pull us back into focus - to remember our humanity, and our frailty.

Teach the soft skills too. Model them. Stop your lecture for a minute to show them how to do something. Build them into your project. Demand them in the cafeteria and the hallways. Demand them on the field of sport. Demand them in the auditorium. Students must learn to turn off their cell phone. Students must know how to dress for the occasion. Students must learn the arts of both conversation and debate. Students must learn when to keep their opinions to themselves and when to express them and those are simple things that can be taught in your classroom and in your school.

Build a culture in your school that you would like to see out on the street, because that's where they're going to take it.

It's all about the process.

Life is about processes, systems, and algorithms. Do you have a process for your class?

Agenda during the MYTH project

My teaching partner and I have a pretty simple daily routine:

• A "monologue" (We always write "Announcements") to kick things off.
• Period of work.
• Time of reflection and review. 

During the monologue we give the agenda for the day, identify our goals (the standards and objectives that we want the students to learn), and express little anecdotes that may be helpful for students. The work period is just that - time to work, ask questions, and generally get stuff done. The time of reflection at the end of the period is generally verbal, and occurs while the students are packing up to go to their next class. It takes about 5 minutes and we assess what happened during the class period. It is often unstructured. This review is simple, but usually very effective. St. Thomas Aquinas theorized that people learn best through interaction. There may indeed be something to this model, as the interaction during the reflection time seems to leave the most "learning anchors" in place. I would invite you to try this concept in your classroom and look for retention.

Our projects have a structure too. Think of a large arc, with little daily arcs inside creating the whole. 

We start each "Unit" or "Project" with an entry event, which introduces the students to the big idea. Our Nosce te Ipsum (Know Thyself) project has, what I consider to be the most genius entry event. We simply write the words, "Nosce te Ipsum" on the board and smile. The students always go right to the web. Before they have finished typing the first word into their Google search bar, they always say, "Who's So-CRATES?" Sarah and I always laugh and say, "It's pronounced, So-crat-es." Once students have completed their first exploration of the entry event we start chronicling their questions. 

"Knows" from the Nosce te Ipsum project.

We were trained by the New Tech Network to perform "Knows, Need-to-Knows, and Next Steps," but generally we feed right into Need-to-Knows after the entry event because the students begin asking questions right away and we don't want to hinder that. The trick is not to answer their questions up front, but inspire new questions. Sarah is much better at this waiting without answering - or answering a question with a question - than I am. Most of the time, the students answer their own questions. They get tired of waiting on us and they solve the problems themselves. This is exactly what we want - to create first responding problem solvers, not people who wait around to be spoon-fed answers!

After the entry event we go through a period of scaffolding. Scaffolding takes a week or two and is comprised of workshops that are built on student inquiry and teacher defined problems. For example, a student may ask, "How can I compose 3 minutes of orchestrated music for my screen play credits?" I would give a workshop on Orchestration. If my partner notices that students are having trouble organizing their thoughts and ideas, she may say, "I'm going to host a workshop on graphic organizers tomorrow." This process allows us to be sure and hit key standards, but it allows student voice and choice in their work as well. The students get the chance to be a part of their own education and most of them seize it.

After the period of scaffolding, there is a period of construction where students prepare for their presentations. Critics of PBL (Project-based Learning) often suggest that this is "down time" or "free days", but they couldn't be more wrong. The construction process is where most of the soft skills practice occurs. How do you deal with someone who doesn't pull their weight? How do you overcome technology pitfalls? How can I work with someone I've never spoken to before? How can we present this so that both of us have an equal share in the speaking roles? How do we plan together? How do we execute our joint vision? The word here is collaboration. Students learn more about themselves and what it takes to get things done - including time management - during this period, than any other time during the project. 

The final step in the process is the presentation. In science and math classes, students are often tackling a real-world problem that has ramifications beyond the classroom. Our class, though, is Literature and the Arts. We are simply creating works of art and studying the works of master artists before us. Our work is primarily aesthetic. I've found, though, that the students invest themselves more into our projects. The project becomes personal for them. It's meaningful because they have derived some meaning from it. Our presentations have been live stagings of plays, art walks, poetry slams, film screenings, speeches, and concerts. We have presented to large crowds at football games and small groups of administrative persons in the library. During this step the students gather feedback and get a chance to really shine. More importantly, though, they get to experiment. Very often I hear the phrase, "What did you think?" or "How did I do?". I don't recall ever asking my teachers how I did... it was a worksheet. I don't even recall reading the numbers at the top. So much for feedback, eh?

