Band Directors Please Comment

[officermayo]

Is this a common situation?

[Posaunus]

[BigBadandBass]

My GF was a former band director. This is totally typical, I can ask her for more info if you want but in short. She ended up quitting because some kids start to go around and attack teachers who talked back to them or straight up assault other kids. We’re talking handcuffs, ambulances and restraining orders on a weekly basis.

I have a friend who teaches at a very low funded school, had to break up 2 kids because one decided he wanted to play her flute, she didn’t want him to and then slammed him down on the hard floor. Apparently the stain was there for the rest of the semester……..

[musicofnote]

Speaking to friends in the US and friends here in Switzerland, this seems to be the case often enough in the US. The main complaints I've heard HERE from friends, is the amount of paperwork has reached staggering amounts, but the complaints about general behavior don't seem to have inceased that much and certainly not concerning overt aggression, here in Switzerland.

OTOH, listening to my daughter who has one child in pre-school and one in Kindergarten, she's thrilled with the pedagogical qualities shown her kids and especially what one calls "Fingerspitzengefühl" (sensitivity for lack of a better term) concerning the teachers' interactions with children.

The more important question: While things aren't perfect here, why are there fewer such problems apparently here than in the US?

I did my training in the US in Cincinnati. I taught there from 1973-77 before coming over to Switzerland, where I taught here until 2000. Inspite of having an award winning band program, good relations with students and teachers, my downfall was school-internal politics and what is generally termed "mobbing", which pushed me into a burnout.

What I'm trying to impress here is that there are myriad influences on teachers, some good, some bad. If you get into a situation with one or more sources of bad influence, you can get the feeling, that you as a teacher can't cope anymore. Teachers have had, generally speaking, a rough 3 years with distance learning, but then so have the kids. A lot has changed, much has become "unsure" and this too has had it's influence on teachers and kids, not to mention school administrations, school boards, kids and parents. On the one hand, we don't have the pressures of the dangers of guns everywhere, mass shootings, a society ripped apart culturally and politically and how those pressures filter down into the schools. On the other hand, we do have the pressure of a war going on 2200 miles away, where we see every day the concrete evidence of this on the faces of people living amongst us as refugees of that war as well as wars in the Middle East and in other areas of the world - 25% of the residents of Switzerland are foreigner from all parts of the world and many bring their own horror stories with them. In any case, teachers here in schools, besides the normal teaching load, also have to consider cultural mixes, traumatised refugee kids and how to support them while also integrating them into the school life.

Solutions? ??? ???? ?????

Sorry for the length ... but it's certainly not a simply problem with sinple solutions.

[WilliamLang]

About 75% of places I've taught K-12 at have been better, and a few a worse, and a couple a LOT worse, though a lot of these problems can be seen in every school at some level.

Here's a solution - tax the richest and give that money to universal basic income, so that the stress most parents feel financially from providing for their children is lessened. Also much better funding for school systems nationwide on top of that, like double teacher's salaries and increase staff so there's not as much burnout.

(These are my opinions, and fwiw, I'm not going to argue with anyone that disagrees, just to be up front about that. I believe that income inequality is a leading concern in America, and that universal basic income would be wonderful and help boost a new middle class while reducing poverty. There should also be a universal freeze on consumer good and food prices and real estates prices as well, and thanks for coming to my TED talk.)

[harrisonreed]

That's some of it, but having now lived in a country outside the US with a very high cost of living and relatively poor wages for 4 years, that is still full of wonderful and disciplined kids, I think in the US at least we have serious issues with a lack of social pressure to be "good", and huge social pressure to not discipline kids.

If people felt real shame when their kids acted out in public, and "being the nail that sticks out" meant that all of society hammers you down, kids would be more disciplined.

In Japan kids seem to grow up a lot faster and have way more autonomy than kids in the US. I'm talking groups of 10 year olds traversing Tokyo on the trains and running errands for their families. Or just hanging out. I think kids in the US are just too sheltered and over protected.

[Posaunus]

Good observations Harrison!

[VJOFan]

Not a”band” teacher (anymore) but a high school teacher. I am pretty sure that the vast majority of my colleagues across North America would agree with the flavor of what the teacher in the video describes. We each may see different portions of the behaviors described and there may be special spicing in our specific context but the unpalatable dish of ill discipline and flagging ambition is pretty common in any school I’ve seen or read about.

