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Large and small rocks scattered along a pebbled beach beside a dense pine forest, with warm sunlight casting a golden glow on the stones and trees.

Progressive District Promotes PD Programs

by EdCircuit Staff November 3, 2017

written by EdCircuit Staff 2 minutes read

Lake Washington’s professional learning and coaching atmosphere Lake Washington School District is proud of the work they are doing in making sure their students are college and career ready upon graduation. And with a graduation rate that is consistently around 90%, it is clear that they are successful at it.

Rocky lake shore At the core of the success of the district is a professional development and coaching culture that the district promotes and fosters, a culture that has been embraced by educators and administrators alike. I recently sat down with Charlotte Plouse, Caitlin Bank and Ashley Boughton, to discuss this district-wide coaching initiative that has transformed the workplace over the last four years.

As I learned in the interview, a lot of time and effort went into creating just the right coaching program with the greatest chance of success. Leaders spent many hours researching best practices and talking with various stakeholders to create the perfect storm of professional learning. The results speak for themselves with improved student outcomes and a high level of morale which leads to a low turnover rate.

Lake Washington is a model for other districts around the country to copy when it comes to professional development, mentoring and coaching in K-12 education.

This article was originally posted in the Huffington Post

About Lake Washington School District:

Lake Washington School District in King County, Washington, is the third largest school district in the state with an enrollment of over 29,000 students. The Lake Washington School District’s mission is focused on graduating Every Student Future Ready. This means every student is prepared for college, prepared for the global workplace, and prepared for personal success. The district was formed in 1944 by combining three smaller districts.

Author

Dr. Berger of MindRocket Media Group is an education correspondent and personality with articles in The Huffington Post, and Forbes

Twitter.

Education Dive – Refocusing professional development to make good teachers great
EdTech Magazine – Google Champions Teacher Tech Training with New Program
Elko Daily Free Press – Video service will coach teachers

November 3, 2017 0 comments

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Assessing Your Assessments

by Ian Egan November 2, 2017

written by Ian Egan 5 minutes read

Taking steps to reduce redundant and unnecessary student assessments by Kenneth Tam

According to a report from the Council of Great City Schools (CGCS), the average student completes 112 mandatory standardized assessments between grades Pre-K to 12. This averages out to 20 to 25 hours of standardized testing each year, which is significant.

Three factors have contributed to over-testing: 1) the belief that educators need to administer multiple assessments in order to “triangulate” a pattern in students’ level of achievement; 2) when educators use a new theory of practice, they add new assessments addressing those practices while still being reliant on existing assessments; 3) testing is oftentimes decided at a building level leading to multiple tests being used across a district.

Triangulation

Administering multiple assessments to “triangulate results” may sound good in theory, while in reality not all tests given assess the same thing and at the same depth. The unintended consequence of this approach is teachers and administrators having too much, uncorrelated data. What are they supposed to do with it all? How can they easily and efficiently use the data to inform their instruction? It’s a hard and time-consuming challenge.

Addition without subtraction

When educators are adding new tests to support new practices, they are hesitant to “prune” the current assessments they are using. The addition of something new without the removal of something that exists and educators’ willingness to constantly try something different without giving existing programs time to show results contributes to the problem. Inertia and familiarity also promotes over-testing. Many assessments are administered annually simply due to the fact that it is something that’s always been done. What may have been mandatory a couple of years ago due to a grant requirement, for instance, may now be optional.

District vs. local control

The CGCS found that its districts were using 401 different assessments. When each school in a district is administering different tests, it is difficult to see district patterns. In addition, when students and teachers move from school to school, they have to take/learn different tests or reports, respectively.

There have been state and local efforts to reduce testing time and the number of assessments given, so that more time can be dedicated to teaching and student instruction. A consistent and streamlined approach to student assessments allows districts to focus on the right data so that teachers can deliver quality, individualized instruction students need to succeed.

So, what can your school system do to reduce assessments and minimize testing? It starts with conducting an assessment audit.