The process is important. We are teaching students more than just what to DO; we are teaching them how to THINK. And thinking is a process that starts with the inception of thoughts based upon associations assimilated by experience. Once this platform of ideas occurs our minds begin to synthesize what we already know and juxtapose that against what we do not know - our need-to-knows. This process defines our next steps, which should involve hypothesis and experimentation - ultimately leading us to the creation of new solutions. Students aren't going to find that on a worksheet. It is our job to create it for them. Set up the proverbial dominoes so your kids can knock them down, laugh, and re-build their own version. 

Until next week.

Four reasons PLAY is a better teaching tool than what you use now.

I'm on Spring Break. My wife suggested I take the week off, but I didn't want to do that. I'll be performing the Bach "Magnificat" along with Morten Lauridsen's "Lux Aeterna" in April. I don't imagine I'll be able to write much during that production week, so I plowed ahead - and I purposefully use the word plowed here, because Indiana got 9 inches of snow this weekend. Yeah... break out the skis.

I saw a post on Facebook, perhaps you've seen it too? Supposedly it's an Albert Einstein quote that says, "Play is the greatest form of research." ... something to that effect. I honestly don't know whether Einstein said that or no, but I agree with it. Reflecting on my own experiences verifies it for me. How did I learn to play the piano? I sat down and played it. I played for hours and hours and hours. My parents never one time asked me to stop. Also, they let me play what I wanted to play. Ever-so-often my mom would say, "Did you practice your scales today?" but she never poo-pooed my learning "Cold November Rain" by Guns n' Roses, and I think she was sort of tickled when I figured out how to play Lynryd Skynyrd's "Free Bird".

When I began trying to write music my father procured a copy of a music composing software known as Finale. How did I learn how to use it? I played with it. I put notes on the page and listened to them. When those notes didn't sound good together, I tried other notes until it was just the way that I wanted it. My first compositions were horrible, but now I have published works.

When I started singing, it was a matter of play. My sister and I would drive around in her black Pontiac Firebird Trans-am that looked like KITT from Knight Rider. We listened to Madonna, Michael Jackson, and Aerosmith, and we'd sing at the top of our lungs with the radio. I began to harmonize (because she always sang lead) just messing around; just playing. There is no doubt that much of my musical ability came from those car rides too and from my sister's tennis practices. My life has been forever changed by the musical sense and listening abilities derived from simply driving down the road singing harmony to my sister and Madonna.

I took up the bass guitar at a friends birthday party. He was in a band and they played a few tunes at the party. I felt like the odd man out. When they were done I asked the bassist if I could play around on his bass. He allowed it, and now I play bass guitar in regular sessions both with live bands and in studio.

The point that I'm trying to make is that play is a most powerful teaching tool.

Why? Because of these factors:

First, play is self-motivated. Again, my parents weren't telling me, "Get up there and practice!" I would come home from school and lock myself in the piano room. I needed no motivation, I just wanted to do it. I'm not sure why I felt compelled to do it? It made me feel good, I guess? I like the way the notes go together. I liked that I could manipulate and control the tones. I liked being able to figure out and master some lick that one of the pros played on the radio. I felt a sense of accomplishment. Jane McGonigal, in her TED talk refers to this concept as the "Epic Win" feeling. It felt good to unravel the mystery and replicate it.

How can you set students up to feel that "Epic Win" feeling when they unravel the mysteries of your content? Because if you do this, they will be self-motivated to do more for you. They will want to come to class. They will want to work for you. I'll confess that I have a daily goal for my teaching - I want to have such an impact on students that they are talking about my class at lunch. I want to walk through the cafeteria and overhear conversations like, "Foley's class today blew my mind! We put together _______ with _______ and I totally saw how it was relevant..."  

Secondly, play is safe. I didn't feel bad when I made a mistake at home, I just started again. No one wanted their money back when I didn't play all of the notes correctly. I was at liberty to make mistakes. I need not tell any of you how much we learn from failure. Failure is the greatest teacher. Setting the stage of your classroom to support multiple attempts, in an upward spiral that encourages students, not discourages them, is key.

