I Want Them to Love It: Instilling a "Can-Do" Attitude in High School Guitar Class

• In Event: Sheraton Roundtable Session 16
  In Roundtable Session: Generating Knowledge From Teacher Research to Meet the Challenges Within Public Education

Abstract

As a music teacher with a keen interest in sociopolitical implications of my work in a public school, I arrived to the process of fashioning a teacher-research question with deeply held opinions about current trends I witnessed. I teach in a climate of high academic pressure and expectations. My school ranks near the top on state indicators like standardized test scores, college admissions, and AP enrollment. One important omission in these media-generated rankings is that my school is a magnet school with competitive admission processes, and enjoys the luxury of turning away 9 applicants for every student it admits. With that advantage, we should expect to rank near the top on account of our exceptional students, and have no occasion to congratulate ourselves for being wonderful teachers. Consequently, I have very low opinions of this kind of ranking, but it serves as a major selling point for hopeful families in our county looking to send their children to somewhere other than the town high school.
My students are under pressure regarding college applications, SAT scores, and admissions essays that I never had to endure as a student. Compared to the students with whom I interact today, I had far more freedom and time for exploring and indulging my curiosities. By contrast, the students in my care are stressed, and are bound to an academically competitive ethic that does not allow time devoted to what they might really love to do and learn. Not only do I find this sad for them as individuals, I worry about what future awaits children who are bred to be academically competitive at the expense of creative explorative play.
My students live in what appears to me as an arts-marginalized world; a place where you only sing, dance, paint or act if you have fulfilled all “important” obligations first. In my school, with its great rankings in the media and reputation for excellence, I am the only music teacher for a student body of 655. A nearby town’s similarly sized high school has three music teachers. Clearly, access to the arts does not play into the “best of” rankings. When I was a student, my world revolved around music and I made it a priority. Unlike my students, I never had to tell my band teacher I would be missing a concert because my parents had paid for an SAT class I must take. My parents never forbade my participation in a performance-based field trip because I had fallen behind in academic studies. Unlike my students, I didn’t enroll in chorus or band because it would make me look well-rounded on college applications. I did it just because I liked it.
Thus begins my study of how to internalize an intrinsic love of music within his students, focusing on students who struggle with integrating their love of music into external and internal pressures to succeed academically. Through this mixed-methods study, I share insights about motivation, connection and my own struggles to develop arts-infused academic pedagogy.

Author

• Andrew Pfaff, Bergen County Technical High School