Auditing your Assessments

Assessment audits help districts rationalize the assessments administered to students. By doing so, they also help to establish consistent testing across schools and reduce duplicative assessments so that educators gain back valuable instructional time.

Conducting an assessment audit is a multi-phase and multi-week process involving the following steps:

Step 1: Form a committee – Create an assessment committee of dedicated individuals – including district administrators and school leaders – who have the ability to decide or influence which assessments are used and understand the need for the audit and are committed to a new, fresh assessment approach.

Step 2: Set an assessment vision and agree upon the scope of the work – Articulate the district’s vision of an ideal assessment system, addressing questions such as: Who are the users? What are their specific needs? What types of assessments are required to provide the information needed to inform key decisions? What is the scope of the work? Are we making minor changes or a more significant overhaul of the assessments we administer within the district?

Step 3: Determine the criteria of a test worth taking – Look at criteria such as the characteristics of high-quality tests and identify which assessment criteria is important to the district. This could include making sure that assessments measure achievement and growth, inform instruction, align to standards, are timely, predict performance on state tests, and inform parents and students.

Step 4: Conduct an inventory – Now it’s time to identify which assessments are being administered to students across the different grade levels and subjects. The committee should focus on the ones where the majority of the students within a grade are completing the assessment; determine the type and purpose of the assessment; and indicate the frequency, time required for completion and when in the school year the assessment is administered.

Step 5: Analyze findings and make recommendations– First, group assessments by type and identify potential overlaps. Then, check to ensure assessments are not mismatched to their intended purpose. If you compare each assessment against the district’s criteria of a test worth taking, it will allow you to recommend a smaller subset of assessments to maintain.

Step 6: Develop a change management strategy – The committee needs to devise a plan for sharing final recommendations with stakeholders. They will need to consider who will be impacted by the change and if there is a need for additional professional development.

Step 7: Plan the rollout of new assessment system – Create a new assessment calendar that ensures assessments are not concentrated during certain months. Also during this step, identify the questions you want to answer with the assessment data; create a report selector tool that shows which report to use to answer which question; and determine which measures are important and what are the appropriate thresholds to consider. This will help identify students who are below thresholds, and define what actions to take.

Step 8: Execute rollout plan and communicate broadly the decisions made – Put the plan you created in Step 7 into action, and present the findings of the assessment audit, and communicate decisions to the community.

Taking these steps provides districts with a streamlined assessment strategy that allows them to actually do more with less. Fewer, more consistent assessments provide teachers with both more instructional time and higher quality data that they can use to effectively individualize their instruction to help students make real academic gains.
Author

Kenneth Tam is the executive director of personalized learning and assessment at Curriculum Associates (www.curriculumassociates.com), creators of the i-Ready Diagnostic & Assessment program for grades K-12.

Further Reading

EdWeek – How to Assess Arts Education—And Why You Should

EdSurge – How to Overcome Apathy and Disillusionment When Standardized Tests Fail Kids

San Francisco Examiner – SFUSD may cut down on tests for students

November 2, 2017 1 comment

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Educators K-12 Teachers

Reinventing Learning for the Always-On Generation

by Ian Egan November 2, 2017

written by Ian Egan 6 minutes read

Part 1: Why are kids different today?
By Ryan L. Schaaf

Series Synopsis: Due to continuous digital bombardment and the emergence of the new digital landscape, today’s youth process information, interact, and communicate in fundamentally different ways than any previous generation before them. Meanwhile, many of us, having grown up in a relatively low-tech, stable, and predictable world, are constantly struggling with the speed of change, technological innovation, and the freedom to access the overwhelming sea of information online – all defining characteristics of the digital world of both today and the swiftly-approaching future.

Based on the award-winning book, Reinventing Learning for the Always-On Generation: Strategies and Apps That Work, this 12-part article series will provide a comprehensive profile of nine core learning attributes of digital learners, and the core teaching, learning, and assessment strategies that can be used to appeal to their digital lifestyle and learning preferences. Readers will gain a clear understanding of various research-based strategies to optimize learning for the digital generation in the new digital landscape.

Part 1: Why are Kids Different Today?