How can you make your classroom a place where failure is safe? How can you encourage your students to try again and again?  

Also, play is quantifiable. Did you hit the right notes? Did you win? Did you nail the presentation? You know. The feedback is instantaneous. No one has to tell you anything. It is apparent when you have succeeded and when you need to attempt it again. Students need this as well. Self-monitoring is key to education. The teacher can't possibly see and hear everything. It takes students that are honest with themselves to say, "I didn't get that." and self-advocate another attempt, creating solid use of good feedback.

How can you make your class work instantaneously quantifiable? Students need to know right away whether they did it or not so they can either celebrate or re-calculate and re-try. That feedback needs to be honest and quick. If you wait too long, the feedback is stale and the students have moved on. Set yourself in a position to give quick feedback and encourage the students to express their feelings as well. I love it when a student says, "I bombed that, didn't I?" because they know what went wrong. If they know what went wrong, then they also know how to fix it!

And finally, play encourages collaboration. Play alone is fun, but that fun is exponentially better in groups. I mentioned taking up the bass guitar... the first thing that I wanted to do after I learned a few songs was join a band. I looked for guys that were in need of a bassist, and I found them. They had been doing the same things - practicing alone and looking for fellow collaborators.

How can you make your classroom a place where ideas, hypothesis, and theories are tested in such a way that students look for help from one another and from you? Including everyone in the process is a great way to learn. Allow students to pair up. Let them collaborate. Why wouldn't you do this?

All this talk of play makes me want to do just that...

Until next week, from snowy Indiana!

The Hero's Journey in the key of C.

We watched Star Wars in class. I know... it was a terrible waste of time... OR WAS IT?

Currently, my students are executing what my partner, Sarah, and I call, The MYTH Project. It's one of my favorite projects.

The "crime" board

The entry event for this project is quite extensive and requires planning. For the entry event, I created a myth about young man named Les Davis that supposedly went to our school in 1961. The story leads the students to believe that there is buried treasure - or something - somewhere on the school grounds. I tell them that when we renovated our school they found this piece of paper. I show them a school map that I had soaked in coffee and let sit out for a long time. I put a book cipher with the words "School Song" on the map. The book cipher leads the students to the "stage light". The stage light box has another clue - also on coffee soaked paper - that leads the students to one of the school tree lines, depending on which class they're in. When we go to the tree line, the students find a tree that has peculiar markings on it (L.D. and a down arrow that I carved with a pocket knife on a Sunday afternoon three years ago). They search for a shovel, which I had methodically placed in the baseball field's excess sandpit - it just happens to be within site of the marked tree. When they dig, they discover a message in a glass jar that I had buried one month prior to the entry event. This letter tells them to read The Hero with a Thousand Faces, by Joseph Campbell.

Campbell's book lays out the Hero's Journey. We ask the students to identify stories that share the hero's journey. Then we begin to research and study mythology - but not just mythology - culture, philosophy, and the origins of society. What is good? What is evil? Who decides? How can we be a force for either side? Is there such as thing as neutrality? All of these items become need-to-know questions, and the whole while students are examining themselves to see how they stack up. It's an amazing project.

What is the outcome of the MYTH project? The students have some options: They can create their own myth that follows the hero's journey. They may adapt another myth that we approve, and present that. Or they may simply study and present a myth that they like. In the past we've seen shadow puppet shows, movies, tableaux, staged plays, and some really creative pieces of artwork that included illustrated story books, clay statues, paintings and sketches. We also encourage oral storytelling - utilizing those public speaking skills in an informal way.

Everyone project also has to include music. The mastery level column demands that students perform original music. Students may also orchestrate scores for their project and have a program like Finale play them during their presentation. The presentations are to be timed to the music, just like a movie score, to match the action. Of course, to differentiate, students may also utilize pre-recorded works if they acquire the appropriate permissions to use them. It takes so much work to get the permission that students often opt to create their own music.


Scaffolding for this project comes in several pieces. The first is a mythology gauntlet. Sarah and I pull every book with mythology that we can find from the library. We organize them by geographical location and have the students do a series of Literature exercises at each station. The kids get 12 minutes at each station and we collect their work at the end. Some of the exercises include compare and contrast, crime board mapping, storyboarding, flow charting, mad-libs, analogies, inference, and general reading comprehension and visualization techniques.

