Contact Us

Never miss a blog post! Get every entry delivered straight to your email by subscribing below!

Enter your email address:

Delivered by FeedBurner

Popular posts from this blog

How to Schedule a Meeting

Image
The very first thing I teach my student leaders is how to respond to a meeting request and how to schedule a meeting. Qualities of a good leader, conflict resolution, goal setting, and vision are all great things, but if they are not in the room to begin with all is lost. Because of this, attendance is the #1 priority of our student leaders. Of course there are a number of ways to schedule a meeting. The go-to-default option most students use is Pin The Tail on the Donkey method where they just throw out one date/time after another until they (randomly) hit a time when everyone can be there. This is not efficient OR effective. I highly recommend, instead, students and staff use a scheduling tool. Tools When scheduling a meeting there are a number of tools available for free or on subscription. Personally, I like free and use the two tools Doodle or WhenIsGood.net . Both sites find common times when everyone is available by selecting your own availability, sending out a link, and then
Read more

3 Revelations on Student Conflicts

Image
Band directors wear many hats. Teacher, facilities manager, repairman, web developer, graphic designer, accountant, historian, carpenter, and public relations officer just to name a few. After “teacher,” the hat I think I wear second most is “therapist.” I teach 5th grade through seniors, but it seems to consistently be middle school students who are the ones reaching for the security blanket I keep in my office specifically for crying children. (It's a soft blue wolf blanket I got from Walmart.) Over the years, I found myself having the same conversation over and over again with different students. From all of these conversations, I have found that students commonly benefit from one of three revelations: 1) the Golden Rule is wrong, 2) story, not action, fuels emotion, and 3) The Relationship Cup analogy. My hope is that the way I have worded these three revelations may aid you when you talk with your own students, or when training your own student leaders on how to recognize and
Read more

Leadership in Beginning Band

Image
This article is from guest author, Nicole Brocke. Building leadership in young band students has morphed drastically during my 21 years of teaching but has become a central focus of my curriculum.  I have learned that building leadership skills is just as important (if not MORE important) than teaching instrument pedagogy and the love of music. My leadership building program began for purely selfish and personal reasons. But after a while, I realized the positive results it has for young students; leadership skills build maturity, confidence, passion, and pride.  I LOVE beginning band.  I LOVE teaching beginners.  I LOVE helping them build the leadership skills that will stay with them their entire life.  Before I give examples and details about what my student leadership program entails, I think it is important for you to understand how it came to be. Background and Development Let me describe a frequent picture of my band class during my first few years of teaching beginning band. I
Read more