Pandemic Teaching Journal—Linear Time No Longer Has Meaning

It’s been a few weeks since my last update, and they’ve been the most hectic weeks of the year so far. The marching band season is in full swing, my bands have made the transition from parking lot rehearsals to indoor (with proper safety precautions, of course), and several dozen students in my building alone have been in and out of quarantine due to possible exposure.

Now, the good news is that my building has made it through the first quarter of the year with less than a handful of actual confirmed cases. The staggering number of quarantines comes from close contacts on buses, at lunch, and in class. So far it seems like the in-school spread we were worried about has been avoided, but this shows us that things can change quickly and we must stay vigilant about our safety measures.

The good and also not-so-good news is that my building is doing a better job of contact tracing, with more speed and efficiency, than the county health department. It’s a strange feeling of both reassurance and worry. I’ve personally witnessed our building administration and office staff contact students and families within a matter of hours, and I’ve also seen our county health department take several days to do the same thing. I’m grateful that my building admin is walking the walk when it comes to keeping us as safe as possible.

The daily grind of teaching, cleaning, and enforcing safety measures continues to wear on me. There’s only so many times I can remind students to spread out, only to see them clumped together in the hallway 30 minutes later, without wondering why I’m expending the energy. I’m not convinced that wiping down chairs and music stands after every period is anything more than hygiene theater, but it’s not hurting anything so I’ll keep it up.

Despite those significant rough patches, I’m honestly pretty happy with some of the teaching I’ve done this year. My band students are exploring improvisation and composition in more depth than previous years. My music tech students are producing some wonderfully creative music that I’m genuinely impressed by. We’re making music amid some challenging circumstances, and that at least is a bright spot.

Pandemic Teaching Journal—Week Four(ish)

Week four. Week five. As I’ve been saying since March, linear time has lost all meaning. I was too tired at the end of last week to put together a post, so this update covers like a week and a half.

The Good. Marching band is back, baby! We won’t be performing at any football games this fall, but we just had our first meeting since band camp at the beginning of August. Case numbers in the county appear to be on the decline after the brief spike that forced our high school to go remote for two weeks, so we got permission to start practicing again (with safety precautions, of course). Socially distanced drill, masks and bell covers, and nothing but outdoor rehearsals; it feels good to hear these sounds again.

At my own building, the weather is (mostly) cooperative, so we continue to hold classes outdoors. Progress is slow, but honestly, that’s absolutely fine. We are free of the pressure of performances for the time being and that’s a strange but nice feeling. We’ll share some form of digital performance with families when we’re ready. It’s unfamiliar territory, but I relish the opportunity to let things develop organically rather than by a self-imposed concert deadline.

In a conversation with a colleague today, we discussed a pretty major “what if?” What if case numbers continue to stay low in our county, and we stay in-person deep into fall? What if, indeed. At a certain point, I can’t reasonably expect my students to go outside each day. We had a brutal snowstorm last year a couple weeks before Thanksgiving, and that’s not great band weather.

So what do we do?

With what limited mental energy I have to spare right now, I’m starting to look ahead to late fall/early winter. What does our curriculum look like then? Do we treat the class like a composition workshop? Do we explore some bucket drumming?

The Bad. I started this post a week ago, and I’m just now finding the time and energy to finish it. This is my 11th year teaching, and I’ve never been so tired in September. The extra cleaning we do during the day means that I don’t really feel like I can catch my breath until the end of the day. Juggling in-person teaching while still trying to make sure the virtual students have a quality experience is draining—I’ve spent so many of my conference hours already filming lessons and editing videos, not to mention the backlog of Flipgrid videos I still need to watch and leave feedback on.

Burnout is a real worry for pretty much every educator I know this year. We’re trying to balance a lot more than we usually do, all while trying to live up to the high expectations we hold for ourselves. I’m quickly realizing the great need this year to find time for ourselves, and to have a firm work-life boundary.

Pandemic Teaching Journal—Week Three

This past week was actually a pretty darn good one. We spent each day outside. We played instruments. We got excited about looking at some new pieces after Labor Day. Aside from the sunburn on my bald spot, things went relatively well.

At the moment, we seem somewhat removed from the chaos of teaching in 2020. That’s not to say it was a chaos-free week, just that the mayhem was happening elsewhere this week. Specifically, the state capital.