Storyboarding

Myth Gauntlet books

Reading 

Hero's Journey Exercise

We also watch Star Wars (IV, A New Hope), stopping about every 5 minutes to ask, "Where are we in the Hero's Journey?"

As students work on their presentations they find themselves needing specific workshops on things like cinematography, movie score writing, hyperscribing, orchestral scoring, creating fake blood, creating fake smoke, script writing, instrumental characterization, text painting, action sequencing, costume/prop/set design, acoustic engineering, oral storytelling, origins of myth, Foley artistry (no relation to me), sound effects use... these are just a few that we have had to deal with this year. Students discussions foray into economics with talk of budgets, time and resource management, casting, and other considerations that go into making a production.

Creating a dragon's head.

Of course, Sarah - in her brilliance - seamlessly works in motif and literary theme. She also gives a killer workshop on allegory vs. metaphor, and she reviews tone, voice, and public speaking skills. I have to utilize the project to teach tonal structures vs. melodic structures and tonicization. This project sets our students up to be able to tackle a large scale film production. Also, we can easily see the public speaking, problem solving, critical thinking, and collaborative skills that students are forging.

 Mr. Foley's white board - post Tonicization workshop

It's too bad these concepts aren't tested on the State End of Course Assessments...

Until next week, friends!

Rubric's Cube

This week I wanted to address a problem that some of you have e-mailed me about; RUBRICS.

I've been teaching in an integrated setting for almost four years. During that time I feel like my colleagues and I have had considerable success teaching students standards-related concepts connecting the arts to English as well as Mathematics. Students seem to be in the process of making aesthetic decisions about what they are seeing, what they are hearing, and what they are saying. They are becoming cognizant of their work, and are beginning to appreciate the quality -- or lack thereof -- of their creations. We decided when we began teaching in this model that the creations themselves were not nearly as important as the process. Indeed, some of the student work is, at times, horrible to look at, but when you ask them, "What were you thinking?" or "Why did you create this?" they will answer you with solid rationale which shows a level of meta-cognition.

My greatest critic is also a good friend. One of her concerns is that the students are creating things simply to appease the rubric. "What about Art for Art's sake?" she asked me recently. Since the students are operating in a STEAM system she feels that the aesthetic power of the art will be deluded by the students' attempt to add the necessary data to fulfill the rubric for the integrated class. For example, The student creates a great song, but has to add superfluous vocabulary words for an English End of Course Assessment prep item that appears on the rubric. The students force-fit pieces into their art to appease us.

Indeed, we have seen work where this has been the case and it is disconcerting. I recall a video where the students made poor decisions in word-choice for the script as well as poor decisions in orchestration and musical form for the background music of their video. When I asked the students to explain their choices they balked. When pressed they finally admitted that they had made the adjustments to their work when they received the rubric. "We sort of had to make it fit the rubric." they told me. "Next time, throw out the rubric." I told them. Their work was great, but it became like a senseless scene from Dude, Where's My Car when they added the rubric patches. 

I can appreciate why they didn't think about ditching the rubric. It takes trust on their end to throw out the mode of assessment and just work. My partner and I utilize the rubric more as a guide for the students to see both the expectations held over us concerning accountability, as well as the goals that we had in mind when we created the project. Ultimately, the students should feel free to create new and interesting things without the fear of failing. We don't want them to feel inhibited by the rubric should their ideas exceed the bounds of what we've asked. The students, though, are not used to this behavior from teachers, so it should come as no surprise when they cling tightly to the rubric.

How do we utilize a rubric as a means of assessment without the rubric becoming a restraint to the creativity of students? 

There are a few ways to solve this problem:

My colleague, Michael Buck, utilizes a process where the students create the rubric themselves. Michael shares the standards that he intends to hit through the project with the students during the opening days of the project, then asks them to come up with a rubric for which they will be accountable to him for the learning of the standards. He gives them the scaffolding, the bare-bones of the rubric, but they must complete it. The genius of this practice is that it causes students to plan what they want to receive points for. They have to know what they're going to do before they create the rubric so they can achieve the credit. Therefore, they are forced to plan. In collaborative settings a student must first get their plans together, organize their ideas, and come to a consensus with their team before they can create their rubric. Michael has lost nothing in this process because he has established a benchmark of targeted standards right from the start. He then facilitates  each rubric creation - differentiating for ability with the students directly.  

