Monthly Archives: October 2010

A Simple Request

Did you know that there are technically only two types of voices?

  • a child’s voice (aka unchanged)
  • a changed voice– subdivided into male and female changed voices

Voice changes start after puberty. If you’ve ever noticed the growth spurt of a child, you’ll understand why the voice change seems so awkward for most boys and more gradual for most girls. Want to do some reading? Try these links:

The point of this post actually has little to do with the physical aspects of the vocal folds and larynx, but more about perceptions of children’s voices. It’s more a request.

As an elementary teacher, I should be working with all unchanged voices. There are a few 5th graders who are on the cusp of the change, but still not quite there.

However, with boys (and even a few girls) from Kindergarten all the way through 5th grade, I struggle with perceptions of what boys and girls voices SHOULD be. In unchanged voices, THERE IS NO DIFFERENCE. If you listen to little boys and girls talk, there shouldn’t be much of a difference at all. If there is, this is due to environmental conditioning. Boys tend to speak lower in their vocal range, because they want to sound like the males around them.

A 1st grade student told me, “I can’t sing as high as you because I have a man’s voice.”  There are boys in 3rd, 4th, and 5th grade that can sing with me in their higher ranges, but they always revert back to the absolute lowest part of their singing voices… and their speaking voices! They’re actually doing damage to their voices, because they insist in attempting to speak and sing lower than the natural range of their voices. By the way, I NEVER force my students to sing by themselves in front of the class. This is not really about fear of singing in front of their peers.

I’ve been frustrated, so I sat down with my male  students in each grade level and we just talked. I asked them,

“How many of you have ever been teased about sounding like a girl?”

I reassured them that they didn’t have to raise their hands, but most of them did. I reminded them that there is no such thing as a boy’s voice or a girl’s voice in unchanged voices. They know this. We talk about it all the time… but there is an unfortunate expectation of our boys to sound like boys… or to be more ‘manly.’  This expectation is affecting children as young as 4 and 5 years old! Have you ever heard a Kindergarten student trying to sing like a man?

So, here’s my request:

Could we PLEASE stop insisting our boys act like boys and girls act like girls with antiquated stereotypes of what boys should be and what girls should be?

Could we PLEASE stop insulting boys by calling them girls?*

Could we allow little boys and girls to be just that? Little boys and girls? Let them play, let them explore, let them discover… without the pressure of living up to the hopes and dreams of the adults in their lives?

Maybe I’m asking too much, and obviously, this hits me where I live as a vocal music teacher… but I hope you can see where this leads.  Boys who are too “girly” (there’s that insane insult again) are bullied. Girls who don’t act like girls (whatever that’s supposed to mean) are ostracized.  They don’t grow out of these criticisms when they hit puberty. Those things stick with kids for a long time. It’s about time adults learned that the little things do count with kids.

[end rant]

*I played softball as a kid and loved it. I was determined never to “throw like a girl,” because that’s what I was told by an adult in my life. As an adult, I watched two of my daughters play softball.  At one game, I witnessed one of them make a rocket-laser arm throw from 3rd base to 1st, and the subsequent look of pain by her teammate on 1st base… I proudly said, “Now THAT’S how to throw like a girl!”

Be The Change

I saw someone tweet this quote earlier this evening. It was attributed it to Marala Scott:

“May you realize the power you have over your own life and make changes with that in mind.”

As I sat around thinking about what kind of post to write for today, I kept thinking of the charge Tom Whitby called for in his post, A Modest Blog Proposal:

“Teachers often offer positive education reform suggestions with less of an audience than popular media… My suggestion is to have as many educational bloggers who wish to participate, do a Post for positive educational reform on one day.”

Today is that day.

To be honest, I’ve written so much in the last few months about what I’ve heard from the media, Oprah, our President and his staff, I was afraid I wouldn’t have anything new to add. That’s when I remembered Scott’s quote about realizing the power that we each have.

We can be the change that we want to see in our schools.

We can start the conversations with our colleagues, the parents in our communities, and most importantly, with our students.

Too many of us feel powerless, or that there aren’t enough of us to make a dent in the noise that Oprah has made. Too many of us, myself included, get all riled up, write a blog post or ten, but stop short of moving forward in our own schools and communities. While I know I have made strides in my teaching since I first started, being the change in my classroom will only potentially affect the 430 kids I see now in my school, my district, my city, and my state. What about other children? How can I help them?

To be effective change agents, we must start in our own little worlds… but we need to move outside our comfort zones and speak out, too.

