Creating a Culture of Excellence

Chip De Stefano

Presented at 2016 Illinois Music Education Conference
and many state conferences and band director workshops

Download Session Handout

Introduction

Thanks! I’m thrilled to be here to talk about the culture in our programs.
This is my 20th year at McCracken Middle School and over that time we’ve received some nice success and recognition.
This session was developed as an attempt to answer the question “what’s the secret?” While there was certainly a lot of great teaching happening (even if I say so myself), there was more…the development of a culture that permeated everything that our program touched, that I touched. A culture that was the foundation everything else was built on.
I believe that culture is one in which:
- Excellence is a way of life. It’s expected and self perpetuating
- An atmosphere where there is a sense of urgency in rehearsal, and a feeling of what we’re trying to accomplish that day is important
- An atmosphere that is student centered, where the students have ownership of the band and their learning.
My feeling is that there are three primary things that allow us to develop this culture:
- The standards we set
- The repertoire we perform
- The way we go about planning and executing our rehearsals

Core Philosophy

“Students are a reflection of their teacher”

Throughout our teacher education, the importance of having high expectations of our students is consistently stressed.
- It is quite true that students will only rise to the expectations that we set for them.
More importantly, however, is the standard and expectation that we set for ourselves, my core philosophy for everything I believe about being a band director is that students are a reflection of their teacher.
- Perhaps more than any other statement, this is the greatest truism of being a band director.
For the purposes of this session, this must be treated as an absolute
- I have no knowledge of your individual situation
- It’s too easy to make excuses…after all there are a lot of things that can influence a program… SLIDE
  - Administrative support
  - Parent Support
  - Kids’ Attitude
  - Kids’ lack of practice
  - Money
  - Schedule
  - Facilities
- There’s only on person who has a direct touch on all things that affect the program…YOU! SLIDE
While there are certainly situations that are tougher than others, we can certainly all agree that our students will not care more than we care, work harder than we work, or practice more than we prepare for rehearsal.
So for the purposes of today keep that core philosophy as an absolute in your mind: “Students are a reflection of their teacher.”

Avoiding Excuses

So when I write on the handout, “removing resistance to change,” I’m talking about the director. and I have two suggestions while you go through the next two days.
- This is going to sound “motivational.”
  - That’s not really me, but I don’t care…it’s too easy to make excuses and that hampers our growth and the growth of our programs
  - This approach has been very beneficial to me and I hope it will be for you too.
- This is a Peter Boonshaft thing: No, because… vs. Yes, if…
  - If you find yourself thinking “We could never do that because….” or
  - Write that statement down as a “No, because…” sentence and then convert it into a “Yes, if….” sentence
  - Defending why something is not possible is far easier than figuring out how to make that very thing possible. “No, because” inhibits progress, “Yes, if” paves the way for it.
    - While there’s certainly a power of positive thinking effect. You’ve framed the problem/goal in a way that it seems attainable (even if that’s in the distant future), but more importantly you’re giving yourself a course of action to getting it done.
    - This can be an extremely powerful way to motivate students to succeed as well.

