By Tom Palmatier
Well, here it is, another school year. By the time you read this you will already have greeted students and established the routines, procedures, and standards for the year. That sounds simple, but when you are a new teacher, it can be very easy to give in to the push back that may come when you try to institute new practices. That’s the time to reach out (quickly!) to a mentor or a more experienced successful music teacher for moral reinforcement. I spent time the past year with a wonderfully talented and dedicated music teacher who didn’t “hold the line” on requiring proper student behavior at the start of the year because of student resistance. It won’t surprise you to know that they spent the entire year struggling to establish good classroom discipline.
You may be thinking, “I would never do that!!” In case you haven’t heard, middle school kids can be “challenging.” Several years ago, I was speaking to a class of future music educators at a religion-affiliated university, and I told them I was kind of exploring demonology. Their eyes got REALLY big. I went on to say, “you know, demons are walking among us.” More horrified expressions. “And they are taking the form of 6th graders.” Finally, a laugh!
This issue is packed with articles from master educators about how to lay the groundwork for a successful year. If you’re not a band teacher, please don’t shy away from articles not specifically in your genre. Good teaching is good teaching, regardless of the music being taught.
Over the last year, SBO+ has gone through some massive changes to better serve you and to respond to the ever-evolving marketplace. We know most of you consume SBO+ articles online and so we have invested (and continue to invest) countless hours in making that a better product. If you visit our website, nearly every day you’ll find a new featured article. If you click on Departments, you will see a menu of the numerous types of articles from our past. Interested in Leadership articles? Scroll to Editorial-Commentary-Leadership. How about Concert Band, Marching Band, Orchestra, Jazz Band, or Choral? Click on a Department and you’ll see a wide variety of articles going back years. We’re still working through decades of articles, but the point is, we want to make it easy for you to find what you need.
You can help us by recommending SBO+ to your colleagues. Bonus if they select a digital subscription only because that reduces our ecological footprint and saves money. You are the most important people to our advertisers so let them know you saw their ad in SBO+!
BTW, “Here We Go Again” is one of the cadences sung while marching at basic training. To anyone who has served in uniform, I apologize for implanting that earworm into your subconsciousness.
