THE INCLUSIVE ORCHESTRA: Meeting Students Where They Are

As educators, it is always our job to move students forward. To take them to new and exciting places; places they never even knew existed. As orchestra teachers, both the destination and the direction we travel with our students can vary widely. Are we going hard-core classical, conservatory-style? Or maybe you are more of a rock-out, jam-band kind of director. Do you focus on reading sheet-music to the highest level? Or are you more focused on playing by ear? Anybody working on improv?

Whatever direction we take with our students, we know that the destination they reach when they graduate is never the final one for them, simply one stop along their life's journey. The hope is always that music will continue to be a part of their lives after they leave us. But in order for us to engage in that journey together with our students, we first need to meet them where they are.

So where are they?

Every student comes to us from their own unique position. It can be a challenge to meet every student, particularly when they come from disparate places. For the majority of our kids, we can find where they are by assessing their position in just a few areas.

Dreams/goals/aspirations

Why did your students sign up for orchestra? What are their dreams and ambitions on their instrument? What did they expect their experience to be like in this class? What are their musical preferences? The sooner you can meet those expectations and move toward those goals, the better! For more on this topic, check out THIS POST.

Prior Knowledge

All students come to us with musical experiences, knowledge, and skills. We need to validate those experiences and honor them as legitimate, especially when they are outside the realm of focus for the orchestra classroom. Knowing that we recognize the knowledge and musical skill they already have allows our students to trust us. That trust is the starting point for the journey we are about to embark on together. For more on this topic, check out THIS POST.

MUSICAL SKILL development

What do students currently know? What can they already do? What gaps exist in their knowledge, technique, or application? The only way to answer these questions is through individual assessment. For more on this topic, check out THIS POST.

needs

For many students, learning to play an instrument can be exactly what they need for growth (social-emotional AND cognitive). But sometimes students are not yet ready to engage on a deep level with the experience, particularly if their basic needs are not yet being met. If you are not familiar with Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, check out this 2-minute, fun video:

When I'm struggling to reach a student, it always feels personal, and I encounter my own ego every time I face such a situation. But perhaps when we encounter a resistant student, we should ask more questions:

What needs does this child have that are not being met?
How can I help to meet those needs?
How can I help this student experience joy and success so that playing an instrument is a POSITIVE influence on this child's life and not another cause for stress?

the meeting point

Regardless of the unique perspectives of your students, their goals, their prior knowledge, their skill level, and their diverse needs, all of us are in the orchestra room for one reason: THE JOY OF MAKING MUSIC TOGETHER! If we can give our students (and ourselves) joy, it will motivate, inspire, and encourage our students and the ensemble as a whole. It is important, therefore, that the repertoire we choose to engage in with our students is FUN, and reflects their interest, ideas, and helps them to accomplish their goals.

The challenge in enacting this in a diverse classroom is that what gives joy for one student may be incredibly frustrating for another.

A bronx tale

In NYC, the system purports the idea of "school choice" by requiring every student to "apply" for middle school and high schools. The result is that students come to every middle school from a random collection of elementary schools that may or may not have a music program at all, let alone an instrumental program. There is no way to ensure that a student who begins playing cello in elementary school can continue playing through middle school and into high school. As a result, every secondary instrumental program across the city has a strange combination of beginners with a wide swath of prior musical experiences combined with students who may have been playing for years. And those with experience on the instrument arrive at very different places in their journey on the instrument, having come from a diverse set of teachers, programs, and opportunities.

In strings pedagogy we often talk about "teaching to the middle" of the ensemble. But when the orchestra contains students with such diverse ability levels, teaching to the middle will leave EVERYONE unsatisfied. For example, I currently have a violist in my ensemble who is a total classical music geek. We will call her Hermione. When she is not practicing, she is researching classical music on the web. She came to me in 6th grade already able to sight-read in treble clef in 3rd position without a teacher ever having showed her how. Hermione is sitting in the same ensemble with a student we will call Hagrid. Hagrid has an IEP detailing accommodations for several learning disabilities. He receives Occupational Therapy for difficulties with dexterity, and has no formal music education at the elementary school level. After three years, he is showing progress but still performing on a beginning level. If I teach to the middle of Hermione and Hagrid, everyone will lose.

So what do I do? Hermione thinks I should just "kick out" Hagrid and all the other students like him. Hagrid thinks I should just sit right beside him and teach him every note by rote every day, and certainly never expect him to touch his instrument outside of class. (In fact, going note-by-note in a small setting does yield results with Hagrid, but is impractical in our daily rehearsals).