Setting the standard means starting with you

Creating a culture of excellence begins with us, with our vision, and with our personal pride in our students and our program.
More than any other academic class, the quality of instructor in the performance classroom has the largest effect on the quality of the program and music education the students receive.
So if our students are a reflection of us, then we need to be what we want our students to be, and It is vitally important that we model the professionalism that we want our students to reflect.
- There’s that famous quote, “Be the change that you want to see in the world.” As band directors, we must be the change we wish to see in our classroom.
The standard we set for ourselves must be very high
- What I’m not talking about here is the “infallible king” of the band room. I’m talking about framing the environment in which our students will learn…and that starts with the person on the podium.
  - We can’t be afraid of making mistakes, to admitting our mistakes, and most importantly…learning for our mistake.
If we want our students to learn, then we must be open to learning. I’m preaching to choir with this one. You are all spending this entire week of your summer trying to become better.
- Listening to recordings
- Attending concerts/festivals
- Attending workshops and conventions.
- Regularly observing other teachers.
- Read music journals/magazines
- Joining professional organizations
- Reading books about teaching.
How many of you plan on telling your students that you’re taking classes this summer?
- You absolutely should!
- I want to try something I read in a book last night
We can’t be afraid to care…to care what the group sounds like and to care about the kids.
- Students don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.
We have a limited amount of time with each student and we must approach our time with them with a sense of urgency so that they will too.
- I’m starting to realize as well, that we really have a limited time for our careers! I used to think the 33-35 years was a long time!
Students will rise to the level of expectation you set for them, they will never exceed it.
- I really the ideal is something along the lines of this: “My students will behave, prepare, rehearse, and perform as professionals.”
  - This sets the standard exceptionally high
  - It also covers virtually every aspect of your program.
- Furthermore, it’s not enough to just set the standard.
  - You have to set the expectation, then provide the students with the necessary tools, most importantly your time, but also the training they need to help them meet those expectations.
We want to deliberately think about the professional culture you are going to create.
Think about it for a second…pretend that I were to give you an assignment to write out a to-do list of everything you have to do this school year.
- Now, we’re not actually going to do this, because I only have a couple hours this morning and we all know that we could easily fire off 6 pages of stuff before we even stopped to think about it, but we can certainly visualize how long that list would be.
  - I looked at the completed log of my todo list software, and there were around 800 completed items on it for the last 12 months…and that was just the stuff I wrote down.
- Anyway…my point is, is that everything on that list, however big or little, is an opportunity to model professional behavior to your students and a chance to influence the professional culture of your program.
So let’s take a quick moment to do some self-assessment of the professional culture of our own program. One approach would be to make a list
- Nothing is too small. Everything that has you name on it, or your program’s name, makes an impression. It’s a reflection of you and your program.
  - It takes an extra half second to make sure a stamp goes on an envelope straight, but that half second is the difference between looking like you care or looking like you don’t care
- What will your correspondence looking like? Website? Email signature?
  - Taken to the extreme, it’s almost like you’re creating a brand. Choosing fonts, colors, images that will remain consistent throughout your program.
  - What are your concert programs going to look like? Other things you hand out to the kids?
    - You don’t have to reinvent the wheel, find a program design you like from attending other concerts and steal it
    - Include the kids’ names.
  - Generally speaking it’s important to have the kids’ name visible throughout the room. Locker list, band rosters, passoff posters, etc…
    - Goes a long way to helping the students a sense of ownership of the program

Raising the standard

Modeling

So, hopefully it’s obvious that it’s important that we provide the model of what we want our students to aspire to. but it’s equally as important that we model ourselves and our programs after others that we respect.
Who are you modeling your program after?
Find the highest quality program that is doing the things you want your program to do that you have access to.
- Hendrix Junior High School
You may not be able to replicate everything, exactly, but that’s okay.
- Observe their rehearsals
- Invite them to work with your students
- Have your students listen to that band
Over time things will evolve into your own style, but you’re evolve from a solid foundation of proven success
Ideally you will never stop doing this to a certain extent, even for an established program
- When I hear something I like in another band…BAM, instantly I want to know how they did it and how can I replicate it.
- Lockport High School tone example

Clinicians

Having the best possible musicians in to work with your students is on of the primary things I do to maintain a high standard in our program
To me, this is not an extra. Not only is it important from a helping the kids get better standpoint, but it’s extremely motivating as well.
When we have clinicians work with our kids, I want them to treat them as if they were their own students.
- Q: “Anything specific you want me to work on” A: “Make them better”
As teachers we can, at times, create excuses for our kids. We see parents do this all the time.
- Our guests, however, don’t have any preconceptions of what our kids are capable of doing.
- There’s lots of times I’ll observe a guest clinician trying to make a certain section play more maturely and I’ll think to myself…good luck, I just got them to stop picking their noses yesterday.
  - But that’s important!
This should go without saying, but bringing in a guest is not the time to take a break, catch up on emails, etc…
- Grab a legal pad and a pen and take notes!!!