“For the digital generations, the past is a foreign country” – Ian Jukes

Many educators express great concern about their students’ lack of ability to learn the way students did in the past. I especially hear this from teachers who have been in the classroom for a long period of time. Many complain their traditional teaching methods are just not as effective with students in classrooms today as they once were. All of this is creating a groundswell of controversy about current teaching methods and the ability of the digital generations to learn.

Concerns have been expressed about the increasing amounts of time the digital generations engage with their tools. There are those who even suggest that these tools are dumbing down our children and diminishing their ability to think for themselves. While we acknowledge that there are concerns, adults must realize that the children of the digital age use these tools in a manner that goes well beyond the ways we used traditional tools like paper, pencils, or a chalkboard. The challenge we face is understanding how these tools can be leveraged in a manner that interests and engage digital learners.

Kids Today Are Wired Differently

Two books make a case for just how different today’s always-on generations really are. There is iBrain: Surviving the Technological Alteration of the Modern Mind by neuroscientist Gary Small and there’s Brain Rules: 12 Principles for Surviving and Thriving at Work, Home, and School by molecular biologist John Medina. Small and Medina both conclude that today’s kids are different; really different. Their brain is altered by chronic digital bombardment. Now, we stress the need for balance. The digital generations must learn to engage effectively with both online and offline worlds.

But at the same time, balance goes both ways. In the same way that we – the older generations have every right to expect the digital generations to respect, understand and engage with our world and our values, we must also take the time and effort to respect, understand and engage with their world and their values. What is needed is a balance that acknowledges the realities of the digital online world—that acknowledges that kids are way ahead of us in an understanding of the new digital landscape— and that acknowledges that we have a lot to learn before we can apply our life experiences to safely and effectively guide our students through this new digital world.

A Digital Mindset

And what type of digital world is it? Every minute of the day, YouTube users watch 4.1 million videos, email users send 156 million messages, Google receives over 3.5 million search queries, 900,00 Facebook users log in, Tinder users swipe almost 1 million times, Twitter users tweet 452,000 times, Instagram users post over 46,000 new photos, Spotify users listen to 40,000 hours of music, Apple and Google users download 342,000 apps, and Pinterest users pin 3,472 images.

According to NASBE, in the United States on average, kids today spend more than 80 hours a week using one, two or more screens simultaneously – as opposed to about 25 hours a week they spend attending school. The digital generations play more than 230 hours of video games a month, or 10,000 hours of gaming by the time they’re 21 years old. If we switch to video, in 2014 YouTube had over 2 trillion playbacks of its videos and every minute more than 100 hours of new video content is added for viewing. Consider that 100 hours a minute is almost 6,500 years of content uploaded every year. A Cisco survey reported that one in three teens indicated that the internet was as important as air, shelter, food and water sources.

The always-on generation goes online to chat with their friends, kill boredom, experience the wider world, and follow the latest trends. They use their devices to meet, play, date and learn. It’s an integral part of their social life. It’s how they acknowledge each other and form their personal identities. Exposure to this new digital landscape may be the first experience in their lives with empowerment. Digital technologies enable them to be heard, recognized and taken seriously.

A New, Digital Culture

Digital culture is the new normal – not just locally, regionally or nationally, but worldwide. And this new world of digital immersion has affected virtually every aspect of our lives, from our thought processes and work habits to our capacity for linear thinking, to how we feel about ourselves, our friends and even distant strangers.

Digital bombardment is literally wiring and rewiring kids brains on an ongoing basis – and in particular, it’s enhancing their visual memory, visual processing, and visual learning skills. This phenomenon is happening regardless of race, regardless of culture, regardless of socio-economics, and regardless of geography.

In the next installment of the series, we will explore the new learning attributes of the digital generations and outline the rest of the series for readers.
Author

As a professor, author, blogger, consultant, and keynote speaker, Ryan L. Schaaf wants to help educators reach the learners of the digital generations. His book, Reinventing Learning for the Always-On Generation: Strategies and Apps that Work co-authored with Ian Jukes and Nicky Mohan, recently received an IPPY Award for its contributions as a resource book for educators. You can find Ryan at https://myedexpert.com/vendor/rschaaf/.

