Reply To: Administration not seeing eye to eye

[nafmeadmin]

I had a student that wanted to drop band. This student had me from beginning band all the way through this year (HS student) with one different teacher in between. Not to dwell on another teacher’s work, but that teacher did not require the student to attend lessons weekly and just let them go to evaluation festival with an unprepared piece (tempos not where they should be, scales not meeting the requirement, musicality not being taught). I expect my students to attend lessons weekly (obviously if we have to make adjustments due to a test, those are made), but this student NEVER came to lessons. I challenged this student on a piece for festival (which they didn’t rise to the challenge). The student told my administrator that they didn’t have fun in band (but they didn’t reach the level of musicality to have fun). They told me that I keep going over parts of music over and over (it’s called rehearsal). I have expectations for students that if they are going to take my course, they need to do the work. I have dropped the level of band music down one level so we can work on musicality, not just barely play notes and rhythms. Eventually, I think the kids will rise to the challenge, it will just take a few years.