If you’re wondering where to start, there are well over 100 blog posts linked here – http://www.wallwisher.com/wall/REBELSbloggers – by educators who want the same kind of change you do. Follow these blog writers. Get involved. Talk to the people in your own school and community about how to move forward.

But most importantly, be the change you want to see. If you’re not making some changes yourself, why should anyone else?

An Apology to Former Students

Do you ever look back at some of your educational practices as a new teacher… and cringe? I do. I cringe a lot when I think back to those early years. I was ill-equipped.

When I started my first year as a teacher, I came to the school with a fairly new degree in music and a semester of substitute teaching under my belt. That was it. Not uncommon for many new teachers, though.failsmall

My first teaching assignment was at a 7-12 school in 1992. It was a much smaller school (350 students total in 7th through 12th grade) compared to the schools I had attended (520 students in my own graduating class). There was no curriculum at all for the classes I was to teach. First year teacher- had to write curriculum for 4 classes… “oh, and by the way, we need you to teach reading, too.” Also no curriculum, other than a textbook. [image credit: cc licensed image by griffithchris]

So, to say that the above was anything less than daunting would be a lie. However, I had a pretty good foundation of what kids should know and be able to do in music classes. That task was time-consuming, but a good experience. I felt pretty good about what I accomplished in this area.

Looking back, I am maybe a little proud of myself for being able to crank that out. But honestly, I’m a lot more embarrassed to share my ridiculous grading policies for the 7th and 8th grade classes I taught.

In general music, I met with 7th and 8th graders every day, all year, and was required to give them a percentage grade on their report card (no letter grades or rubric scores). There were days when we spent a lot of the class time singing, but we also had music theory, music history, American musical theater, improvisation, and music interpretation units (and probably quite a bit more that I’m not remembering right now).

And I assigned lots of homework. Why? Because I needed a body of work for grades. (ugh) That is the reason for homework, right?

The grades I recorded in my gradebook (which I made in Claris Works spreadsheets!) were averaged (ugh)  on homework grades, quiz grades, test grades, project grades, and participation points (a HUGE UGH!). Participation points were based on behavior. I gave every kid 100 participation points. The points were theirs to lose. If students didn’t do their homework, I gave them zeroes. If they turned in the homework or projects late, I took off points for late work.

As I mentioned at the beginning of the post… this is cringe-worthy.

Do you know how many 7th and 8th graders FAILED my classes? Many. Too many. And the issue is this: I don’t think a single one of those kids failed my class because they were unable to demonstrate their understanding of the concepts. They failed the classes because I was unable to see the difference between a behavior and an academic score.

I pleaded with my students to turn in their homework on time. I even took time out of a lesson to show them the math on the board. “A zero is devastating to your final grade!” I explained how I was helping them to learn to be responsible.

I’m cringing even as I type this.

Ken O’Connor wasn’t a blip on my radar back then, and I didn’t see his book, How to Grade for Learning, until long after I had left that classroom. As a staff developer a few years later, I was introduced to Ken O’Connor in person. I listened to him talk about the problem with grading behavior and academic progress within the same scores. He provided real examples of why averaging grades across time actually shows less progress. He discussed the need for allowing students to re-take tests to show that they have learned and made comparisons to driver’s license testing. O’Connor asked why we set arbitrary deadlines when we knew that not all kids learn at the same rate.

And… it hit me like a ton of bricks. I had been that teacher who used grades as a punishment– a punishment to kids who didn’t care about their grades. Everything I had ever been taught about grading and assessing students was so off the mark. I wished right then and there that I could go back in time and start over again with my 7-12 students.

So this is my apology post, more than a decade too late, but here it is:

I was wrong, guys… and I’m truly sorry. You deserved to have a teacher who was more compassionate… a teacher who understood that maybe you really did lose your homework… a teacher who assigned homework only to those who really needed the practice… a teacher who reported your behavior separately from your academic progress. That wasn’t me back then, and I apologize.

If it’s any consolation at all, I am a huge advocate for children now when it comes to grading practices. In my own classroom, I report academic/skill achievement completely separately from behavior. I share my Ken O’Connor book with many people and then try to have open discussions with them to find grading practices that make sense to them. That doesn’t help the kids from my past, but I hope it helps kids now.

A World of Thanks to Teachers

Today is World Teachers Day. Have you thanked your favorite teacher today?

In my last post, I asked for names of teachers who make a difference. In this post I’m going to list them– as well as many of my own teachers– to celebrate their hard work and dedication to help kids learn.