Follow Ryan Schaaf on Twitter

Further Reading

EdSurge – How Social Media Can Help Teach Good Writing

Ideas.TED.com – Forget “digital natives.” Here’s how kids are really using the Internet

Huffington Post – Adults Must Teach Kids To Use, Not Be Used By, Social Media

November 2, 2017 1 comment

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Educators K-12 Teachers

How Effective Graders Think

by EdCircuit Staff October 31, 2017

written by EdCircuit Staff 6 minutes read

Grading reform is about reforming how people who do grading think

by Susan M. Brookhart

One of the things teachers dislike the most about their jobs is having to grade student work. Actually, many of them will say it slightly differently—they’ll say they dislike having to “grade students.” As long as teachers focus grading on students and not their learning, grading reform will flounder. And that’s a shame, because the current push for standards-based grading or competency-based learning has some good ideas to offer.

The thing about “grading reform” is that it isn’t really about reforming grading. It’s about reforming how the people who do grading think. When we don’t realize that, we risk working around the edges of grading reform, tinkering with the system and not really accomplishing much.

It has been this way throughout the history of grading. For example, in the 1930s and 1940s (mostly), grading changed from mostly norm-referenced (“grading on the curve,” or comparing students with each other) to mostly criterion-referenced (grading based on achievement of learning goals). At the time, the term “absolute standards” was used, the term “criterion-referenced” didn’t become common until the 1960s. The point to be made here is that this change happened because of a change in how educators thought, not because someone popularized some new methods.

It wasn’t until most educators changed their thinking, from believing that the purpose of school was to sort students to believing that the purpose of school was to teach students certain things, that this reform was possible. Now, of course, most educators do believe that the purpose of school is to teach students certain things (codified in curriculum and standards). That reform “took,” but it took decades.

Since at least the 1990s, another change in thinking about grading has been struggling to overturn the common view among educators that grades are something that students “earn” for doing their “work” in school. With the rise of the standards-based reform movement in the 1990s, schools began aligning curriculum with various versions of state learning standards. As they did this, it soon became clear that grading in the traditional way, where students earn points for doing work, did not correspond well with teaching an aligned curriculum. So the standards-based grading movement was born.

Why, over two decades hence, is standards-based grading still struggling and, to be frank, done so poorly in some places? The problem is that standards-based grading proponents have been busy trying to reform grading rather than trying to change the way graders think. Grading reform that comes as strategies to implement—for example, decide on standards, revise report cards, revamp the gradebook, and so on—doesn’t deal with the fact that in grading, as in many other areas, what educators do reflects what they think.

If attention is not paid to changing how educators think about grading and learning, reform will stall. Or worse—and this is happening in many places—the strategies will be implemented but nothing will change. Revised, “standards-based” report cards may, for example, report student achievement on a proficiency scale of 1 to 4 (instead of A to F) on sets of reporting standards (instead of subject areas), giving the appearance of reform. However, closer inspection may find that the grades which led to those proficiency ratings were still based on earning points for following directions rather than evidence of true proficiency on the standard. In many settings, standards-based reporting is a wolf in sheep’s clothing.

The change in thinking that needs to occur to make grading more standards-based is this. Educators must believe that grades should be based on the quality of a student’s work in relation to the intended learning goal, not on following directions or completing the requirements for an assignment. This is true whether a school district has transitioned to standards-based report cards or has maintained traditional report cards.

For example, if a teacher’s directions say that students should use five sources in a report, and she counts sources in order to assign a grade (5 sources for an A, 4 for a B…), she is grading compliance, not learning. However, if the teacher appraises the students’ use of the sources for what it says about student understanding (were the sources relevant? credible? used strategically in the report to support the thesis?) in order to grade, then she is grading learning. This change in thinking, from “earning points” to “demonstrating knowledge and skills,” can happen whether a district uses standards-based or traditional report cards.