Persistent Questions

Finally, I think there are a handful of questions we should be asking ourselves at least a couple times each week. I call them “persistent questions” that should always be in the back of our mind, but also come to the forefront of our mind when we’re having to make big decisions affecting our students and program.
- “What’s in the best interest of my students?”
- “What would John Paynter do?” You know, the thing is, when I read or hear people complaining or making excuses…. “What would William Revelli have done?”
- “What does the Chicago Symphony do?”
  - Fourth graders waving to parents…

The Rehearsal

Rehearsals

I love rehearsing.. Even more than performing many of my most favorite memories of the last 20 years are in the rehearsal room. It’s my favorite time of the day. In fact, I decided to become a band director during a 6th grade band rehearsal 30 years ago.

Sacred time with our students

To me, rehearsal time is sacred. More than anything, time is the most valuable commodity we have with our students.
- We need as much as we can get.
- Almost no amount is too much, so the time we do have must be maximized and used with a sense of urgency every day.
- Our students won’t do that unless we treat it like that kind of importance.
Doing this forces us to be more efficient in rehearsals, and we are communicating to our students that we will not waste their time, and we expect that they will respect our time as well.
- Respecting our students’ time goes a long way in creating the atmosphere of mutual respect needed for a successful, mature, ensemble.
Rehearsals start and end on time
No wasted time….bell to bell instruction
- You need a plan. What do you want to accomplish today?
  - Proper preparation eliminates potential for waste.
  - If this time is truly sacred, we want to spend it helping our students get better
- Don’t spend rehearsal time on stuff that can be handled outside of rehearsal
  - Fundraising
  - Handing out music – have it on their chair already when they walk in.
Order on the board
- On board before students arrive
- Students put music in order on stand before rehearsal starts
Students need to be trained on rehearsal procedures
- Tell them: “This is how we’re going to do this.”
- Practice: “Ok. Let’s practice that.”
- Follow through.
- Retrain when necessary
Never cancel rehearsal
- Do I need my instrument tomorrow? WHAT!?!?!?!
No days “off”
- Movies, play games, study hall, etc…
- Rehearsals only happen once. Make the most of it
- You know that awful feeling right be a performance where you wish you just had a little more rehearsal time? Guess what, you had it…
- Frankly, if you feel you have the luxury to do this, your performance schedule needs to be evaluated to better accommodate your program.
What to do in lull windows?
- Music, music, music, music…

Rehearsal: Planning and Preparation

Reminder: students will not practice more than you prepare for rehearsal
- Let them know how much time you spent preparing
- Battisti story
Record rehearsals
- For my money, this is the most beneficial form of rehearsal planning there is, because it is reflection and planning all in one.
  - For major performances, audition recording sessions I’ll record every rehearsal for 3 – 4 weeks prior to the event.
  - The year we performed at Midwest, we recorded almost every rehearsal that fall.
  - I’ll spend anywhere from an hour to 3 hours listening to that recording and developing a rehearsal plan for the next time we hit that piece
  - Fix it sheets
I don’t feel something truly sounds good, until it sounds good on tape. I call it my lie detector.
A quick scan of the waveform tells me how the pace of rehearsal was, and especially if I’m talking too much SLIDE
It can be very difficult, even painful to listen to rehearsal recordings, but it gets easier in time.
- Old room
- Everything sounded like crap, but if I could get it to sound good on that tape, it sounded amazing in real life
- Many different ways to record now-a-days, there’s almost no excuse to not do it.
  - Audacity
  - Handheld digital recorders
  - Professional setups
- Playing rehearsal recordings for students, alternating sections with professional ensemble
Give each section of the piece a grade.

Atmosphere

I believe the ideal middle school band rehearsal is high energy, filled with a sense of urgency, and relentless.
- Students are playing a high percentage of the time. They learn while they’re playing, not while we’re talking
- They can’t talk with the mouthpiece is against their face.
Ideally the full rehearsal is for ensemble skills
- You come to rehearsal to learn everyone else’s part
- Things that can be handled more efficiently in sectionals, should be handled in sectionals
- If we are addressing a specific section, we need to know the score well enough to be able to work with that section while the whole band is playing.
Student centered
- Never use the word “I” instead of “I want it this way”
- Use the kids’ names for crying out loud!!!!!!
Remember, for many of your students band is their favorite time of the day.