My partner, Sarah Papin-Thomas, came up with a second solution one day while we were struggling to help a student that was in a creative slump. The student had been task-listing the rubrics (meaning that he was using the rubric as a check list). This practice is encouraged in some classes, but not ours. We want the students to exceed our expectations, which are located on the rubric, right? So, we took his rubric away and said, "Just do the project." It was too much. The young man panicked and ended up feeling overwhelmed. In the end his group turned in a poor project that they cobbled together through looking at a rubric - which they got from another student. 

"We need to do something different with this." Sarah said. I agreed. It was then that she thought, "What if the students get to take something off of the rubric?" Sarah's idea was to front load the rubric with standards that we needed to hit, but also with extra standards and little points like, "Project includes original color pictures in display." or "Student cites sources during the presentation."  The idea was that the students would read the rubric line by line to figure out what to cut. We allotted them the opportunity to cut one item per column.  They "cut" it simply by highlighting the item. On presentation day we collected the rubric and graded the student's work holding the very rubric that they had culled. The students loved this idea. It offered them the structure that they wanted, but it afforded them some choice in their own assessment. 

The downside to culling the rubric was that students began to task-list more. Our solution had the opposite effect. Students became so focused on  the bullet points and what they could cut, that the rubric became preeminent. Still, if you are having trouble getting students to read your rubric - this may be the option for you? Our problem, though, still had no solution. Again, my partner and I went back to the drawing board. She came back with this logic:

Goal: We want the students to feel free exceed our expectations on the rubric.

Knows - 

• The students use the rubric like a crutch to task-list. 
• The students do not respond well to zero structure rubrics. (No rubric)
• We have the option of having them create their own rubric. (like Michael)
• This would force the students to do double duty in our class and Michael's, though. 
• We could... 

The light came on. 

We want them to exceed the rubric, right? We want them to Analyze, Synthesize, and Create. So we offer them credit to synthesize it. We give them points to create additional material for the rubric. They will not create a whole rubric, but they will create portions of it.

There are a few ways to do this... 

First, you can leave blank spots in the rubric and ask them to fill them in. If the column has 7 points in it leave two or three blank and tell them to fill them in. Cover your target standards, but let the students fill in things that they would like to add. This also causes the students to think about whether that rubric item is Competent, Experienced, or Master (or whatever you name your columns) level in nature. Students must consider what they're doing as well as assess where their ideas belong on the rubric. It offers structure, but it also offers them some choice and a chance to be creative. This may work better in lower levels or when you are starting to change up your rubric practice to include student choice. 

Sarah's method was to give the students our completed rubric with extra room in the bottom of the columns. She then asked the students to add to it. Each group had to come up with at least one thing for each column. Most students added three or four. Again, we're talking about students assessing their own work, valuing their learning, and being a part of assessment - skills that they will need when they enter the work world.   

A final way to do this, and we have not "road" tested this, is to give the students a rubric with only one column filled out: the master column (or whatever your highest level column is). Leave the rest of the rubric blank except to note your target standards. This causes the students to consider each standard independently and create column items for them. You have given them a template to work from and shown them the ceiling of the work, but they are to fill in the rest of the rubric, including the standards that you have to teach. They will need to consider those standards at a basic level, but also evolve those realizations to accomplish the interior of your rubric.

For example, if the Mastery level is, "Student will compose a minimum of 40 measures at full orchestration, utilizing best practice in voice leading techniques, and text painting." What would be the Experienced (center column)? What would be the Competent (Furthest left) column? Don't allow students to simply say, "Student did not compose a minimum of 40 measures at full orchestration utilizing..." Instead they should a.) keep it in the positive, and b.) shorten the expectation. It should read something like, "Student composes a minimum of 40 measures." Then evolve to 40 measures with full orchestration. Then add voice leading and text painting... The key is to help them to see the progression - to establish the order of the scaffolding. 