Or for another example—one I just saw in a class again this week—some teachers give points on tests or reports for things they often call “required elements,” things like putting one’s name, date, period number, and so on, on the paper, or having a title page, or using 12-point font, or whatever. Think about that. If a report is worth 50 points, and a third of those points are about name and date and font and such, what does the resulting score mean for any given student?

It’s not that students shouldn’t follow directions. The change in thinking that needs to happen in order for grades to become more meaningful is that educators must believe following directions is an academic behavior, not a learning outcome. Compliance needs to be monitored, which can often be done by the students themselves. Breaches in compliance need to be handled, of course, but not with grades.

The idea that grades are the carrots and sticks teachers use to get students to comply with directions is incompatible with true standards-based, learning-focused grading. Only educators who believe that grades are the pay students earn for the work they do can do that. Only when educators’ beliefs change, and they truly accept that grades are judgments about the quality of students’ knowledge and/or skills relative to standards, can the current standards-based reform movement make real headway.

Author

Susan M. Brookhart is Professor Emerita at Duquesne University and the author of the recent book, How to Use Grading to Improve Learning (ASCD, 2017). Brookhart’s other books on assessment include Performance Assessment: Showing What Students Know and Can Do (Learning Sciences, 2015) and How to Make Decisions with Different Kinds of Student Assessment Data (ASCD, 2015).

Further Reading

CNBC – Students who work actually get better grades—but there’s a catch

Forbes – The Little Nudge That Makes A Big Difference To Student Grades

Forbes – Are Education Startups The New Dot Com?

October 31, 2017 0 comments

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Hidden

She Took a President’s Call for Action to Heart

by EdCircuit Staff October 30, 2017

written by EdCircuit Staff 3 minutes read

Talia Milgrom-Elcott leading the charge for STEM teachers in US schools Hear more from Talia Milgrom-Elcott and other innovative analysts, thought leaders, and educators at the 2018 Future of Education Technology Conference (FETC), January 23-26 in Orlando, Florida. Learn more here.

When President Obama called for the country to recruit 100,000 STEM teachers in ten years in his 2011 State of the Union address, Talia Milgrom-Elcott decided she was going to lead the charge to make it happen. In a rare case of a citizen answering the call of a president, Talia formed 100Kin10 (one hundred K in ten), a recruitment group with a goal of leading the charge to attract those 100,000 teachers.

Talia rolled up her sleeves and took the challenge head-on with drive, determination, and, as she says in hindsight, a little bit of naivety and foolishness. But it all came together, and at the halfway point the group has recruited more than 200 organizations to join in the recruitment and retention of STEM teachers in American schools.

The journey is far from over, but it is considered a success already. For information on how to help or join the movement, visit 100Kin10.org.

This article was originally published in the Huffington Post by Dr. Rob Berger.

About Talia Milgrom-Elcott

Talia is widely recognized for her visionary and innovative approach to tackling large, systemic challenges. At 100Kin10, she’s creating a new model for networked, nimble, and iterative collaboration that’s relentlessly focused on identifying—and solving—some of our most intractable social challenges.

Under her leadership, what began as a call in President Obama’s 2011 State of the Union address for 100,000 excellent STEM teachers in 10 years is becoming a reality, with more than 250 leading organizations from across sectors coming together in an unprecedented movement to train and retain 100,000 excellent STEM teachers by 2021. With 100Kin10, Talia is building a new type of collective-impact effort that breaks the mold for how organizations collaborate, learn from one another, and together tackle challenges that none could successfully address on its own.

Talia earned her chops in education and philanthropy working with amazing mentors as a Program Officer at Carnegie Corporation of New York from 2007-13, and as part of Chancellor Joel Klein’s leadership team at the New York City Department of Education before that.

Talia graduated magna cum laude from Harvard College and Harvard Law School. She lives in Brooklyn with her husband and three little kids. She used to read lots of books and magazines, run, practice yoga, and sit in cafes reading the Sunday Times. Now she plays with Legos, magnetiles, and “stuffies” and reads books with pictures, a great tradeoff, all things considered.

