Still not working

October 22, 2007 at 11:19 AM

The kinks have still not been ironed out of the elementary string program in our school district. Last week they started a new schedule, one of the main teachers was absent, and they didn't tell the kids which classrooms to go to for their lessons. It started badly: when my daughter and I arrived for drop-off, we found a confused mother looking for her own daughter not knowing where she was supposed to go, and another girl who plays cello (who the other mother and I knew personally) crying alone, lost, in the hallway. We asked around and found out that we should start on-stage, so we directed all 3 girls there and got them settled (after my friend's daughter was found). Later, during lesson time, I got a phone call from a parent with a cell phone saying that she'd found my daughter wandering around the hallway, crying, not knowing where her lesson was. I told my daughter to ask that parent or one of the people in T-shirts (the high school student interns), and she said that it was in "room 103 or 110" and went there. Yet later, after I had already left to pick my daughter up, my husband got another call from the teacher saying that we should pick her up immediately because she was still crying. When I did pick her up, the teacher said my daughter wasn't on her list. She (the teacher) seemed a little confused and overwhelmed as well. While I was there I also saw a kid with a horn case wandering around and had no idea how to help her--didn't know her, didn't know where the horns were meeting.

I wrote an email letter to the lead teacher of the string program during the week, offering to help direct traffic the following week. He apologized and it seemed clear he was making a good-faith effort to improve the situation, but he has 340 students to deal with.

So this week I came and stayed the full 2 hours. I sat in the audience for the orchestra and took notes. I was the only parent there. Then I went to the small-group lesson, and was also the only parent there. I apologized to the teacher and said that my daughter had had trouble last week so I needed to sit in, and I would try to be unobtrusive. We verified that my daughter was on the class list this time.

The teacher, a different one from last week, was a nice high school-age kid with a viola. He had 7 3rd-grade violinists to teach. My daughter and her friend from school seemed to be establishing a rapport; my daughter helped her friend with a few things. The two boys in the class, however, were really disruptive. They plucked when the teacher was trying to talk, they put their instruments away when he wanted them to play, they gave him a hard time when he didn't immediately remember their names. They asked to play "repertoire" that they weren't ready for. The other kids in the class, all girls, were trying to pay attention, but were mostly bored.

My daughter, to her credit, played well the few things she played. She played in tune, in rhythm, and assertively. The teacher told her "very good, excellent," and she visibly brightened. She sat up a little straighter in her chair. But there wasn't enough of that; too much time was spent on crowd control and on getting the disruptive kids to sit down and be quiet. My daughter, as well as two Asian girls who looked and sounded to me like they had Suzuki experience, were looking at the clock over and over. At one point my daughter looked over at me and mouthed "booooring!"

I talked to the teacher again after class. He said it was his first time teaching and he apologized. He seemed like a good musician and was really a nice kid, but didn't have the crowd control skills necessary for a class like this. I felt bad he thought he had to apologize to me; clearly he was doing the best he could. I sympathized, too, I told him that he had a really challenging group with all the different levels to contend with. He said that he was going to talk with the lead teacher about grouping the kids by ability level, because right now it's all by grade so that any given class is a random mix of 3rd graders. I told him I thought that was a good idea, and also that he was doing a good job.

I feel like I'm in an awkward situation. The teachers are all very well-meaning and I don't want to challenge their authority or be an obnoxious stage-parent who makes their lives more difficult. I respect the difficulty of what they are trying to do: 340 young music students on Saturday morning. I want to help. But at the same time, the situation is still not working for my daughter.

From Pauline Lerner
Posted on October 22, 2007 at 5:11 PM

Karen, you are very patient. I suggest that you discuss the teacher issue with someone in management at the school. The individual teachers are doing their best, but none of them can address the overall problem of consistency in teacher and classroom. That is the role of management. I hope that you can get the problem fixed soon.

From Laurie Niles
Posted on October 22, 2007 at 5:15 PM

It drives me crazy, Karen. The whole system is set up to fail: too many kids in a class, making instrumental classes pull-out classes (so kids have to miss other things), not paying enough to attract qualified teachers, changing the program so often that there's no institutional wisdom, and on and on.

