Practice Democratic Principles

In my high school orchestra class, I realized today that I practice democratic principles. We just completed our Orchestra Festival last weekend. Therefore, it is time to turn our attention to the Spring Concert. In Full Orchestra and in Concert Band, we discussed the repertoire we just performed and whether we wanted to perform it for the spring concert. We ended up "taking a vote" about the pieces. Then, we chose a couple of new pieces. First, we listened to a few options, and again, we voted about the preferred options.

It seems that the students really like to have a say in what they learn and perform. As I become more experienced as a teacher, I feel like I am able to present them with better, higher quality, educationally sound options. Then, it is easier for me to accept their decisions about what we are performing. I still reserve the right to make programmatic changes to make a better balanced program, since concerts tend to be "high stake" events. The music program is deemed "good" or "weak" based on our performances, so it seems critical to present the students' abilities in the best possible light.

In another class, we have discussed classroom "problems" and worked at some solutions together. For example, we have been working on classroom management issues in Middle School orchestra. The class simply talks too much. They are happy and having fun, and the result for middle school students is chattering. So, we devised together a reward system for them. I have worked much harder at my own behavior to help enable better behavior in the students. I believe that the students having a say in the classroom environment has helped them to participate better in making changes in classroom behavior.