Follow Talia Milgrom-Elcott on

Talia Milgrom-Elcott speaking at the upcoming FETC:

AuthorDr. Berger is one of many industry education correspondents for the Mind Rocket Media Group, An educator and former school administrator. His video interview work and conversational podcasts have been featured in various media outlets. He often hosts education panel discussions and develops strategic content. As an academic Dr. Berger is a guest lecturer at Vanderbilt University’s Owen Graduate School of Management. A former assistant principal, he has been an adjunct undergraduate professor and developer of online college courses. He is a passionate Detroit sports fan who has also adopted Nashville sports teams as his own.

Contact the Mind Rocket Media Group if you are interested in an industry interview and a placement on EdCircuit.
Further Reading

Deseret News – Salt Lake company expands into online STEM programs for teachers, consumers

Juneau Empire – A new STEM collaboration has Juneau teachers working hand-in-hand with scientists

eSchool News – Where will STEM education be in 5 years?

October 30, 2017 0 comments

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Educators K-12 Teachers

Working Together to Battle for the Arts

by Ian Egan October 30, 2017

written by Ian Egan 13 minutes read

One Grammy-nominated teacher is leading the way for education in the arts

Sierra Vista Middle School in Irvine, California has a local treasure in music teacher Henry Miller. He was nominated last year for the National GRAMMY Music Educator Award presented by the Recording Academy and the GRAMMY Foundation. Growing up in the Los Angeles area, Henry started his musical life on clarinet and switched to trumpet, a decision that later earned him a scholarship to USC.

I asked Henry about the impact music education can have on young lives, and more specifically, the social and emotional effect on kids, particularly teens who are trying to find their way through their young lives.

He believes being in band or orchestra is a great team building activity, and compares it to participating in team sports. The big difference between music and sports is that in music if someone is playing poorly, they are not benched for someone better. The support system creates an all-for-one and one-for-all mentality that can help kids throughout their lives and careers.

It’s clear that Henry is highly deserving of the GRAMMY nomination and all other accolades and awards he has received for positively impacting the lives of so many young students over the years.

Interview Transcript:

Dr. Berger: Henry, it’s a pleasure to be speaking with you today. First of all, congratulations on being a finalist for the Grammy Music Educator of Year Award!

How does that set with you that you get to be able to have people say that?

Henry Miller: It’s quite an honor. There’s no bigger name than “Grammy” when you’re talking about music awards, in general. I really appreciate the Grammy Museum for funding this project, getting behind and recognizing quality music teachers throughout the entire country.

I have no idea how many music teachers there are in the country but to be able to say that this organization says that I’m one of these people who should be recognized is quite an honor.

DB: When we think about music education, If we are real with ourselves in the conversations that we should be having publicly, I think, too many times, it’s being marginalized and the arts, in general. So talk to me not only from the perspective of the recognition that the Grammys bring but also in expanding the understanding and the value of music education in the overall experience that a young person has in our public schools around the country.

HM: This is a battle that all of us fight, and it’s a battle that’s been going on since I was in high school. I can remember, in California, we had Proposition 13. When that happened, the word was “This was going to decimate programs throughout the entire state.”

And it had a big hit. Programs that were large and had multi-course offerings were reduced significantly. It took a very long time for a lot of schools until they actually recovered from it.

So any person who goes into music education understands that this battle is going to be fought. We have to help educate the public about the significance, the importance, and the relevance that arts education has to our students.

I think one of the big issues we have today is that education has been focused down to almost being job training. People think that the goal of education is to get a job which is so sad. Imagine a situation where you’ve got kids who have a minimum of 13 years of education and then four years of college and maybe a graduate degree or whatever. Spending that much time of your life for the sole purpose to get a job is rather depressing.

Education wasn’t designed for that from the beginning. It was designed to be able to make us more thoughtful people and improve our lives, in a general sense. I think nothing does it better than the arts.

DB: What responsibility do music educators have in forging the conversation and making it a point of discussion, when we talk about the role arts, plays in the overall curriculum?