You see, on Thursday, Governor Whitmer signed an executive order that, among other things, gives a very tentative green light to scholastic sports. The current public guidance on contact sports in the state of Michigan says “…contact sports, such as football and wrestling, pose a high risk of transmitting COVID-19 to athletes, coaches, and the general community, and they should be avoided at this time.”

Naturally, the state governing body for high school sports exercised caution and restraint, and said they’d wait for more data before starting up fall sports.

I’m kidding of course. The MHSAA almost immediately released a statement announcing they were rushing into fall sports Leroy Jenkins style. But wait, there’s more! Part of the MHSAA’s statement was a scheduling announcement spelling out that teams will have a very short period of time to practice before their season openers. I don’t know if any of you have played competitive sports, but this is a very bad idea. Cutting corners with conditioning and practice leads to injuries.

And if we can go back to the executive order for a second, it’s a bit messy. Look at this part spelling out attendance guidelines for outdoor sports, “For outdoor organized sports competitions, sports organizers must ensure that either (i) the live audience is limited to the guests of the participants with each athlete designating up to two guests or (ii) the live audience is limited to the extent that 100 people or fewer are gathered for the event including all participants (athletes, coaches, staff, etc.).”

So…a football game between two large programs could conceivably have a few hundred people in the stands if they opt for option 1. OR, less than 100 people total if they opt for option 2. It’s confusing. Like much of the guidance schools have been given recently. It’s frustrating to watch sports appear to drive the decision-making process right now when the rest of us are attempting to abide by stricter safety guidelines.

Pandemic Teaching Journal—August 26

Oof.

I knew I’d have to write this update sometime, I just didn’t think it would be after the fifth day of in-person classes.

The county health department today requested our high school transition to fully remote learning for the next 7-14 days. The health department sees an uptick in cases in our attendance zone in the 14-19 year old age range. So, the HS goes virtual. The rest of the district remains open mask to mask.

For now.

I’m going to leave my personal beef with the health department out of this, but I dread work tomorrow. This decision isn’t going to help the anxiety already felt by students and staff. Our kids are going to have questions, and rightfully so. We probably won’t have a lot (if any) answers for them.

Tomorrow at least holds the promise of playing our instruments for the first time since March. I’m going to my best to enjoy those moments and temporarily set aside my worries. It might just be a few minutes of scales and chorales to shake off several months of rust, but it will be delightfully noisy and joyful.

We need whatever wins we can get right now.

Pandemic Teaching Journal—Week One

And thus ends our first week. Two days of in-person, mask-to-mask instruction with half the student population present on each day. One day of remote instruction for everybody. On a micro scale, the week was mostly good. I only had to ask two students to fix their masks, and both did so without complaint. The smaller population means that it is actually possible to do some social distancing, even at lunch*.

*Full disclosure—I did not actually venture down to the lunch room to witness this for myself; I’m staying away from indoor spaces where folks are unmasked. This is a secondhand account.

But then the first day of remote learning arrived, and the fires began. I had two small online assignments for my band students to complete—briefly introduce yourself via Flipgrid, and log into Soundtrap for the first time. Flipgrid was down for much of the day, and most of my students could not access Soundtrap at first. While that was happening, I was in a Meet with my fully remote students, just watching the “please help me!” emails trickle in.

In addition to the remote frustrations, I see myself and my colleagues already exhausted. Two days of in-person on high alert is emotionally draining. I sincerely hope that everybody is finding a way to wind down after work.

The icing on the cake this week though was the announcement from the state that they have identified 14 separate outbreaks at K-12 schools across the state. We don’t know for sure which specific counties are impacted yet, but the state is promising we’ll have that info “in a couple weeks”.

Great, so it’s miserable speculation and “I sure hope that’s not us” until then.

Pandemic Teaching Journal—Day One

Day one. Year eleven. I’ve never been so anxious for a first day in my entire career. I can’t say I was eager to dive into face-to-face instruction amidst a pandemic, but here we are. I’ve spent the weeks since our district released (and revised) its return to school plan wondering and worrying what these first few weeks would be like—would the kids be diligent with their masks? Would all of my colleagues? Would somebody show up sick? Would the staff have adequate PPE?