Pearl moments: Building blocks of excellence

We spend a lot of time stressing about getting our students to care, but how much time to we spend teaching our students specifically what they should be caring about
- It’s not caring about band!
- It’s about the music
- And it’s about them caring about themselves and finding the greatness in themselves
We can do this through what Peter Boonshaft calls “pearl moments”
These pearl moments are moments of beauty. Moments of achievement. Even if it’s one note, one chord, every single one of our rehearsals needs to have one (or more) of these moments.
Moments where we have an opportunity to say “YES! That’s our goal. That’s what we’re try to achieve and it can’t ever be worse than that again.”
What good does it do to only have high standards? It’s certainly possible to have high standards and a band that sucks. What good does it do to only tell students that it’s not good enough.
My recommendation is to strive for these moments in your warmup time.
- It sets the tone for rehearsal
- Moments during this time are the easiest for the kids to transfer to the repertoire
- Rehearsing the chorale material in pursuit of pearl moments gives a real sense of urgency for that material.
- Meyer Performance example.

The Repertoire

If there’s anything we want to hold to a high standard, it’s the repertoire we perform.
Repertoire needs to be the “core” of our program. It’s certainly a topic in and of itself deserving of it’s own session…and I’m sure many of the guest this week have talked about repertoire
However, when we talk about developing our students as musicians, and developing a top notch program, repertoire selection has to be discussed.
Choosing the music our students will rehearse and perform is easily the most important thing we do each year.
Frederick Fennell said it even stronger in an Instrumentalist article over twenty years ago when he wrote “The music we choose today will affect our students forever.”
The music we select is our curriculum.
In addition, I firmly believe that quality music played well is the single most influential factor to student motivation.
Whether or not they realize it, kids love great music.
If we want our students to grow musically, that have to be challenged and presented with music of depth.

The Quandary of talking about repertoire

Each year there are sessions at the state conferences and the Midwest Clinic about selecting quality music.
But talking about literature at a conference or in this type of setting is always tricky
There are two groups of people we don’t want to offend: composers and our colleagues
I say our colleagues because I believe that band directors as a whole, myself included, genuinely feel that they select only the best music for their students.
Stephen Budiansky article

The key to choosing quality music

For the young band I feel the key to choosing quality music is selecting music in which the musical difficulty of a work meets or exceeds the technical difficulty of the work.
If a piece doesn’t meet this standard, it is not worth your students’ time.
In the fall program for your weaknesses, in the spring, program for you strengths.

Why play this when you could play

One of my best friends once said to me, “I wish people would stop looking for the next Air for Band and start playing Air for Band.”
While I’m not particularly fond of that piece, his point is well taken. The passage of time is one the finest indicators of quality.
Play the classics. Hindemith story —
If your group is capable of playing hard grade three or four literature take a look at one of the movements of English Folk Song Suite, a Holst Suite, Persecheitti’s Paegant or a Grundman Rhapsody.
- I’ve heard recordings of middle school bands performing Festive Overture by Shostakovich, Armenian Dances by Alfred Reed, Incantation and Dance by John Barnes Chance, Music for Prague, American Overture for Band
- So the question is, of course, how do your get your kids to be able to play this type of literature.
  - The flippant answer is that you have to put it in front of them…
  - One of the things I love to do between our Winter Concert and winter break is to pull out Variations on a Korean Folk Song or American Overture for Band. I’ve yet to have a band that would be able to get it to performance level, but it’s lots of fun and for two weeks my kids are practicing all that nasty technique. It certainly it beats throwing a video in.
- Don’t be afraid to rewrite the music. Modify parts for students that are struggling. Write in doublings for weaker sections. Add percussion parts so that all students are involved. Just be sure to maintain the intent of the composer and arranger.
If you still like the newest *********** overture a couple years from now, it’ll still be there for you to program.

Marches

The same goes for marches.
If all the composers of the world decided that they would never write another march until the end of time we’d be fine.
We have middle school accessible marches, not easy arrangements, but original marches or authentic editions by Karl King, Henry Fillmore, and even a few by John Philip Sousa that we should be exposing our students to.

