Blog
June 15, 2009 - This week I taught at Dekaney High School as a marching technician and french horn sectional coach. The kids were really great and improved immensely. I learned from Trent Cooper, Josafat Jaime, Greg Rinehart and John Alstrin. The school is 70% African-American and 30% Hispanic, which for me was a new experience. The kids worked really hard; and I can tell, although I won’t see any of it because I will be in Dallas, that the program is going to go really far this season.
Some of the things I learned this week:
1) Don’t finish every point with “Does that make sense?”
2) Don’t sing parts to the students as they are playing them. Thats your time to listen.
3) If the kids aren’t responding, change their environment.
4) Rhetoric is SO important.
5) Practice mental focus in small pieces in the beginning, and then build mental focus in larger phrases as you teach. Kids have a hard time with distractions because of over stimulation … cellphones, wii, etc.
6) The process is not as important as I once thought. If I miss an important concept, its okay to go back and re-teach a concept so I can insert the point I missed.
7) Hard work in band is directly related to the student’s achievement in every area of life. Most of them had never worked that hard, ever. One student told me that she sees its possible that she could go to college after all.