Despite all those worries, there was some good today. Quite a lot of it, in fact.

Was it good to see my students in person instead of on a grainy Zoom feed? Yes.

Were the kids excited when I told them we’d be able to play our instruments (outside) next week? Absolutely.

Did every student I see do their absolute best to stay safe and wear their mask? Also yes.

Am I still very worried about the weeks ahead? Incredibly.

This is going to be difficult to sustain at best. Teaching in person right now means our pedagogy suffers. We’re discouraged from moving around the room and working with students closely. We’re discouraged from allowing students to work in small groups, or move seats during the same class period. A temporary move to block scheduling, designed to decrease the number of student contacts each day, means we’re asking students to stay in some classes for two hours at a time. I’m an adult who struggles to focus for that long, how can I reasonably expect that from a room full of 7th graders?

The concerns for the health and safety of my colleagues—not just in my specific district, but around the state—remain constant. So many of us are diligent about mask use, and distancing. We try our best to implement new cleaning and safety procedures. And yet…it only takes one mistake. One kid coming to school sick, a few folks eating lunch just a little too close together…it won’t take much. Even amidst all the good that comes with seeing students again, this is on my mind.

It’s only one day, and it’s already apparent that this will be the most difficult and trying year of my career yet. I hope we can beat the odds and get through it unscathed.

Keep Your Politics Out Of My Music Classroom!

Over the past several weeks (and even well before that), I’ve seen music educators engaged in difficult self-examination, having challenging conversations with colleagues, and working to improve their practice by learning about social justice and equity. A lot of excellent conversations happened on Music Teacher Facebook. I’ve seen people seriously invested in learning and growing.

In recent days, there’s also been a reaction to those conversations. Folks have been popping up in those same music teacher groups saying things like:

Let’s keep this a safe space and just talk about music!

Can we please keep politics out of this group?

I hope you aren’t bringing politics into your own classroom!

Oof. The backlash was inevitable, but it’s still unfortunate. Teaching is inherently political. Stating that you’d like to keep your space politics-free is a political statement in itself. It comes from a place of extreme privilege, and it means you’d like to maintain the status quo because to do otherwise would cause you personal discomfort. Some people have the luxury of ignoring politics—many others do not.

We aren’t doing ourselves any favors by thinking this way. Striving to create a safe, politics-free space in education stifles personal growth. Ignoring issues that might make one uncomfortable so one can “just teach music” does a disservice to the students in our classrooms.

Expressing values in your classroom is a political act. Do you have a set of classroom expectations for your students? That’s political. Do you determine at least some of the material covered in your class, and how said material is covered? That’s political.

The musical repertoire we choose? Absolutely political.

Does your curriculum focus more on performance than say, composition or history? That’s a statement of your values, and thus political.

When teaching the history of rock music, do you acknowledge the contributions of Black musicians, and their appropriation by white musicians? Yes or no, you’re making a statement.

When learning about jazz music, do your students also learn about the horrific segregation faced by jazz artists for decades? If you play a Mingus chart, do you also look at the societal context behind the composition?

Do you study non-Western music with your students? If so, how do you approach it?

Does popular music have a place in your curriculum?

The list could go on. Every curricular decision we make throughout the school day, every interaction we have with students, is a statement of our values.

Whether you explicitly discuss these issues in your classroom or not, you are making a statement of your values. The explicit curriculum and hidden curriculum each make statements. Rather than attempting to ignore, we need to focus on what those statements are saying, and what values we are communicating to our students.

Striving For An Antiracist Music Education

This tweet came across my feed the other day, and I can’t stop thinking about it.

White folks are gonna have to be the ones to lead the revolt against all this racist sh*t if anything’s going to change. Y’all are gonna have to be the ones to take it to the streets. And I highly doubt that will ever happen. Surprise me! #AmyCooper #icantbreathe

— Allison Loggins-Hull (@alogginshull) May 26, 2020

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Amidst yet more stories this week of white people weaponizing the police, and Black people being executed at the hands of law enforcement and vigilantes, it’s a simple but powerful plea for us to do better, in whatever capacity we can. Throughout the current pandemic, we’ve heard countless people yearning for a return to normal, but the past several days should serve as a stark reminder that for a large portion of the country, “normal” is incredibly dangerous.