Once they've got this down - FLIP it. Give them the very basic column and ask them to create the most advanced items. Let them decided how to advance the work. This is key, because they will have to do this if they achieve the top level of their professional lives. What do you do when you are the very best? How do you get better? Where do you go from there? Those are questions that we all hope our students end up dealing with in the end. Companies like Apple and Google are dealing with that now. Where do we go from here? I can't think of a better way to set our students up for success, than to prepare them to be innovative. 

Which technique should you apply? I suggest that you differentiate. Who is not reading the rubric? Let them cull. Who is producing great work, but not utilizing the standards? Have them complete a rubric with the Mastery level completed but not the lower levels. Who is ready to take things to the next level? Give them a rubric with just the lowest level filled in or let them create their own rubric completely.

Give this a shot at some point. I hypothesize that your students will exceed your expectations. Let your rubric be, not only a tool for assessment, but a tool for instruction as well. That's what it's all about, right? The assessments and feedback are geared toward the ultimate instruction. Who says that has to happen at the end of the project? 

Until next week...   

Science and Music Integrated

Greetings and welcome to another installment of Liquid Logic - STEAM in form and function. You may recall that I promised to discuss Science and Music integration last week. I intend to follow up on that now. If you were unable to read last week's post, you may want to take a look here so you can be up to speed on the discussion.

So, how do music and science connect? 

I view Mathematics and English classes as core classes. What I mean by that is, these two subject areas serve as the backbone for the rest of our learning. Students must know how to read. Students must know how to work sums. I also submit to you that Science, general Science taught at the primary level, is also very core. Students must understand basic and natural processes. I do not imagine any of this to be controversial. 

At the primary level most knowledge is new knowledge. The battle for most primary teachers is comprehension. My parents were both elementary school teachers and they used to fret over whether students understood their lessons. I remember my father saying, "I hope I dug down to their level and brought them up." Learning at this age is very A quadrant, or basic. There is not a lot of higher order thinking going on, and - while I feel it's important to expose students to divergent and higher order items - it's important that they get the basics. As students progress, and I suggest that 6th or 7th grade become the point of transfer for them, it is time to challenge them with more divergent thinking. 

Science is a most interesting subject because it lends itself so nicely to projects. 

Mathematics are glued to their axioms and, while they're able to create real world problems, it is often hard to create consistent relevance enough to create real-world solutions to those problems. In effect, Math is limited by it's resources where applications are concerned. There are only so many ways that you can show a graph. I'm not saying that Mathematics can't utilize projects, I'm simply saying that it is more difficult for them to do so on a full project-based level. 

English has its own set of problems too. There are many options for creation in a 10th grade literature class, but few of them will be useful to mankind. In my years teaching Litmus (Literature + Musicology) we created artistic models, powerpoints, speeches, countless videos, and lots of music. It was difficult to solve real-world problems when the students were reading The Odyssey. Again, we were tied to the content and the context of our work, much like mathematicians are. 

Science, though, is a subject that can reach outside itself. If you think about it, Science is the logic of Mathematics combined with the imagination of Literature. Some of you may scoff at this, but consider: before mankind endeavors to do anything he must first conceive the idea in his mind. A person must have a problem, hypothesize a solution, and then create an experiment and test their idea. In many ways scientists combine the best of the Arts. It is the objective of scientists to realize that which we have only considered. People didn't understand Edison's light bulb when he unveiled it at the World's Fair in 1893, but Edison himself had a vision for his work. Science is the connecting cog between English and Math. 

Integrating Science with music is difficult. While Science lends itself to projects, it's almost too practical. In many ways Music is the anti-thesis to Science. Science lets the student explore within the confines of the hypothesis. Music lets the student explore within the confines of their skill. Both subjects have pretty serious higher order thinking syntheses. Creating Science yields tangible products (rockets, trebuchets, instruments, chemicals) while creating music - unless it's recorded - leaves only the aesthetic experience of having created something and hearing it once. 

The best connection between Science and Music is the process! 

Music utilizes creative process. Science utilizes Scientific Method. Both processes have variables that can be controlled, but also are open to experimentation. Music is the more approachable of the two arts because a mistake in music has no residual effect. A mistake in science could theoretically injure or even kill someone. (Again, I apologize for our lab experiment in College Chemistry, Raj. I am truly sorry about your hair.) 