I disagree that it is not a parenting problem. It’s not all a parenting problem but presently the teachers in my school are expected to be responsible for or at the very least responsive to the mental health, nutrition, sleep habits and adequacy of clothing for the weather before making our classrooms safe spaces and then getting around to teaching. Some of that used to be what patent s did.

[harrisonreed]

Parenting is only part of it. From what I've seen in Japan, it takes a whole village. In the US, there is no village.

Some examples I've seen include kids getting called out on bad behavior by an elderly stranger. More often than not the kids will take their scolding and then bow to the old person.

I've seen kids not paying attention walk into street poles and fall down crying. Instead of freaking out, the parents literally point and laugh at the kid. The kids sibling helped them up, laughing too. After a few seconds, the kid who walked into the pole is laughing too.

School clubs and sports are a big part of the life of a kid here, and the clubs have a team captain and social structure based on school year. The older kids are in charge and look out for the younger kids. The younger kids know their turn is coming where they need to watch out for their juniors. It's very much a team effort to be the best they can be at whatever club they built. Interestingly, a whole team will be out training and there isn't an adult to be seen.

I've also heard about bed wetters, kind of a funny story and maybe just a folk tale, but the story goes that when you wet the bed your parents yell at you and then send you to the neighbors to get a cup of salt. When the neighbor mother sees you asking for a cup of salt, she then knows what happened and has free reign to make fun of you for wetting the bed. It doesn't happen any more.

It's not just parents, it's a whole society thing. Japan is not perfect but a long shot, but there is discipline here. Not all kids are bad and not all parents bad in the US either. But our society needs work.

[jthomas105]

YES, YES, YES, IT IS COMMON!!!!!!

I have been a music educator in Texas for 39 years. 27 as a band director, 8 as an elementary music teacher, and 4 teaching private low brass lessons. I retired in 2015 and spent 4 years teaching private low brass. Fall of 2019 I returned to teach elementary music for the past 4 years. The past 3 years have been the most challenging of my career. Students are not held accountable for their actions by admin once teachers become overwhelmed with problem students after going through all protocols, IEPS, BIPS, calling parents with no results. The latest and desired plan for teachers to use is “restorative behavior” practices. What a joke. We have more students with problems than ever before. Undiagnosed and misdiagnosed issues that come from dysfunctional families with the same problems themselves. As the parent of adopted kids that came to me with problems I can tell it has been challenging for me to find the help my kids needed I was in the system with decent insurance. There are not enough pediatric medical/mental professionals that know what they are doing.

There are many sides to the problem:

1. School boards and central admin that have let parents become customers to the education system. Admin and school boards fear out of control parents because letting them become customers means they are always right.
2. Parents are a major problem, here is a link that Gerry Brooks demonstrates with a chart anyone can understand. Gerry Brook is a principal from Kentucky. He started out a few years ago posting silly/comedic things that he did with a really country accent and mispronouncing words for his staff and then other teachers. In the last couple of years he has been posting very insightful information that tells it like it is.

https://www.tiktok.com/@gerrybrooksprin ... 5109721386

3. Kids. Kids copy what they see and hear. They will lie about anything. Why not? It’s what they see our politicians doing about anything, so why not them too. If they hear things from their parents they copy that too. There is so little respect for teachers. Parents-Don’t you dare tell my kid what to do, etc.
4. Politicians and State Boards of Education-I don’t know about other states but we teach what we are told to teach in Texas. Yet we get the blame for what is wrong with education as teachers. Then they blame the teacher unions, in Texas we don't have teacher unions. We have teachers associations, we don't negotiate for anything like salary/benefits like in teacher union states. We teach what TEA and the legislators tell us to teach. Sure there are a few bad ones that cross lines but that is in every profession. People and politicians complain that we teach to the test, of course we do, that is what we are judged and ranked on, the success of lack of success of our students on the state required tests. The problem is we really don’t even know what is on the tests due to test security. I know when I was in school, graduated HS in 1977, my teachers had a textbook that was our curriculum, that taught a chapter or two then we had a test over that information, seems to me like that is teaching to a test. That was even the norm in college, we were taught and told to read/study certain information and them tested over that.
I could go on and on but I’m tired from yard work and repairing a fence damaged in a wind storm a few weeks ago.

