Far too often, I believe we become the teachers we’ve seen and experienced ourselves. That isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but if our observations and experiences are too limited, it can be!
I’ve had a number of college students come to observe my classes during the last few years. Many of them give me great feedback; they seem to like what they see. I can’t help but hope, though, that they get lots of observation hours watching a number of different teachers and styles. The longer I teach, the more I realize I have to learn. I wish I had the opportunity now to observe lots of different teachers. If I had that freedom, I have a feeling my eyes would be opened even more!
After my most recent class at VanderCook, I started wondering why I started 20 years ago teaching straight from the text book with very little variance. It dawned on me that even though I’d had an excellent Elementary Music Methods class at Olivet Nazarene University, the only kind of observation and clinical experience I ever saw was that of teaching out of a textbook! I never actually saw the methods I learned in my classes put into practice in the classroom. Don’t get me wrong, the teachers I observed and worked with were very good, but they taught the same way. I never saw anything different! Assessment has always been a weakness of mine as well, and I think it’s because I didn’t get to the point of actually observing that aspect and discussing it with any real general music teachers. Of course, I’m talking from memories of 20+ years ago, so I could be wrong. However, if I did experience and observe it, I didn’t enough to put the ideas into practice until the last ten years or so of my teaching.
Maybe my experience isn’t the norm? I can’t help but wonder, though, if college students are getting enough varied observation experiences today. For the sake of their students, I hope they are!
4 responses so far ↓
Andy Zweibel // March 1, 2009 at 11:05 pm
Bonnie-
You raise an interesting point here, and one that we were talking about in my Classroom/Behavior Management class the other week. We watched a video of a student teacher using what we’ll call “very poor” behavior management techniques, and realized that this was probably because despite having taken a class in it, he still was reverting to the only techniques he saw in practice-the way HIS teacher did it!
I notice this in myself, as well, when I do field work with local bands or groups from home. Parts of my teaching and rehearsal style tend to emulate those of my directors (past and present). I think this can be both a good thing and a bad-there are many great things that my teachers have done that I have been able to replicate to produce similar results. The trick is “choosing” the right aspects of the teachers we see, and not becoming exact replicas of them.
Through careful and selective emulation of the techniques, mannerisms, and style of teachers we have seen, we can create a teaching style that is very much our own, but also effective thanks to the models that we have had in the past.
Great post!
Tim J // March 4, 2009 at 5:10 pm
This is interesting. I used to edit the course handbook for a theology degree used in training ministers ov various denominations. This listed the aims, educational methods, content etc. for each course module.
The descriptions of the pastoral care modules included “The course will model a caring attitude to course participants throughout”, and the Christian education ones made it clear that the educational methods taught in the course would also be used in the course, precisely so that people would experience what they were being taught about, not just learn it theoretically.
So even though I’m not a teacher, I think your post is spot-on.
Bonnie Brown // March 5, 2009 at 3:53 am
I appreciate your perspective from a slightly different angle. As I’ve thought more about these ideas, I’ve remembered that my teaching started to improve more drastically when I experienced good methods of teaching in classes at VanderCook. In my first elementary methods class (with a wonderful teacher-Lois Fiftal) we didn’t just sit and take notes on the ideas; we also got out of our seats and participated in the activities every few minutes as if we were the elementary students ourselves. Every other general music methods class I’ve taken there has been in the same format. As an undergrad student, we were taught excellent ideas, but we rarely (if ever) participated in the lessons as if we were the students in an elementary music class. The lack of varied observation experiences may have also played a large role as well, but I can’t say for certain which was the more important factor.
I hope you will visit this site from time to time and continue to share your viewpoint!
Tim J // March 6, 2009 at 2:59 pm
I know that a friend of mine who was training on the Junior Strings Project in Manchester had frequent sessions where the students “taught” each other, in order to experience the different activities. Personally I think experiential learning is the way to learn!
I’m subscribed to the RSS feed for your blog so I’ll certainly be back!