Scientific Method is a structure centered around a hypothesis, based on observation. In short, the scientist observes something, makes a hypothesis about it, and then runs an experiment to see if their hypothesis is correct. Musicians in the "Lab," so to speak, are utilizing their current knowledge to make calculations - in real  time - based on their observations (which are made through the ears). Then a musician will release their experiment, their sound, and see how it goes with the other parts playing. Let me give you an example. I play bass guitar an awful lot. I play with all kinds of groups - jazz groups, country groups, rock groups, alternative bands, tejano groups... Often when I get with these people, they do not have music for me. Sometimes they do, but most of the time they do not. To a person that needs structure it's very scary to hear the words, "Just play by ear." But a true musician has no problem with this because we understand the system. 

There are only 7 notes in a scale (because 1 and 8 are the same) and 12 total notes if you include the half-steps between notes. That means I have a one in twelve chance of hitting the right note with a blind guess. Now, when I play in certain styles I can expect certain things to happen. For example - Gospel music will utilize flat 7 chords. It is unlikely that I will ever encounter a three chord in rock music, and so on... This narrows down my choices. Using the typical voice leading patterns that humanity has decided work best, I now have myself down to a 1:4 ratio. I am 25% likely to hit the right note.   Experience is the final straw. Usually, because I have played so much, I can tell without ever hearing the song, what the next chord will be. All I have to do now, is set my hand and pluck the string. Then I will know pretty quickly whether or not I've got it. I have to do this for every note of every song for the duration of the show. What I just described to you is a process that happens pretty quickly while I play. Did you notice the similarities between my play process and Scientific Method? Observation. Hypothesis. Calculation. Experiment. Assessment...  

This kind of experimentation is entirely too dynamic for a Science classroom, but not a Music one. 

The best integration projects that I've seen between Science and Music in the Science classroom have been instrument building projects that connect Physics and Manufacturing with Music. Indeed, Physics seems to be the branch of Science that lends itself most readily to Music. Type "Physics + Music + Lessons" into your search engine and you will receive myriad projects with calculations included. My favorite is this one from The Physics Classroom. There are also several lessons on the use of sound waves, sound travel, creation of sound, and manipulation of sound. 

Chemistry teachers may try to make the connection with density and liquid levels. Using glass instruments filled with chemicals and rubbing the edges... makes a sound... kind of neat... This is only one project though; certainly not enough to build a semester of integration. Perhaps there could be something to the elements involved in the creation of instruments? For example, the use of brass alloys to make trumpets, versus the use of nickel or silver alloys; How does this affect the sound? Which trumpet sounds better? Are there uses for the other alloy sound?  

My suggestion is to utilize as much Music as possible in the early stages of Physics. 8th grade Physical Science where students learn foundational Physics is the best place for Music to make appearances in the Science classroom. While I admit that I have had little chance to test these theories, I certainly would feel comfortable going into a Science class and trying. I realize that several of you may be hoping that I would detail a plan for you here, but I don't have one. I see the connection in method, but beyond that I would look to the shared lesson plans on the web and see how you can synthesize them to best assist your students. I'm sorry that I don't have more, but look to the method. The method is the key. Your own driving questions will drive those of your students. And what better way to teach than by example?  

Until next week...  

The Scope and Sequence of Music Integration

I received this criticism the other day, "[Nate], I love your ideas, but you have deviated from the doctrine of STEAM - Science, Technology, Engineering, the Arts, and Mathematics. Please get back to your mission, or re-name your blog. Thanks," - John B., Connecticut.

Dear John, (I've always wanted to say that?) Thank you for the criticism.You're right, it's time I got back to work on STEAM!  This week, I want to discuss an idea that has been in my brain for some time now. The scope and sequence of a full compliment music program for K-12 functioning in a school under the Race to the Top / No Child Left Behind accountability measures. How will the arts continue in this environment? That's a good question, but with the PARCC Assessment and the Common Core Standards on the horizon, I think the arts are primed to become a hot commodity in schools and arts people need to be ready to lend their creativity and leadership to struggling non-arts people that are trying to find ways to get their students to higher order think.