[Cotboneman]

I taught high school and middle school band and choir for 34 years in a small to medium size Southern Arizona district, before retiring in 2018. I did have a few challenging during my career, and I also saw plenty of changes with respect to school admin and school boards moving toward so-called "customer service", which opened the door to far more influence on curriculum and policies from non-professional educator interests. No behaviors though as have been described here.
I have to think however, from my conversations with former colleagues, that the pandemic and the sporadic shutdowns schools endured throughout 2020, had some strong negative impact on degrading the school environment and the overall teaching-learning experience. I know several who left teaching during this time, citing administrative roadblocks, student and parent attitude changes and red tape. I'm glad that I was able to retire when I did.

[robcat2075]

40 years ago this month I was counting down the days to the conclusion of my one and only year of public school band directing. It is daunting to realize there are events in my adult life so long ago.

• The video comments/complaints by the band director and the principal who appears to be living in his car are unremarkable. I can recognize what they are witnessing to in what I observed.

• I expected problem students. The bonkers parents were a surprise.

• I am doubtful of the band director who had a long list of "it's not ______, it's not ______, it's not ______..."
  Those have all been solved since I was teaching? That's amazing!

• I recall a thread, maybe on the old forum, where someone was asking about music education as a career. I warned that there will be students who are intentionally disruptive and intentionally destructive and that dropping them from the band will not be an available option. I was immediately accused of "kow-towing".

• I suspect that for most of the people here, if they have any experience teaching, it's been private lessons or maybe the church choir. Those are very different dynamics than when it's you and 85 kids and you are responsible for keeping every one of them in line and on track... even if they are on-the-other-bus or in-the-bathroom and you can't see what they are doing.

• Prospective public school band directors should be aware that they are not, for the most part, training future musicians...you are attempting enrichment with students who are a cross-section of society. Consider that most of a cross-section of adults would not be interested in your class... and you have to make it work with 14-year-olds.

• I concur with the previously expressed thesis that the no-stay-at-home-parent-households are the core problem. Consistent adult guidance is lacking. However, that makes me sound like a 70s education theorist..."There are no bad children, just bad parents"

• As a 70s education theorist I believe in the mission of public schools. But if I had kids, knowing what I know, I'd probably be one of the parents agitating for school vouchers so i could send my kids to a decent private school where learning gets done.

Parenting is only part of it. From what I've seen in Japan, it takes a whole village. In the US, there is no village.

Some examples I've seen include kids getting called out on bad behavior by an elderly stranger. More often than not the kids will take their scolding and then bow to the old person.

• I'm reminded of the Japanese trombone player I used to be in sections with. He said that to be in the school band in Japan your parents had to sign a form giving the band director permission to beat you.

• I wasn't quite driven to the tears and exasperation we see in the two video commenters. I realized I could leave. They're trapped and the only way off the Titanic now is to swim for it in the ice water.

• I've never been so relieved to get in my car and drive away from somewhere as I was on that last afternoon in CatBox, West Texas. To this day, the recurring nightmare I am most glad to wake up from is the one where I am still a high school band director.

[robcat2075]

Is there something affecting kids differently today? I can only speculate but...

• More of our popular entertainments today are about presenting conflict. Whether it is a reality show, mixed martial arts, cable news talk shows, video games, superhero movies... a lot of effort is directed to creating and displaying angry conflict, even where there was no need for it.

• In the 1980s the networks' Standards and Practices depts decreed that children's programming must be about cooperating. There couldn't be conflict between the main characters, they had to solve their problem by cooperating. "Scooby Doo" was a fore-runner of that notion. Gene Roddenberry's vision for "Star Trek" was like that... the core conflict should never be among the crew, they work together to solve an external problem (Klingons, Tribbles, time warps, etc...). Many 1980s family sitcoms were like that. They solved their very special problem by calmly working it out.

• That was a very limiting directive for screen writers but kids consumed a lot of that messaging in the 1980s and 90s when the TV was their babysitter in the no-fulltime-parent households. Today, the babysitter isn't delivering such constructive messages. Today the babysitter says that the normal first reaction to even a small problem is to fight about it and that drawing attention to one's self has merit.