We need to strive for a better normal. An antiracist normal.

In my own corner, that means learning about racism, inequality, and injustice, and examining areas in my curriculum where I can do better on all of those fronts. Let me share what I’ve learned so far, and what questions I continue to ask.

Read, Listen, Learn*

*all links in this section take you to Black-owned bookstores

One of the most valuable things for me was a simple trip to the library a couple of years ago. After the 2016 election, I started paying more attention to how marginalized groups were impacted by government policies and societal norms, and I wanted to learn what role I could play in righting those wrongs.

On that trip to the library, I picked up a book by Ijeoma Oluo entitled So You Want To Talk About Race. This book was an excellent starting point—each chapter addresses one smaller aspect of the larger discussion surrounding race relations, and Ms. Oluo includes a personal anecdote within each chapter in order to help the reader relate to a sometimes abstract concept. The book also includes a concrete list of actions one can take beyond a simple conversation. I truly appreciated the bluntness in this book—confronting our own biases is not an easy task, but the tools for how to do so were presented quite clearly.

I also strongly recommend following Ijeoma Oluo on Twitter. We have a lot to learn from her wisdom.

The beauty of anti-racism is that you don't have to pretend to be free of racism to be an anti-racist. Anti-racism is the commitment to fight racism wherever you find it, including in yourself. And it's the only way forward. https://t.co/DL3c2vIXcB

— Ijeoma Oluo (@IjeomaOluo) July 15, 2019

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The above tweet led me to another book, How To Be An Antiracist by Dr. Ibram X. Kendi. Dr. Kendi focuses a lot on intersectionality in this book, as well as the larger power structures in our country that allow racist policies to survive and thrive. This particular book has also been reworked for the youngest readers and their parents—it’s not too early to have these discussions. Dr. Kendi’s first book, Stamped From The Beginning, has also been remixed for a younger audience. If you’ve got kids of any age, start having these conversations with them now.

In addition to these books, find some prominent Black voices on social media and listen to what they have to say. Educators, activists, journalists. Listen and learn. Some of what you hear may be difficult or uncomfortable to digest, but it’s important for to listen and value the lived experience of these Black voices. Resist the urge to say not all white people. Resist the urge to center yourself in these moments—our job in this moment is to understand how our actions (or inactions) are causing harm to Black Americans, and work to stop that harm.

Do white parents talk to their children about NOT killing black people?

Because I’m now listening to my mom talk to my little bro about ways to prevent being killed/victimized by white racists, and this responsibility/burden should not have to fall on him and other black kids.

— de_nichols (@de_nichols) May 7, 2020

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The very simple act of listening can allow us to develop empathy and understanding. As a white man who grew up in a very conservative area, my lived experiences are very different than those of the authors I recommended. But listening at least means I have a chance to learn and understand.

Implications For Music Education

Like it or not, music education is filled with examples of white supremacy. Many of these might be unintentional, but that doesn’t really matter—they still exist, and they still cause harm. It’s our job as educators to examine our practices and our curriculum and work to eliminate these harmful elements.

Please understand that I am still grappling with these questions myself. Much of my path to becoming a music educator was traditional, which means my own training was heavy on the Western art canon, light on a lot of other things. I’m just about to finish my 10th year of teaching, and I’m still learning how to expand my own boundaries. These are not for judgement, but hopefully to jump start some discussions in your own circles.

Acknowledge mistakes and problems. Being antiracist is as much about looking inward as it is outward. You will notice missteps from others AND yourself. Admit mistakes, apologize, and ask how you can do better. Self-reflection is difficult but it is crucial. One major mistake I made repeatedly early in my career was with repertoire selection. I would select something like African Bell Carol by Robert W. Smith, ignoring the obvious treatment of African culture as some monolith (not to mention the wildly inauthentic writing). Or I’d select something like African Noel by John Kinyon, not concerned with the implications of a white man arranging a Liberian folk song. I am still working to be more thorough and deliberate in my repertoire selection, and I believe that this is a process that will never be finished; I can only hope to continue improving.

