suedensmore.net

Love when the boys gather round and start fixing stuff. Incidentally, they did.

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Sue Densmore
603-427-3765
Scheduler: http://tungle.me/suedensmore

(by guest blogger Leah Pelletier)

The Triton Regional High School Winter Color Guard took home its first championship medal this past Saturday, March 31st, at the New England Winter Color Guard Championship held by the New England Scholastic Band Association.

Winter Color Guard is called “the sport of the arts” since it incorporates music, dance, and acting. Winter Color Guard is similar to the color guards you see in marching bands and drum corps, though it is performed indoors and the sole focus is on the art of spinning flags, sabers, and rifles.

The group, consisting of 12 multi-talented young women from 8th graders to seniors, competed against 10 other Winter Color Guards in their division, Local Scholastic Regional A. Receiving a 95.2 the guard scored their first ever championship medal.  The group’s instructors are Leah Pelletier, Neil Butler, and Liz Butler, and it is an activity of Triton’s Department of Visual and Performing Arts, headed by Sue Densmore.  The group members are Laura Johnson (Captain), Julia Snelling, Taylor Martens, Michelle Anderson, Alissa Stevenson, Alessandra Greco, Rose Gaffin, Kaylin Blaney, Ana Perreault, Christine Denaro, Emily Booth, and Ashley Greco.

They began their season this past November and started competitions this February. Their show entitled “Wherever You Will Go” set to the song “Wherever You Will Go” by Charlene Soraia portrayed the struggles of growing up and trying to hold onto your childhood memories, a concept that the guard members could easily relate to.

Their competition was tough all season. They practiced countless hours in the hopes of beating a fellow guard who had been stealing the first place position all season. With their commitment and tremendous hard work the girls kept their promise to work together as a team and pulled off this huge accomplishment.

Let's see if I understand.

The Republican Congreesional leadership thinks it is a bad thing to regulate airlines, oil companies, banks, investment firms, and myriad other business type stuff.

But it is a good thing to regulate the internet in a blunt, ham-handed way to protect big media companies.

Excuse me, but when did these congressmen forget that they are supposed to be watching out for the citizenry, not big business?

Oh, yeah, when they saw how much money those big corporations would hand over to them for their faulty memories.

We are there.

Where the people who really knew said we would be.

We've reached the point in the life of education under NCLB where more schools than not will fail to reach AYP.  "They" drew a straight line of targets from 2001 to 2014, where in 2014 100% of students would be "proficient" in math and reading.

Look, let me just draw an analogy that most of you reading this will relate to.  Ever try to get to a goal weight?  Yeah?

How's that last 10 pounds coming?

And that is your personal goal, and really depends on you.  The goal set by NCLB is for everyone, whether they or their parents think it is worthy, or do anything to help.

And so, we are here, and it turns out the educators were correct all along.

We told you so.

It was such a great time, getting together with a couple of colleagues, leading our fellow professionals through a week of tech clinics.  I call them clinics because it was not a typical workshop.  Way less talking head, way more hands on playing with the toys.

I had a conversation yesterday about tech, when someone asked me what "music technology" is.  

The question struck me kind of funny.  Because I use music technology every single day.  It's just not the tech that everyone is fascinated with right now; not the kind of tech that is involved with the buzz words and grant opportunities that exist in the current educational climate.

Someone figured out how to drill holes in a hollowed out piece of wood in the right places to be able to make different notes.  That was a technological breakthrough of amazing proportions, that led to similarly earth-shattering technologies.  

Consider music tech - keys, pads, piston valves, rotary valves, mouthpieces with different bores and shanks and cups, ligatures that make a difference in the ability of a reed to vibrate truly on the mouthpiece so that the sound travels clearly through metal tubing of the right size and shape so that it sounds like a saxophone.

Consider music tech - strings, and frets, and tuning machines that lock, and shaped hollow bodies.

Consider music tech - beaters of different size and shape, chains and pulleys that move double kicks, heads made of various materials for different sounds.

All of it modeled on the idea that vibrations traveling through different cavities of different shapes can have different and pleasing sounds; modeled on the human voice, the one instrument everyone owns for free.

So, ask me about music tech, and you likely want me to talk about sequencing software, or Band in a Box, or sampling and MIDI.   All of them are tools meant to open up our own creativity with music.  And teaching these tools to students is about teaching them to make music, and be creative.  It is never about the tools themselves, wondrous as they are.

They're just tools.

I have been fortunate to discover the power of several so-called "Web 2.0" tools to help me in my professional life.  Via Twitter, I have been able to build a personal learning network.  Through that network and through reading several excellent blogs, I have learned about Weebly, Diigo, Dropbox, Evernote, and all manner of helpful productivity and communication tools.  As the lead teacher in a busy arts department, organization is important, and anything that helps me streamline that is a good thing.

Plus, the tools are fun.  Finding more of them is fun.  And learning from all those dedicated professionals is fun.

I have received more professional development of better quality online than I have had in my school in several years.  As a music teacher, I am constantly forced to take whatever everyone else is doing and try to adapt it for me, all the while having to ignore the development of skill in areas which are unique to my position.  I am a band director.  With the exception of the New England Band Directors Institute, I have not been allowed to go to anything for the last four or five years that is germane to actual music teaching.  And the only reason I went there was that it was after school ended, and I paid for it myself.  I say this not to be bitter, but to help the reader understand my predicament, and just how much it meant to start finding music teachers on Twitter with whom to share, and from whom to learn.

