Band Together Podcast

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In our sixth and final episode, I finish my conversation with Matt Abraham and Shannon Little, two music educators co-teaching at a large, urban high school. If you haven’t listened to the first half, that’s in Episode 5 and maybe you’d like to check that out first. In our segment of today’s episode, we spend quite a lot of time talking about the room and how it affects culture. In previous episodes, we’ve talked about how the room is laid out, is it tiered or flat, or what’s on the walls. Matt and Shannon explore this question in a different way, focusing more on what makes it a place where kids feel welcome and how they can make it feel like a hub.

We also speak at length in this last segment about how lucky we are as educators in Manitoba to stand on the shoulders of the giants who came before us. Like Marissa has said in her episode, tradition is a core part of a culture and, let me tell you, we have been very fortunate to have a strong music education tradition where we live. It’s not meant to sound arrogant or superlative, it’s just three educators being sincerely grateful that we get to teach in the non-competitive, student-focused culture in which we ourselves were raised.

And one last thing: This was our final episode meaning, like the last day of Grade 12 Band, our experience together has come to an end. Thank you so much for listening.

The show is available at bandtogetherpodcast.com or on Apple podcasts and Google Play. Listen at your computer or on the go. The results of the research are published via two papers in Canadian Winds, a peer-reviewed journal for instrumental music educators.

You can contact me at kenley[at]kenleykristofferson[dot]com or at my website at http://www.kenleykristofferson.com. Follow me on twitter @kenley_k and on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/kenley.

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In this fifth episode, I’m talking with Matt Abraham and Shannon Little, two music educators co-teaching at a large, urban high school. Both of them have thought a lot about the culture of their band room: They come out of the gate swinging with concepts like belonging and student empathy. As you hear them describe their space and strategies, it’s immediately evident that the positive culture they’re trying to foster is intentional and on purpose. But, as we’ve heard in our previous conversations, that’s not to say that it doesn’t require management, which we’ll hear all about coming up.

Because this interview is with two people instead one (like previous episodes), it’s split into two parts. Many elements of our talk feel conversational and, at times, diverge from the question. I’ve decided to leave these parts in because, sometimes, the winding trail of conversation provides important context to what we’re talking about, even if it seems to go in a different direction.

Also, it’s prudent to say that, while sending out the preparatory material for the interviews, I made a mistake with Shannon’s email address and didn’t catch it until it was almost too late; instead Steve Little received an interesting bundle of culture research prep and Shannon had to go into the interview cold. Don’t worry, both her and Matt do great and were a joy to speak with.

The show is available at bandtogetherpodcast.com or on Apple podcasts and Google Play. Listen at your computer or on the go. The results of the research are published via two papers in Canadian Winds, a peer-reviewed journal for instrumental music educators.

You can contact me at kenley[at]kenleykristofferson[dot]com or at my website at http://www.kenleykristofferson.com. Follow me on twitter @kenley_k and on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/kenley.

(Fun fact: the trumpet solo in this post’s featured image on the website was played by Shannon during “Transcendent Light’s” premiere and it was one for the record books.)

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Hello and welcome to Band Together, a six-part series exploring how different music teachers foster positive classroom cultures in their band room. In this series, I interview six band teachers and discuss their general views on a positive culture and what strategies they use to implement it.

In this fourth episode, I speak with Marissa Hirsch who teaches small, rural Manitoba middle school—indeed, a middle school. While I’ve been focusing on high school these past few episodes, culture is extremely important at the middle school level too (it is at all levels, really). I really value the organization and the discipline that she brings to her job, but I especially appreciate her energy and you’ll hear it in the interview. I wish she was my middle school band teacher.  In our conversation, she establishes the importance of the setup, whether it’s setting up the expectations for the kids, setting up the instruction, or setting up traditions. She also has a great story about how she picked which Grade 8 student got to play their brand new tuba.

The show is available at bandtogetherpodcast.com or on Apple podcasts and Google Play. Listen at your computer or on the go. The results of the research are published via two papers in Canadian Winds, a peer-reviewed journal for instrumental music educators.

You can contact me at kenley[at]kenleykristofferson[dot]com or at my website at http://www.kenleykristofferson.com. Follow me on twitter @kenley_k and on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/kenley.

