Music and the Young - the Possibilities...
During my teaching days, I taught both at high school and college levels, in the historical aspects of the art of music, at high school level, and a scholarly divulging, at college level, of the glories of music as a language.
I very soon found that among the honor students at the high school, I came to realize that perhaps it would be time to put into action a reality that there was a small number of youngsters that could, perhaps, reach upwards into a level that might not be, in traditional terms, expected of them.
And so I instituted a course that dealt with the very same level that I was involved with at college.
I chose a number of high schoolers, who used a text book written for the Yale college music majors by the great composer Paul Hindemith. At the end of the year, these youngsters averaged a low "A", and some of them expressed a desire to go on the following school year.
To make all this brief, over the next years I expanded the course into a full four year curriculum, and again the results were more than gratifying; in truth, I was learning that there were youngsters who thrived on college level material.
I expanded my program by adding a counterpoint course, using a college text book out of Harvard by the eminent composer Walter Piston, who was a teacher of Leonard Bernstein when he was a student at Harvard. And again, the high schoolers devoured the material.
So here I was, in a rather interesting position, teaching the same subjects at both high school and college level, and with absolutely no compromising the standards and pacing at high school level.
Which led me to ask a principal at one of the middle schools if I could experiment with two carefully chosen youngsters who were involved in music performance, in order to determine if the very same college courses could be absorbed by them.
The result: these two middle schoolers not only did well with the material, but also remained with me for the next six years until they went off to college.
What I learned from this protracted experience was, perhaps, more important than the courses I taught; namely,
Give a youngster the opportunity to exceed that which is traditionally expected of him or her...
I very soon found that among the honor students at the high school, I came to realize that perhaps it would be time to put into action a reality that there was a small number of youngsters that could, perhaps, reach upwards into a level that might not be, in traditional terms, expected of them.
And so I instituted a course that dealt with the very same level that I was involved with at college.
I chose a number of high schoolers, who used a text book written for the Yale college music majors by the great composer Paul Hindemith. At the end of the year, these youngsters averaged a low "A", and some of them expressed a desire to go on the following school year.
To make all this brief, over the next years I expanded the course into a full four year curriculum, and again the results were more than gratifying; in truth, I was learning that there were youngsters who thrived on college level material.
I expanded my program by adding a counterpoint course, using a college text book out of Harvard by the eminent composer Walter Piston, who was a teacher of Leonard Bernstein when he was a student at Harvard. And again, the high schoolers devoured the material.
So here I was, in a rather interesting position, teaching the same subjects at both high school and college level, and with absolutely no compromising the standards and pacing at high school level.
Which led me to ask a principal at one of the middle schools if I could experiment with two carefully chosen youngsters who were involved in music performance, in order to determine if the very same college courses could be absorbed by them.
The result: these two middle schoolers not only did well with the material, but also remained with me for the next six years until they went off to college.
What I learned from this protracted experience was, perhaps, more important than the courses I taught; namely,
Give a youngster the opportunity to exceed that which is traditionally expected of him or her...
posted by LH at
10:55 AM
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