What is the key to this? The answer may lie in our current national standards. Music Standards 8 and 9 declare: "Understanding the relationship between music, the other arts, and disciplines outside the arts." And, "Understanding music in relation to history and culture." In my mind, these two standards are the power standards in music. They give us access to the other subjects, allowing us to find ways to mingle and work. Music itself is approachable and in many ways innate, but it can also become complex and challenging. The flexibility of music, and the accessibility of it, afford strong music teacher's pedagogical advantages when integrating with other disciplines.

How does this work?  

Mathematics

First, there are metrics to the tempus (timing) of music. Everything that happens in a song must happen in TIME. Time is a measurable piece. Time can be quantified. The divisions of time can be measured, the speed at which the time passes can be measured. Also, the idea of stretching or altering the time variable is measurable. For non-musicians, singers must sometimes "create time" by stretching a phrase (really they're slowing it down) to work in a breath. Like all other scientific calculations, this can be shown on a graph.

The second mathematical principle in music is range. Range is the distance between notes. We refer to this as  interval. Musicians judge interval, calculate the movement, and then make the jump between notes. This process happens very quickly. Young singers need time to orchestrate these jumps, but seasoned site-singers work by feel. They feel the distance and make those jumps easily. The distances between intervals can be mapped mathematically. If you feel really surly, you could map the relationships between intervals. I believe mathematicians call this ratio? In the case of music, not only does the size matter, but the position of the number in relation to tonic. Tonic is home base. Numerically we attribute the number 1 to tonic.

The third way that mathematics and music fit is found in fractions. Note values can be multiplied or divided. Since the values take place in time they are given a fractional value. For example, the quarter note takes up 1/4 of a measure in 4/4 time. Students should be able to divide full measure when given the variable of how many notes fit in a measure and what kind of note we are establishing time on. In 2/4 time, there are 2 quarter notes per measure. The measure can be no greater than that, unless one changes the time signature.

Most of these mathematical principles are taught in the primary grades. I would suggest to school principals and directors that the music teachers reinforce these gen-ed concepts during those K-5 grades. The nature of music classes at those grades lend themselves to having structured lessons that expose the students to instruments and singing, but also foster the mathematical principles that are the building blocks of rhythm and timing. By the 4th grade, students should be reading music outright.

In the Secondary grades, students will be taking more advanced classes and the mathematics of music will be too easy for them. The focus, then should shift to the higher order concepts of tonicization and analysis. To continue math in music at this point, students will need to shift to classes like Music Theory, or Aural Skills. The band and choir classes will need to focus on performances at this point, and honing the skills of the art itself.

English

The English connections are simple, yet profound. Reading is reading; the ability to understand symbols that translate to sounds and deciphering meaning from those sounds. Discovering meaning in symbols and imbuing that meaning with understanding. Utilizing understanding to create new meaning and associations is the synthesis of language - metaphor, allegory, analogy. These elements exist in music with words, and in music without words. Utilizing musical texts is the easiest way to connect the learner to the music and integrate English into the class. However, understanding the meaning of songs without words is much more higher order.

Writing music enhances the idea of word choice. When a composer creates music, they choose the sounds and instrumentation that they want - much like an artists chooses the colors for their palette. Authors also choose words that help to define their meaning, even when that meaning is cryptic. Helping students understand that English is an art, and that writing in the arts is much like composing or painting is another way to connect the two subjects.

Finally, language conventions. Just as there are conventions in writing prose or poetry, music also has a system of cadences that allow a composer to denote when the song is finished, when they are pausing, and when they are simply changing ideas, like changing paragraphs. Teaching this to students is similar to teaching the word choice concept. Why did you choose that chord? Why did you choose those notes? Why did you end there? Does this feel complete when you hear it? These are all questions that I've asked my theory students in the past.

Obviously, these concepts are much more difficult for students to grasp, and should be taught at the higher levels. I have had some success teaching these theories in a traditional method, but the best success has come when I have allowed students to play, not in a discovery learning sense - but with guided practice and synthesis. When I ask the students to write a melody, then a harmony, then change that harmony, then adjust the melody, and so on... That has yielded much more progress as the students become acquainted with the artistic process.

Isn't that what we really want to teach... a process of thought? A process of experimentation that will yield gains?

Hang on Science folks... I'm coming to you next week. You might consider that word, "process" and your own scientific "method". I think there's a link there for you to hook into?

Until then.