I think that those who aren’t paying attention think, oh, that’s a nice thing to have. They don’t fully appreciate and understand that it is an integral part of the curriculum and of the experience within a school. Many think of it as learning another language and that alone has fantastic properties in the development of a young mind.

HM: We’re on the front line. We’re there and we’re doing it on a daily basis. But we can’t act in isolation. We must work together with our colleagues and our parents to create a quality experience in all schools.

I may have a program that may be labeled as a “quality program, ” but if somebody is trying to do the same thing and is not successful, I think it’s part of my responsibility to help bring them up. What can I do to make their program stronger?

All these kids that we’re teaching are future decision makers. They are future people who are going to go out in the public and make decisions as to whether music is important. If we’re raising a generation that does not have music or does not have access to a quality music education ─ why are they going to support it when they become adults?

I think it’s important that we ─ colleagues ─ help each other. We educate our parents to try to get kids involved, and we try to create that quality experience throughout.

DB: Take us behind the scenes a little bit. If you’re walking into a faculty lounge and the discussion is around a bond issue or budgets, how comfortable do you feel in your role in speaking up for the department?

I just think that it’s so interesting when we start to break things out and we start to worry about issues around bonds, budgets, and funding. It sounds good in public to be able to say, “Of course, we need this department or that department.”

I was speaking with another school in California that will remain nameless, and they were without the arts for over five years. Those are scary propositions. I’m just curious about some of the conversations that you have with your colleagues who are in other departments as to how to discuss the value of each department without trampling the other.

HM: I think I’m fortunate in my particular situation. I’ve been a teacher for 27 years. Part of my responsibility is not only to educate those other people but also to educate my staff here on campus. They need to see what I do and see the quality of the experience the kids are having.

If they see that I’m here for kids to be able to create a quality experience for my students ─ that what I’m doing benefits them ─ then, I get the support. I’ve been very fortunate to be able to have colleagues who are open, and I don’t have people who are “This is mine, and that is yours and ne’er the twain shall meet.”

We’re all about helping our kids succeed regardless of what method we’re doing to help those kids to succeed.

Community outreach is an important thing, but it’s also important at the local level here so that my teachers ─ the math teachers, the English teachers, etcetera ─ can see what we’re doing, that we’re doing good things.

DB: Let’s go down a different path. Let’s take a stroll down technology lane and talk about the impact technology is having on music education. Would you agree with my premise that some of these technological advances are actually expanding and opening the door to students who have never thought that music might be a part of their experience in school? It feels like it’s lowered the barrier to entry since kids can produce now and they can play a more active role in the way in which they experience music? Do you agree with that?

HM: I think it’s double-edged. Yes, a lot of people can create stuff, but without an experience and a background, it’s difficult to disseminate what is quality and what is not quality.

You can go onto YouTube and you can hear a bunch of different sounds, but are you really hearing something of quality, something that’s going to stand the test of time, something that somebody is going to want to listen to ten or fifteen years down the road?

So I still think that what I do in here ─ with traditional band and traditional orchestral setting ─ is still very relevant.

I have a friend, a colleague, who says, “Nobody has ever invented violin 2.0. The violin that existed in the Baroque and the Renaissance times is virtually the same as the instrument the kids are playing today. It has survived, and it has impassioned people to be able to create and create music.

So even though there is technology and we can do some really neat things, when it comes down to it, when you’re playing violin, there’s something innate about producing something from an acoustic instrument versus creating sounds from a computer.

DB: I guess, on the other side of the aisle, would it, at least, create an opportunity for engagement at a different level with so many options that kids now have and what they might enjoy outside of school? If there is technology that helps bring them to the door, then it’s really about how to appropriately layout that technology in a world where they can have a deeper knowledge and an application around the fundamentals that you spoke of?

HM: There’s a movement out there about creating classes like rock band classes, electronic composition classes which I wholeheartedly support. I think ─ to your point ─ it brings other kids in who may not.