From E. Smith
Posted on October 22, 2007 at 9:08 PM

I had to look to see where you live because to me it seems extraordinary that so many families would show up for this program on Saturdays-- that's a great energy. But it sounds as if the program is a victim of its own success, and that they don't have the personnel or funding to support it. That's really too bad, because programs like this can be such a positive force in the community.

I guess you have two options-- to pull your daughter out (so she doesn't end up traumatized, bored, and displacing all of these feelings into a dislike of music. You could find a private program for her. Or, you could see how receptive they would be to your help (you're a decent amateur musician in your own right.) If they receptive to parental involvement, you could organize a band (pardon the pun) of supportive parents to help with the organization and also recruit teachers who have a bit more experience than the poor high school violist you describe. It sounds like the program has enormous potential, but if it isn't rescued, families will leave. Parents shore up soccer leagues. Why not music programs?

From Karen Allendoerfer
Posted on October 23, 2007 at 1:21 AM

E. Smith, you're quite right about the program being a victim of its own success, in a way. This is not a pull-out program, it's a Saturday school. "Who needs sleep?" and all that. There is a pull-out program in the school too, but most of the kids take an instrument and so it's the ones who aren't "pulled out" who are missing something, not the reverse.

This is in fact the same program that produced these kids: http://www.hilaryhahn.com/students.shtml. It meets in Chenery Middle School, "near Boston," on Saturday morning, some kids from 8-10, some from 9-11. Many of the kids come to the Saturday music school wearing their soccer uniforms, because that's where they're headed next. Reading those essays from kids who went through the program, it seems they must be doing (or have been doing) something right.

There is a group called POMS, "parents of music students," which I joined last month for $20 when I went to the parent information session. I am still not exactly sure what POMS are supposed to be doing; I know that the high school POMS usher at concerts. (And they do a lot of fundraising, which I admit, I'd rather have a root canal than do myself.) Anyway, I think this is the sort of parent group you're talking about. I just haven't figured out how to plug in effectively.

I mean, to be honest, I could teach one of these classes myself. I wouldn't feel comfortable doing it for the more advanced kids, but I could do it at my daughter's level. I'd do it for free, or for community service. But I have no actual credentials at all as a teacher or as a musician--and that seems to matter. I dunno. I think the high school violist would be just fine too if he had 4-5 interested kids to teach, rather than the 7 he has, two of whom really seem like they were dropped off so their parents could have cheap babysitting on Saturday mornings . . .

From Anne Horvath
Posted on October 23, 2007 at 1:41 AM

I don't have any constructive suggestions, but the picture of young people wandering around and crying, looking for their correct rooms to have their lesson in is so sad. Poor things! I hope things work out better next time!

From E. Smith
Posted on October 23, 2007 at 1:56 AM

Hi, Karen,

I looked at the links on Hilary Hahn's website-- what a wonderful program. I wish we'd had something like this here when my kids were little.

You write,

"I mean, to be honest, I could teach one of these classes myself. I wouldn't feel comfortable doing it for the more advanced kids, but I could do it at my daughter's level. I'd do it for free, or for community service. But I have no actual credentials at all as a teacher or as a musician--and that seems to matter. I dunno. I think the high school violist would be just fine too if he had 4-5 interested kids to teach, rather than the 7 he has, two of whom really seem like they were dropped off so their parents could have cheap babysitting on Saturday mornings . . ."

I agree, from what I've read on your blogs, that you could handle the younger kids. You have more credentials than the high school violist, who, no matter how talented and energetic has too many kids in his room to do an effective job. And you have more years of musical education, life exerperience, and of course parenting as well.

I also agree with what Anne wrote below you, that wandering lost in the hallways is a sad- well, traumatic. That's the kind of thing kids remember for their whole lives.

About the POMS (why is there always a cute name?) I know what you mean about fundraising. Sometimes (in my experience, anyway) schools prefer to relegate parents to this task, which is of course very important, instead of allowing them to meddle with actual hands-on teaching. But you have the skill an passion to make a difference. And your talents would be wasted if your energies were put to handing out programs or organizing car washes. Anyway, this may be presumptuous of me, but it seems as if a door is opening...

From Stephen Brivati
Posted on October 23, 2007 at 5:23 AM

Greetings,
if I was a teache rin that situation and aparent like you offered to organize help I would kiss your feet and give you a bowl of prunes free every week. Trust your instincts and you will do -exactly- the right thing,
Cheers,
Buri

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