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Hello and welcome to Band Together, a six-part series exploring how different music teachers foster positive classroom cultures in their band room. In this series, I interview six band teachers and discuss their general views on a positive culture and what strategies they use to implement it.

In this third episode, I’m talking to Rob Chrol who teaches small, rural Manitoba high school—the one that I attended as a teenager, in fact. This is an amazing conversation. I left the recording session feeling deeply nourished, not just as an educator, but as an human being. He’s done a lot thinking about leadership in a music program and specifically about servant leadership and how to live those values in a classroom. And speaking of values, Rob and his students have spent a lot of time considering the values of their program and, like servant leadership, how to live them.  Like both earlier conversations with Michael and Alexis, culture is a living, breathing thing in a classroom and it changes day to day, but that culture isn’t delivered in curriculum (though it certainly can be sometimes), it’s modelled daily in the actions of the teachers and students. Rob has some clear, thoughtful ideas about that.

The show is available at bandtogetherpodcast.com or on Apple podcasts and Google Play. Listen at your computer or on the go. The results of the research are published via two papers in Canadian Winds, a peer-reviewed journal for instrumental music educators.

You can contact me at kenley[at]kenleykristofferson[dot]com or at my website at http://www.kenleykristofferson.com. Follow me on twitter @kenley_k and on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/kenley.

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In this second episode, I’m talking to Alexis Silver who teaches at large, urban Manitoba high school that has a diverse demographic of newcomers and immigrants, indigenous and settler Canadians. What I really love about this conversation is that everything she says and does revolves around kids—It’s a deeply student-centered approach. And not just regarding pedagogy and planning (though that’s certainly part of it), but in the day to day environment of the classroom. Referring back to my conversation with Michael Brandon last episode, the students’ emotional presence and engagement are really the culture’s thermometer and it really comes across here, particularly in her story about the messageboard.

The show is available at bandtogetherpodcast.com or on Apple podcasts and Google Play. Listen at your computer or on the go. The results of the research are published via two papers in Canadian Winds, a peer-reviewed journal for instrumental music educators.

You can contact me at kenley[at]kenleykristofferson[dot]com or at my website at http://www.kenleykristofferson.com. Follow me on twitter @kenley_k and on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/kenley.

Hello and welcome to Band Together, a six-part series exploring how different music teachers foster positive classroom cultures in their band room. In this series, I interview six band teachers and discuss their general views on a positive culture and what strategies they use to implement it.

This first episode features Michael Brandon and we co-teach at a large, rural Manitoba comprehensive high school. I thought this would be a good place to start because we’ve spent a lot of time planning, implementing, and reflecting on different strategies that directly impact the culture of our band room. Because we’ve taught together for about ten years now, this discussion is both broad and specific; both idealistic and pragmatic; and both strategic and reflective.

And when we use this word “strategic,” we don’t mean it in a manipulative or cunning way, but rather in a more literal one where we develop a plan (or a “strategy”, if you will) implement it, then reflect on it over time.  The theme of reflection comes up a lot in this discussion.

I also wanted to start this project with Michael and I’s conversation because he was the catalyst in all of my research. If it weren’t for his perspective, his reflection, and his vision for building a program through culture and musical quality, I wouldn’t be teaching in the way I am today. I owe a lot of this to him.

The show is available at bandtogetherpodcast.com or on Apple podcasts and Google Play. Listen at your computer or on the go. The results of the research are published via two papers in Canadian Winds, a peer-reviewed journal for instrumental music educators.

You can contact me at kenley[at]kenleykristofferson[dot]com or at my website at http://www.kenleykristofferson.com. Follow me on twitter @kenley_k and on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/kenley.

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In this introductory episode, I lay out the primary objectives of the research and explore the larger questions that we ask of our educators and our arts programs. I also apologize to non-Performing-Arts teachers for playing devil’s advocate at times during the interviews–you’re wonderful educators and I value everything that you do.

The show is available at bandtogetherpodcast.com or on Apple podcasts and Google Play. Listen at your computer or on the go. The results of the research are published via two papers in Canadian Winds, a peer-reviewed journal for instrumental music educators.

You can contact me at kenley[at]kenleykristofferson[dot]com or at my website at http://www.kenleykristofferson.com. Follow me on twitter @kenley_k and on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/kenley.