Transcriptions

Perform an authentic transcription instead of a watered down arrangement.
Even at an easier grade levels there is lots of material available. For example, the Renaissance transcriptions by Bob Margolis, and others by Ken Singleton.
Look for technically simple music that’s not simple music.
Music that will help our students grow.

Folk Music/Cultural Music

Abramo article

Expose your students to lot of literature

Get through as much literature as possible each year.
- The model of preparing 3 or 4 tunes for a Winter Concert, and three tunes for contest season is not one that encourages musical growth.
- Six to eight weeks, depending on your amount of rehearsal time, is plenty of time to prepare for a performance.
- If you don’t do so already, consider adding an early fall concert. It will actually improve your Winter Concert.
- For the last 19 years, I’ve started my first rehearsal on the first day of school by saying. “Welcome back. Our first concert is 6 weeks from today. Let’s get to work.” It’s very motivating.
Take advantage of every chance you have to change music.
- There’s plenty of time to change at least one or two, if not all three, tunes between District and State Contest.
- If you’re not sure what to do immediately after a performance, rehearse music that you don’t plan to perform.
Programing lots of music has an added benefit of diluting the duds.
How long are you working on it.
And remember…don’t estimate what your students are capable of LOVING! They will reflect you, and even if they don’t like a piece initially, if you really believe in the piece the kids will either grow to love it or worst case, they’ll tolerate it.

Student Ownership

Motivation

I think it’s hard to discuss student ownership without discussing student motivation…and while I suppose it’s possible to have motivated students without any ownership, I’m not so sure it works the other way around.
Every kid is different, and we have to find the right buttons to push with each individual kid, but hopefully SLIDE
But generally, Student Motivation = perceived odds of success * value of achieving goal
As band directors we have tremendous influence on both of these.
My philosophy on student motivation relies heavily on the theories of our good friend Abraham Maslow and his hierarchy of needs:
- 1. Physiological needs (air, water, food)
- 2. Safety needs (physical security)
- 3. Belonging needs (friendship, family)
- 4. Esteem needs (respect from others and self-respect)
- 5. Self actualization (become the best they can be)
If you remember from your college sociology classes, lower needs must be satisfied before the individual is motivated by higher needs. i.e. You’re not motivated to practice for your performance on recital if there
Ideally, we want students to practice because they are motivated to become the best musicians they can possibly be. If we look at the typical ways that we as directors motivate kids to practice, however:
- Grades (esteem)
- Chair Placement (esteem, belonging,safety)
- Playing tests (esteem)
- Challenges (safety)
- Fear (safety)
- Intimidation (esteem, safety)
- Guilt (belonging)
- Superficial rewards (physiological)
That’s not to say that these methods don’t have their place. Some kids will only respond to some of these and it’s our job as teachers to find the right button or buttons to push for each child. But it’s also our job to help our kids move past those lower levels of needs and try to get them to that “self actualization” level.
Of course, doing this is easier said than done, but I think there are several things we can do that will help all of our students become more successful in this regard:

Be the model of what we want our kids to be

I could talk about this for hours (literally), but I won’t. Most of my session last year was on this. So I’ll leave it with that I firmly believe that students are a reflection of their teacher…and if we want them to be motivated by their self-actualization, we have to be too…but that’s another session.

The impact of the words we use

Carol Dweck (Professor of Psychology at Stanford University). Research
Talk about study
She was so surprised by the results, she’s ran the experiment three more times with the same result.
That’s crazy…the effect 6 little words can have on our students. We have to be really careful what we say and how we say it, because it directly affects our students motivation.
I’ve been trying really hard the last two years to gear my praise towards my students effort.
- “Wow, you must have practiced that a lot.”
- Does it work? Honestly I don’t know.
- Probably yes, sometimes, no sometimes.
- But I really like that I’m focusing my attention on what matters most with my students.

