Klarinet Archive - Posting 001191.txt from 1997/10

From: Bill Hausmann <bhausman@-----.com>
Subj: Re: what I have to teach
Date: Sun, 26 Oct 1997 18:57:07 -0500

At 03:52 PM 10/26/97 -0600, Roger Garrett wrote:
>
>Um.....I am in the real world .....honest......and I have taught in the
>real world for quite some time.
>
>Administrators make mistakes.....so do music teachers. Frequently, I have
>found that behavioral problems occur in the band room when:
>
>1. the teaching pace is too slow
>2. the music is too hard
>3. too much talking from teacher, too little non-verbal teaching
>4. students are not kept on task enough
>5. students are not individually challenged by the teacher
>
>If a student continues to be a behavioral problem, he or she may be
>removed from an elective class at the end of the quarter. This is much
>more prevelant in schools than the administration denying the teacher this
>right.

In the particular case I am referring to, the students were not only
disruptive but DESTRUCTIVE, and the administration STILL would not allow
them to be transferred out (probably because nobody ELSE wanted them
either!). No band director, or any other teacher, should have to put up
with this. It is too harmful to the rest of the class. With this kind of
thing going on, pacing, keeping on task, etc., goes to hell in a handcart.
The troublemakers aren't paying the slightest bit of attention anyway.
Their main focus is on how to get the teacher's goat. When there is no
discipline in a classroom, it is the teacher's fault. But when there is no
discipline at the institutional level, the chaos that ensues is well beyond
any teacher's control. It was breaking his heart as well as his spirit.
Incidentally, my own 8th-grade son does not attend school in the system my
wife teaches 6th grade in for just this reason: no institutional
discipline in the junior high.

Bill Hausmann bhausman@-----.com
451 Old Orchard Drive http://www.concentric.net/~bhausman
Essexville, MI 48732 http://members.wbs.net/homepages/z/o/o/zoot14.html

If you have to mic a saxophone, the rest of the band is too loud.