In our campus here, we have the band and the orchestra, but we also have guitar and ukulele. That’s another aspect for kids to be able to play instruments in addition to choir and musical theater. So we have a lot of options. There’s a door for everybody. There’s an opportunity for everyone regardless of the style of music you’re into or something you want to try. We have a program here that allows many different opportunities for kids.

DB: Let’s close with this, Henry. What is it like for you? I’ll speak from my own experience. I think that music education, at the surface, yes, is learning another language but there’s something that it does to the social-emotional development of young people that gives them an opportunity to experience life at a different level and in unison in a social manner with their fellow students. It’s really hard to do that in other subjects.

What is it like when you are at the front, and you are seeing young people who might be shy and who might not socially know how to navigate the difficult waters of being a teenager or a young person, and yet they can do it through the power of music and instrumentation?

HM: I think the greatest aspect we have is that when we create music, we’re doing it together. We have a band. We have a group of several different students who have a common interest and a common goal, and they work together to be able to do that.

It’s similar to what sports do, but the one advantage we have is I would never take a student who is not playing well and say, “Okay, you’re going to sit on the bench” and bring in another student. We’re all working together, and we’re only as strong as our weakest players; and so, we work together to bring kids up.

It’s not a competitive environment where I’m trying to beat you or play better than you. We’re all working together; the kid who may be the concertmaster in the orchestra is just an important as the one who is sitting last chair in the violin section. If that one kid doesn’t play their music correctly, it’s going to be heard and it’s going to be detrimental to the overall experience.

So there’s a real strong sense of camaraderie. There’s a real strong sense of working together. We’re just one big group project when we’re trying to create a concert in the most positive way.

And I love it when kids come back to me and talk about their life experiences and how significant it was for them to be able to create these relationships.

Personally, my closest friends are people I have known since the third and fourth grade and we were in band together in elementary school, middle school, high school, and even in the university. We actually played together at that point.

And if you go to my Facebook page, I would say that probably 90% of them are musicians in some aspect.

DB: It is a community. It has long-staying power in that way, and it shows its power for young people. It looks like the Grammys got it right and that you are a fantastic ambassador for music education and kids, in general.

About Henry Miller:

Henry Miller was born in Los Angeles and grew up in Torrance, California. His trumpet playing earned him a scholarship at the University of Southern California where he studied under Boyde Hood of the Los Angeles Philharmonic and Ed Tarr, renowned trumpet historian from Basil, Switzerland. At USC he performed in many performing ensembles including the USC Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Daniel Lewis, and four years in the “Spirit of Troy”, The University of Southern California Trojan Marching Band.

He received his Bachelors of Music degree from California State University, Long Beach in 1989 and received his professional clear teaching credential the following year. In 1998, he graduated with honors from CSULB with a Masters of Music degree in trumpet performance and instrumental music conducting.

He has taught instrumental music in the Irvine Unified School District since the fall of 1990 and has taught at every grade level from third grade up through university graduate school including 12 elementary schools, three middle schools, two high schools, Irvine Valley College and CSU, Long Beach. Currently, he is the Director of Instrumental Music at Sierra Vista Middle School where he teaches three bands, three orchestras, and jazz band.

Follow Henry Miller and Sierra Vista IUSD on Twitter

This article was originally published in the Huffington Post by Dr. Rob Berger.
AuthorDr. Berger is one of many industry education correspondents for the Mind Rocket Media Group, An educator and former school administrator. His video interview work and conversational podcasts have been featured in various media outlets. He often hosts education panel discussions and develops strategic content. As an academic Dr. Berger is a guest lecturer at Vanderbilt University’s Owen Graduate School of Management. A former assistant principal, he has been an adjunct undergraduate professor and developer of online college courses. He is a passionate Detroit sports fan who has also adopted Nashville sports teams as his own.

Contact the Mind Rocket Media Group if you are interested in an industry interview and a placement on EdCircuit.
Further Reading

The Guardian – The Guardian view on musical education: it needs social harmony

Music In Africa – Rwanda, South Korea partner to improve music education

EdTech Magazine – Tech in the Music Classroom Creates Efficiencies, Improves Accessibility

October 30, 2017 2 comments

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