PEDAGOGY SIDEBAR

A solution that frequently works well in such a situation is peer mentorship. Intentionally pairing a strong player with a weak player on the same stand, making them "stand-partners" is a fabulous way to get students to work together and multiply the teachers in the room! It helps if the students are friends, or at least friendly. BEWARE: sometimes friends on the same stand can distract each other, but if you want them to work collaboratively, grouping friends together can be beneficial.

Peer Mentorship Considerations

How can you hold both partners accountable for the outcome of their collaboration?
What is the immediate, short-term goal? How much time to they need to accomplish it?
Use a timer students can see so they can pace their learning/practice.
Do students need any scaffolding to achieve their goal (checklist, rubric, how-to video or play-along recording, etc.)?
Does the "mentor" need coaching on HOW to mentor? When/how will you provide such guidance?
Observe interpersonal interactions closely. Is the relationship productive or distracting? Consider the personalities you put together. If a partnership isn't working, change it! Sometimes putting new students together actually helps them to create new friendships.
Rotate seating and stand-partners periodically so students can work on social-skills within the context of the ensemble. This also creates new sonic experiences for students.

I tried pairing Hermione and Hagrid together as a stand-partner team but it was disastrous. Hagrid simply refused to play as long as he was sitting next to Hermione. He was intimidated and embarrassed. The gap was simply too wide between the two of them. Since then, Hermione has learned to be a better peer-mentor to other students in the class, and Hagrid has learned to make the attempt even if he's afraid to be wrong, but I will never put them together again. There is no joy in feeling frustrated or embarrassed! The real solution to meeting both the needs of Hermione and Hagrid is differentiation and scaffolding instruction.

EDU-SPEAK TRANSLATOR: Differentiation

Differentiation broadly means tailoring instruction to meet the different, individual needs of the students in the classroom. In the context of the orchestra ensemble (and all music classrooms in general), we differentiate in a myriad of ways:

How Music Teachers Differentiate

Ability level (students with different levels may have different expected outcomes)
Scaffolding sheet music (i.e. color coding, or writing in finger numbers/note names)
Learning style (visual, auditory, kinesthetic)
Learning process (reading, playing by ear, singing, moving)
Grouping strategies (individual practice, sectionals, whole ensemble)

EDU-SPEAK TRANSLATOR: Scaffolding

Scaffolding means breaking learning into small, bite-sized chunks and providing some type of tool to help students accomplish each task on their way to mastery. Scaffolding is meant to be temporary, and removed as soon as possible. So if, for example, a student struggles to track the notes when reading, pointing to each note as it is being played helps the student learn to track his eyes from left to right. But you can't do that forever. So as soon as the student experiences success, we remove the scaffold. It should be noted that different students need different types and different levels of scaffolding.

differentiation in orchestra

While all students need some scaffolding in order to acquire new skills and knowledge, sometimes students are in VERY different places on the staircase above. In fact, they may be on totally different staircases!!

That's why we need differentiated parts and differentiated approaches into the music. To that end, it is really important that the REPERTOIRE lends itself easily to creating multiple levels of experience as well as different points of entry. Are there elements of the piece that can be learned by ear? Are there repeating patterns? Is there a groove students can latch onto? All of these elements are opportunities for differentiated instruction.

For more on this complex topic, including a how-to guide, stay tuned for my next post!

For your consideration

Building a truly inclusive orchestra is a multi-layered, multi-faceted, perhaps overwhelming ideal. However, just like we ask our students to tackle an overwhelming piece one step at a time, we can do the same. Consider the following questions:

Do my students encounter joy on a regular basis in the orchestra room? Do I?
Do I truly know each student's motivation or aspiration in my classroom? How?
Do I have a deep understanding of my students' musical experiences outside of the orchestra room and away from school? How do I know?
Can I define each of my students strengths, weaknesses, and gaps in knowledge within the orchestra curriculum? How do I know?
Can I define which needs students are struggling to have met? How can I find out?
Do I create opportunities for students to learn at their individual level of proximal development? How do I know what that is?
Do I create opportunities for students to learn music through different processes (other than just reading from the page)? Can I add new ways of learning the same music and technique?

Begin with ONE area you want to work on in your own practice. Check out the links to other posts here in this blog, read articles, chat on discussion boards, talk with your colleagues, whatever helps you deepen your understanding. Try implementing ONE strategy in that are for the next couple of weeks and see how it works! When you're ready, you can try the next thing. After all, "The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step." - Lao Tzu