Klarinet Archive - Posting 000600.txt from 1998/06

From: "Edwin V. Lacy" <el2@-----.edu>
Subj: Re: [kl] Beginner students
Date: Thu, 18 Jun 1998 12:49:58 -0400

On Thu, 18 Jun 1998, Rich & Tani Miller wrote:

> I disagree with WG Grabner's response.

Well, I think I would have to disagree with yours, at least in part.
During the public school teaching part of my career, I had two different
positions, in one of which there were discreet graded levels. (Beginners
together, then students together who had been playing for one year, etc.)
In my other job, I didn't teach the beginning students, but the teacher
who did was required by administrative decree to have 5th grade beginners
in the same class with 6th graders who had been playing for a year. She
did her best, but there always were problems. What are the 6th graders to
do while you are trying to teach such basic things as how to form an
embouchure, how to control the breath, how to articulate, how to place the
fingers on the instrument? If the answer is that they are to assist the
teacher and demonstrate the techniques, this significantly retards their
progress. If the answer is that the advanced students learn these things
better as a result of repition and reinforcement, this still is not the
most efficient way to do things, because in many instances, these may be
things which the students are already doing well. The final result was
that the students who came out of that system were considerably behind
their peers who were in a more traditional program. By the time I got
them, in the 7th grade, I had to spend about a half of the first year
helping them catch up to where they should have been. The attrition rate
was also quite high, because the 2nd year students became bored when they
realized that they had to go through beginning level materials for a
second time.

I always admired that teacher, because she made the best of a bad
situation, but I empathized with her in her frustration at not being able
to make the choice which she felt would be better for the students.

> I've always had first and second year band and orchestra students in the
> same groups. Beginners achieve more in a short period of time when they
> hear their peers doing things that they can't do yet.

Certainly, that is true of all of students. Still, that doesn't negate
the fact that the student who is providing the role model isn't
necessarily doing what they should do in order to address their own
musical needs.

> Having a group lesson is a great opportunity to learn through ensemble
> music rather than the traditional method of going straight through the
> lesson book. You just have to stop teaching like a traditional teacher.

The system that I am describing consists entirely of group lessons.
However, I object to the tone of the second sentence. I happen to think
that the best teachers I have ever known in nearly 50 years in music were
in a sense "traditional" teachers, and I have always tried to be one, as
well. That doesn't mean that one doesn't continue to try to learn and
grow, and to experiment with new techniques and methods. It does,
however, also mean that one does not "throw out the baby with the bath
water." Innovation for its own sake is almost always misguided.

Ed Lacy
*****************************************************************
Dr. Edwin Lacy University of Evansville
Professor of Music 1800 Lincoln Avenue
Evansville, IN 47722
el2@-----.edu (812)479-2754
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