At any rate, I found myself becoming a "Twitter-vangelist" of sorts, and talking about the tools I found.  Now, there are two more teachers from my school who are like-minded, and so we put our heads together and came up with a class.  It's a series of clinics, actually, with lots of hands on time.  I am so excited to share what I have learned with others in my district.

This is what professional development should be.

There were a few things I wanted to point out at the end of the awards banquet the other day.  But I had to stop talking, because I couldn't get it together.  I figured I could communicate the rest of this via this blog (cross posting on www.tritonarts.net.)  

This may sound familiar to those who have been around me for any period of time.

What we do is unique, and it is very difficult for those who have never done it to understand.

Those who were at the banquet will recall that I was talking about how personal it is to hang your art out there for the judgment of any audience.  By doing so, you hang some of your self out there.  To reject your performance, or your artistic creation, is to reject you in a way.

But to have your art accepted?  Appreciated it for what it is and for where it came from?  That's one of the greatest feelings a person can ever have.  During a public performance or presentation, there is an energy feedback loop when all is going well, and when an audience is enjoying what's being offered.  And that energy brings even better things out of a performance.  As a result, there is a communal event - a shared memory is made, and a shared experience binds the participants together in a way that is wonderful and memorable.

Those shared experiences become a shared history.  In our department, we develop a story that is ours and ours alone.  But our story is a collective one, built on many shared experiences through one year, two years, more.

After the banquet, I called a friend in Califormia - a Triton grad who went through this program.  She could immediately understand what I was feeling, because she has been there, too.  She is thousands of miles away, but she was as close to me in that moment as if she were sitting at that banquet with us.  Becasue she knows the story.

You'll meet others from other places who have developed a story somewhat congruent.  And you will immediately have deeper understanding of that person because of it.

That is what we do - and that is why this is the life I have chosen. 

I attended the public hearing on the Triton budget this past Wednesday.  The first parent who spoke, a dear friend of mine and our department, asked of the crowd, "What kind of community do we want to be?"

It was, and is, a great question!  What kind of community do we want to be?

You might notice that the tagline for this web site says, "Creativity - Connection - Community."  I firmly believe that there is no better place in education to find these qualities and characteristics than in the Arts.

But it seems like society at large doesn't believe this.  We are so busy focusing on tests in basic skills in math and English that we are losing sight of the fact that our educational system is becoming nothing but preparation for these tests!  When did we decide that the only things we should be about are tests of basic math and English skills?

Lest anyone think otherwise, I want my students to have basic skills in math and English.  I would just like to see them able to apply them in a diverse range of other disciplines, including the arts.  And I would also like them all - all of them, at all ages - to have the chance to learn what the arts can teach.

To do that, the schools must have all of the resources they need.  We cannot control how much aid we are given by the state and federal governments.  That aid seems to be decreasing.  We do have control over how much we choose to spend beyond what they send us. 

We choose.  Our communities choose

So, in the face of state budget cuts, federal government cuts, and the tons of ridiculous "ed reform" talk being led by people with money who don't have any real expertise in education (that's another post), the question remains.

What kind of community shall we become? 

Our towns have an opportunity to step up and take care of our kids.  It is my hope that we do.

(cross posted from www.tritonarts.net)

I love the Sister Act movies - they're so much fun.  But I particularly love this idea Sister mary Clarence (Whoopi Goldberg's character) puts forth:

                    "If you want to be somebody, if you want to go somewhere, you've got to wake up and pay attention."

One of the things you learn in education school is that in order to learn, the students have to be paying attention.  One of the daily challenges for a teacher in any subject area is getting the attention of the learners in the class.

It is one thing to do this in an enclosed space, with students over whom one has some authority.  But I find that this idea of waking up and paying attention carries over into life.  There are weeks that go by, and I realize I barely remember what happened.  Things move quickly, and if we are not making the mental effort to pay attention, we'll miss it.

This holds true as our school district enters the budget process.  Our school committee is looking for the community to speak up about the budget.  We have certainly heard from town officials.  Where is the rest of the community?  Is life happening so quickly that we have no time to spare for these important conversations? 

Our community - and though I live far away now, I grew up here - must come together and pay attention to how we are educating our children.  I have heard it said that one great measure of a society is how it treats its children.  What will "they" say about us when our time is passed?  Will "they" be impressed at the sense of unity around ensuring great schools?  Will "they" be enjoying the benefits of our labor?

Or will they wonder who fell asleep at the switch?  Will they think we left it to chance?

Will they wonder why we weren't paying attention?

Please, friends, take an interest in the spending priorities of the school district.  Let your town officials know what the will of the community is as they make choices.  Be willing to stick your neck out and speak your piece. 

You never know who'll wake up when you do.

So, results on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) science scores have been released.

Lo and behold, they are low!

Why is anyone surprised?  In No Child Left Behind (NCLB) we have a law that requires every student to be proficient in reading and math by 2014, and punishes schools who do not make adequate yearly progress toward that goal.  We have created high stakes tests on these subjects.  Schools’ “AYP Report Cards” are published in the press.  Schools who don’t make it are labeled failures, and lately, in some cases, teachers’ names are published and they are being labeled as effective or not effective based on the math and ELA test scores.

Despite warnings from educators at the time that this would narrow the curriculum and have school leaders focused on two subject areas and the associated tests almost exclusively, all those “experts” working with President Bush (and now President Obama) said it wouldn’t happen that way. 

Oh.  Well.  As long as you’re sure.

More details are contained in this article - http://voices.washingtonpost.com/answer-sheet/science/why-naep-science-scores-were-s.html?wprss=answer-sheet.

Can we please kick the billionaires and politicians aside and start listening to the people who really know about education now?