Giving students the vision of being life-long musicians

Gary McPherson study Commitment and Practice: Key Ingredients for Achievement During the Early Stages of Learning a Musical Instrument.
- In this study he followed 133 kids through their first 3 years in band.
- Through interviews, data tracking, and performance assessments he tracked lesson attendance, practice habits, grades, and found that the strongest indicator for success wasn’t practice time, grades, attendance or anything we would probably initially guess
- The highest performing students were those that saw themselves playing an instrument well into the future.
  - Even to the point that the kids who had the longest commitment where higher achieving that kids who practiced more than them but didn’t have such a long term view.
- In addition, lowest achieving kids tended to focus on extrinsic reasons for joining band. Some of the quotes in the study were:
  - “I wanted to learn because all my friends were joining the band. My sister plays piano, not a band instrument.”
  - “My sister told me music and the band was good and that you get to go and have McDonald’s after performances.”
- The highest achieving students reasons were way different:
  - “I’ve always like music and rhythm for as long as I can remember from being a baby I’ve always like the sound of instruments.”
  - “I liked the sons of my sister playing piano, and wanted to be as good as her. I wanted to play a particular song she played.”
Studies like this have lots of implications for our programs. For me, as a guy who is constantly looking for any possible way to make my band better…I know my efforts to get more kids retained into the high school program actually help my program too.
It’s also caused me to double my efforts in bringing in guest artists and exposing my students to professionals and community performances not just because it gives them a model to which to aspire, but maybe more importantly gives them a vision of themselves playing as adults.
In addition, I’ve started tracking my students vision to if they see themselves playing in high school…so that hopefully I can see if I can measure the effect of some of our activities on their long term commitment. I usually when surveying the students for something. I’ll through in a question asking how like they are to play in high school “very likely, likely, don’t know, etc.”
Student Goal sheets
Self Assessment
Most important, is that students should always have something that they are working towards throughout the year.

Mentoring

It sounds simple, but the easiest way to develop student ownership is for us to let go a little bit and give them ownership!
- There are many tasks we do that could just as easily be appropriate to be handled by a student if we trained them how.
- I am, admittedly, the worst at this, but I do think that if a task can wait until later when a student can do it, then we shouldn’t do it ourselves!
We have a sort of “band mentor” program at McCracken that…in addition to being remarkably helpful…develops a real sense of ownership in our kids.
- There are many advantages to such a program for both the mentor and the mentee.
  - The struggling student gets more help
  - The student who just switched instruments isn’t sitting in rehearsal lost the whole time
  - The kid who needs just a little extra help on a certain aspect of their playing gets it.
- The mentee receives these lessons and guidance from someone you trust and someone who knows what your expectations are.
- The mentee gets to work with someone close to their age who performs at a high level and provides a wonderful model that they can aspire to achieve.
- Mentors, with your guidance, get valuable, real world teaching experience at a young age.
  - They become excited about teaching, often coming back to you asking how to handle certain performance problems that their student had during the lesson.
Sometimes, I think we underestimate how much our younger students learn from our older students in rehearsals. This type of program takes this type of learning, amplifies it at a younger age, and uses it to our advantage.
I’m unable to use band mentors for my beginners because of the rehearsal schedule at the elementary school and middle school that I teach. It is, however, extensively used with my 5th graders. I Everyone loves it. The fifth graders are constantly asking me if they are getting pulled for a lesson that day. More importantly, both mentor and mentee grow as musicians.

Assessment

My students at McCracken don’t receive grades for being in band.
- Sometimes I think that I want to change that, at least go to a pass fail
- But part of me likes not being able to use grades as motivation for the kids. That the music, and the way we play it, is really the most important thing.
Although the kids don’t get grades. I am assessing them all of the time
- Chair placements
- Line pass-off/mastery
- Playing tests
- Watkins-Farnum
Particularly with the new state-mandates regarding student growth being factored into our teacher evaluations. I think it’s important that we get ahead of the curve.
- “This is how I’m going to demonstrate growth in my students.” rather than having someone else tell us how they are going to measure student growth.

David Gregory: IT HAS EVERYTHING TO DO WITH THE PERSON ON THE PODIUM

You control the pacing, productivity, and climate of every rehearsal
Your students will reflect what they see in you from the podium
Be careful what you say and how you say it – our students are very likely to misunderstand our best intentions (everything you say will make it home)
Profanity of any kind is TOTALLY unacceptable around students
Our students depend on us for “all things musical”
Our students choose us – we must never forget that fact.
To each of our students we represent something different, and to each one we provide something special they possibly do not get anywhere else in their lives.