I would like to thank the following people, some of whom are no longer with us, for what they taught me about life and learning:

Ward Carhart– my 6th grade classroom teacher. He was the tough teacher that everyone hoped they wouldn’t get. There was another teacher on his team who was seen as the fun guy. Not Mr. Carhart. He was gruff and he expected a lot out of his students. When the phone call came about a week before school started, I was a little sad that Mr. Carhart was on the other line. I wanted the more popular teacher… but during that school year, I knew that I was actually one of the lucky kids. We were challenged by Mr. Carhart. He expected us to do our best. A compliment from him really meant something. By the end of that school year, I was proud to tell everyone who my 6th grade teacher had been!

Barb Wagner – Barb was my AP American History teacher my junior year of high school and also my Civics teacher my senior year. She was the first teacher to ever give me a progress slip because I was NOT doing well in her class. In fact, everyone in our AP American History class received one. We were honor students. Every single one of us on National Honor Society. None of us had ever received a progress slip because of poor performance! Talk about total devastation! But… she made us realize that we were not giving our best. We were doing mediocre work. We were writing essays that were poor quality on our exams. She asked us to provide answers that made us analyze and critique, rather than to simply recall or apply. She wanted well-formed arguments that defended the points we should be making. No teacher had ever done this before. When I look back at my own teaching career, I have always tried to remember Ms. Wagner’s challenge to have high expectations for ourselves and our students.

Mike Janis, Dwayne Price, Ruth Stephenson, William A. Wyman– each of these teachers taught me that music is an essential part of life, that I have an obligation to share the talents I was given with others, and that only my best is good enough for my students and audiences. They also had high expectations and modeled how to learn about life through music. I learned more life lessons from these four individuals than I could possibly recount in a blog post.

While putting my list together… I was more concerned about the people I would leave out. I’ve had some amazing teachers! I’m luckier than most, because I am able to see some of these people quite regularly and tell them how grateful I am for them!

A few people left comments on my last post and specifically named teachers that they feel are amazing! Here’s that list:

Jen Wagner said:

A teacher that needs to be noticed is Brent Coley — http://mrcoley.com/
He is encouraging his students to think daily and is showcasing their work for others to see.
He is encouraging his students to succeed by creating studycasts for their review before tests.
He is encouraging his students to share what they have learned by creating coleycasts which then can be used by other classrooms around the world.
He is encouraging his parents/fellowteachers/peers to keep in touch with him by providing a variety of ways to contact him.
He is encouraging other teachers by sharing what is is doing and how to do it. Plus, shares his resources freely.
His #1 goal is the success of each and every one of his students……individually and as a class.
He is a teacher to be watched. He is a teacher to be emulated. He is a teacher we should clone.

Kelly Tenkely said:

So here are just a few of the amazing teachers I have had the pleasure of working with:
Kerry– currently battling breast cancer (again) after being cancer free for 21 years. She takes the time to know each of her students personally. When she talks to her students she immediately drops to their level. She celebrates everyone of their successes and cheers them on when they are stumbling. Everything she does with the students is a learning adventure. She doesn’t settle for status quo.
Matthew– constantly challenges his students thinking. He doesn’t let them get away with the easy one word answer. He makes them question their beliefs and think critically. He helps them break free of the robot mentality and causes them to be real thinkers.
Susan– A P.E. teacher who believes that every student can shine and should try their best regardless of their athletic ability. She helps those kids who aren’t athletic feel valuable and encourages them to try everything. She celebrates them right where they are.
Karen– a librarian with a real passion for helping students discover that they love reading. She spends hours with them to discover their passions and interests so she can recommend a book they will love.
Christa– an art teacher that helps every student see the world through the eyes of an artist. She breaks down art into manageable pieces so that every single student feels success.

Mary Anne said:

I am drawn immediately to Heather Foster…a 3rd grade teacher here in town…she is able to encourage, challenge and nurture students at all levels in her room. Students who have had her previous years will say, yeah, I am in the Foster Family, and that is how they feel. They are free to experiment, reach, think and learn in her room. Mistakes are avenues to continue the learning and are celebrated. Each student is really motivated to do his/her best…
As a parent, I want her cloned…I want each child to have a chance to have a teacher who loves her job and loves them. The investment in each child is obvious to everyone around.

Lissa Metzler said:

My first year teaching I was fortunate enough to work with Gwen Baccus who with over 30 years of experience could work wonders with first graders. She had them writing amazing sentences, learning fractions, and one student who entered and won a speech competition. I learned a lot from her and her students were better people for having her.


Thanks to all the great teachers out there! You ARE appreciated more than you know!