What’s in your curriculum? If you teach a performing ensemble, what music literature do you teach, and who composed it? Intentionally program music written by non-white composers. This excellent Twitter thread from composer Dale Trumbore offers a great rationale, and the Institute for Composer Diversity provides the tools. Does your curriculum include music that’s not part of the Western art music canon?

How do you approach non-Western music? Does it simply get placed in the ‘world music’ bucket and thus stripped of its unique elements and important cultural ties? Or, do you make a concerted effort to explore the culture and history of various non-Western musics with your students, taking care that each one is treated with value and importance? The wind band world is filled with examples of African, Asian, or Latin American musical styles being lumped together into one group. Do a better job of acknowledging and learning about the incredible musical diversity—Ewe drumming from Ghana is vastly different from Rai music from Algeria, for example.

How do you deal with problematic composers? Do you talk about the antisemitism of Richard Wagner or Percy Grainger? If you’re teaching a Stephen Foster song, do you get into the ugly history of minstrelsy?

What value do we assign to non “art” music? Do you consider pop genres to be ‘lesser’ than classical music literature? If so, where does that viewpoint come from? Do we sometimes conflate complexity with quality?

According to the US Department of Education, nearly 80 percent of all public school teachers in this country are white. Meaningful antiracist progress can not happen in our classrooms without this significant chunk of educators doing our part. I hope you’ll join me.

Hip-hop: Feat. Western Art Music

Ben Shapiro’s thinly-veiled racist and elitist hot take on hip hop music has been making the rounds recently (no, I won’t be linking to it). The tl;dr of it all is that since hip hop is so diametrically opposed to Western Art Music that it’s not even music or art, and bruh, that’s a whole lot of words to say that you’re angry that Kendrick Lamar has a Pulitzer and you don’t.

Anyway, since Shapiro so casually dismisses the possibility that hip hop could have artistic merit, he may have missed the remarkably creative ways in which hip hop artists have reimagined, reinvented, and refreshed Western Art Music.

Take the Dies Irae for instance. It’s a piece of Gregorian Chant that’s about 800 years old, and aside from that brief but super weird period in the 90s when chant hit the top of the charts (seriously), people aren’t clamoring to give it a listen. In 2007, rapper Juelz Santana lifted the melodic material from the Dies Irae, note-for-note, and used it as the main riff in The Second Coming.

Nas used some more modern source material in 2002’s I Can. You probably recognize the opening bars of Für Elise used throughout that track, but sliced up and reinvented in 4/4 time instead of the original 3/8.

Coolio sampled Pachelbel. Eminem sampled Bach. As did DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince. As did Young MC. Lupe Fiasco sampled Arvo Pärt.

There are countless others that I’ve missed here, but the point is—not only is hip-hop a musically-rich genre in its own right, many of its artists are finding amazingly creative ways to reimagine a genre that’s been around for hundreds of years. Yeah, you could use hip-hop to introduce students to the Western art canon. But you’d have a lot more fun using hip-hop to talk about remarkable creativity, and pushing artistic boundaries.

On schools and guns

We’re not even out of February, and we have already witnessed, depending on which metric you use, between 11 and 18 school shootings. The most recent shooting, at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High in Parkland, Florida, may represent a tipping point of sorts. Students posted to social media during the attack, giving many of us a first-hand look at just how terrifying it is to be in an active shooter situation. Many of those same students have now used their platform to eloquently and passionately call for meaningful policy change. These students want to ensure than no other communities around the country have to endure the pain that they have felt.

We should listen.

These kids are not interested in thoughts and prayers. They are not interested in hearing about how the Second Amendment may or may not allow anybody to build up a huge arsenal of weapons without oversight. They want background checks and restrictions on the types of firearms you can buy.

More importantly, they want you to recognize that their lives are far more important than any gun could ever be.

It’s become all too common following a mass shooting for people to suggest not gun control, but stationing armed guards at all public schools, or more extreme yet, arming our nation’s teachers. As a teacher myself, this is a distressing idea.

• Who is going to pay for these weapons? A recent study found that Michigan’s public schools are underfunded to the tune of roughly $1,300-$1,900 per pupil. Our schools are not flush with cash; what services would you recommend we cut in the name of weaponry? A Glock 23 3rd Gen can be found for about $425. To arm every teacher in my building with those would cost roughly $20,000. To outfit the entire district would cost well over $100,000.
• The basic up front costs are considerable, but it gets worse. I currently have to renew my teaching certificate every five years. But my teaching certificate doesn’t have the power to wound or kill, so it would make sense to keep a firearms certification more frequently updated. Let’s say, every two years. You can take a basic pistol training course through an NRA-certified instructor for $150. For my building, that would be roughly an additional $7,000 every couple of years.
• Of course, a basic skills maintenance course every two years might not be enough. What level of training would a teacher need to have before you can feel comfortable with them packing heat in the classroom? (There is no level at which I’d feel comfortable with that). There are kids involved, you wouldn’t want to half-ass this training, would you? It’s not safe to half-ass the training.
• So let’s look at some statistics for some folks who are presumably pretty well-trained on their weapons, the NYPD.

New York City police statistics show that simply hitting a target, let alone hitting it in a specific spot, is a difficult challenge. In 2006, in cases where police officers intentionally fired a gun at a person, they discharged 364 bullets and hit their target 103 times, for a hit rate of 28.3 percent, according to the department’s Firearms Discharge Report. The police shot and killed 13 people last year.

In 2005, officers fired 472 times in the same circumstances, hitting their mark 82 times, for a 17.4 percent hit rate. They shot and killed nine people that year.

In all shootings — including those against people, animals and in suicides and other situations — New York City officers achieved a 34 percent accuracy rate (182 out of 540), and a 43 percent accuracy rate when the target ranged from zero to six feet away. Nearly half the shots they fired last year were within that distance.

• Look at those numbers. Professional law enforcement officers who carry as part of their career can’t even come close to 50 percent accuracy. What the hell chance would a bunch of teachers have? Then there’s always the significant risk of hitting a bystander. Is this a risk we should be willing to take with our children? (If the answer to this isn’t a resounding ‘NO’, then I have to seriously question your judgement).
• I know we all like to think we’d handle ourselves like Jack Bauer if we found ourselves in an active shooter situation. In reality, even well trained police in ideal conditions struggle to react quicker than a shooter.

The miniscule edge did go to the suspects, technically. Examined case by case, they shot faster than officers or precisely simultaneously in more than 60% of the encounters. “Even in situations where the officer was faster, there was less than a 0.2-second difference, suggesting that the suspect would still get a shot off in most of these encounters,” the researchers state.

“The process of perceiving the suspect’s movement, interpreting the action, deciding on a response, and executing the response for the officer generally took longer than it took the suspect to execute the action of shooting, even though the officer already had his gun aimed at the suspect.”

And this was in near-ideal conditions from the officers’ perspective. The volunteers were “highly experienced” and “knew they would be encountering suspects with guns.” The confrontations took place in “well-lit rooms,” with only a single offender, “with both parties remaining stationary,” with no distractions, with no attempts by the suspects to deceive the officers by feigning compliance before shooting, with officers not nearly as stressed as they would be “during an actual life-or-death situation,” and with none reporting “confusing sensory and perceptual distortions.”

Moreover, “the suspects extended their arms to bring the gun in line with their eyes before shooting in almost every exchange,” rather than “simply rotating the gun and firing.” Thus their assault was slower than a spontaneous street encounter might be.

The researchers concede that “many of the elements that occur in real-life shootings” would doubtless add significant time to the average officer’s reaction time.

• But wait there’s more! Want your district to get insurance after allowing teachers to carry? Good luck! In the few districts that have made this decision around the country, insurers have either flat-out denied coverage, or increased rates astronomically.
• Where are guns going to be kept in the classroom that are 1) safely out of the reach of children and 2) close enough at hand for the teacher to actually use it in an active shooter situation?
• Who is going to be liable when a teacher screws up and shoots an innocent bystander?
• Teachers have mental health problems too. It’s a high-stress job, and many in the profession struggle with chronic mental health issues as well. How do we make sure that these teachers are okay to carry? Some sort of screening process, perhaps? Who pays for this?
• In the case of an active shooter situation, how will the first responders quickly differentiate between a good guy with a gun and a bad guy with a gun? Every second matters here.

Basically, arming teachers is about a serious suggestion as having us all spend our PD time watching the Charles Bronson classic ‘Death Wish’.

Keep your damn guns out of my school.