Rhoda Bernard, Ed.D.

In episode five, Tony struggles with caring for his students. He cares very deeply about his students, as we have seen throughout the show. And he desperately wants them to know that he cares. But the problem is that Tony goes about his caring in the wrong way.

1. He tries to be their friend. One student who reminds Tony of himself at that age (and we have learned that Tony was a real troublemaker in school at that age, and that he made a lot of mistakes at that time in his life) is a boy named Matt. Tony has been trying to bond with Matt over boxing – he has been giving him and a few other boys boxing lessons, and he has shown particular interest in Matt’s boxing. Matt clearly has some talent for boxing and is interested in getting better at it. The problem is that Tony has approached this boxing bonding as a friend-to-friend interaction. He hasn’t made it clear to Matt that the boxing lessons have to do with boxing as a sport, not with developing skills that he can use in fights or altercations. When Matt ends up in a fight at school, we can’t help but wonder along with Tony’s instructional coach, David, whether Matt is confused about Tony’s boxing lessons and their purpose. Tony says that, in his own life, when he learned how to box, he learned how to control his temper and aggression and not use boxing in altercations. But he hasn’t done a good enough job of teaching that to Matt, because he is interested in being Matt’s friend, not Matt’s teacher.

2. He talks instead of listening. Caring about your students means listening to them. When another of Tony’s students ends up in trouble that has to do with the fact that his Ipod was stolen, Tony asks the student why he didn’t come to Tony about that situation. In fact, the student did go to Tony. He tells him that he did, and we see the footage of him doing so – telling Tony that his Ipod was stolen. Tony didn’t listen to this student. If he had listened better, he could have helped him as a teacher, and perhaps the bad situation that developed would have been avoided. Once again, Tony needs to learn to talk less and listen more.

Tony does genuinely care for his students. His struggle right now is to figure out how to care for them as a teacher, and not as a friend.

Early in this episode, David, Tony Danza’s instructional coach, notes that when Tony gets flustered in the classroom, he starts talking more and more and goes off on tangents. Tony admits that, in those moments, he is trying desperately to do something for the students. He sees that these efforts are not successful. David encourages Tony to talk much less in his teaching (something I wrote about in my post about episode one).

Episode four focuses on this theme in a number of ways. We get to know Tony’s student Eric, an Asian boy who says that he feels a great deal of pressure from his parents to succeed academically. At the same time, when he feels bored and unable to engage in class, Eric does something else — he plays with and makes origami or he lies on his desk. Tony tries and tries to engage Eric, but it doesn’t seem to work. Eric tells him that he does not like it when Tony goes off topic. That gets Tony thinking about his flustered moments in the classroom and the way that he responds to them by talking and talking about anything, just to talk.

Midway through the episode, Tony meets with a new teacher support group. One of the other teachers, Joe, a math teacher, notes that he feels most successful when he talks less and gives the students the opportunity to do more for their learning. Tony takes this to heart.

The next of Tony’s lessons that we see is a group activity where students write and share their own myths in teams of two. The entire class is clearly engaged and learning. Tony is not in the foreground. Even Eric demonstrates that he is on task and learning.

At the end of the episode, Tony summarizes what he has learned: “Getting them to teach themselves is key.” That’s right, Tony – good teaching is NOT about what the teacher is doing. It is about what the students can do so that they can learn.

It looks like Tony Danza may be learning a thing or two himself.

Last week, I had two opportunities to reflect on why I am doing the work that I do. I was interviewed by a writer for the alumni magazine from my graduate school. She asked me why I have dedicated my professional life to developing the next generation of music educators. Later in the week, I attended a workshop where we were asked to tell stories about our advocacy for the arts.

For me, it all goes back to the summer of 1980, when I was about to be a freshman at Randolph High School in Randolph, Massachusetts. I could hardly wait to become a part of the thriving music program at the high school. Several choirs, competitions, and show choir – heaven for a young singer. Music was always an escape for me from the pressures of my young life, and I couldn’t wait to take advantage of the opportunities that awaited me.

Unfortunately, that fall, Proposition 2 1/2 went into effect. This meant extensive cuts in everything from school bus service to athletics to arts programs across the state. Randolph was not immune to those cuts. Music teacher positions were eliminated and consolidated, and ensembles were removed from the curricular offerings.

My high school music teacher, Charlotte Browne, did not let those budget cuts and union rules deter her. She continued to work with her students – going as far as holding show choir rehearsals in my basement on her own time, since the district would not pay her for that work. Because of her dedication, I had musical opportunities that shaped my life and passions to this day.

I have devoted my professional life to music education because I have witnessed first hand the remarkable power of outstanding, committed music educators. I have seen what they can do for students and for a music program, as well as for an entire school community. Today, my students and alumni are making a difference in the lives of young people around the world by providing an excellent music education and meaningful musical opportunities to their students. I am extremely proud of and deeply moved by their accomplishments.

I haven’t seen Charlotte Browne in decades, though I have heard that she left Randolph and went to teach at a nearby private school. I know that she has continued to influence dozens and dozens of young people through her teaching. I am grateful to her for everything that she taught me – musically and otherwise. I only hope that I can make a difference in the field of music education that does justice to the difference that she made in my life.

I have decided to let go of two related ideas that I have held onto for far too long. They are illusions that I have about the world around me. They are ways that I delude myself.

If I could just make it through X, everything will get easier. I find myself saying this very often. As a busy person, I like to say to myself (and to anyone within earshot) that all I need to do is get through something – a particular project, a particular time of year, etc. – and then everything is going to get easier. The funny thing is that I haven’t seemed to learn after all these years that even when I make it through whatever I’ve been talking about, it doesn’t get easier. Other things come along. They always do. So this is a completely unrealistic illusion that I create for myself about my life.

Aside from that, I don’t think it’s productive to conceive of one’s life as a series of challenges to get through, either. That isn’t the most positive, powerful way to position oneself in the world. It should not be about getting through things – it needs to be more about what I can do and how I can contribute meaningfully to the lives of other people and make a difference in the world. Even if it makes me very busy to do so.

Once I take care of X, I will finally be caught up. Admit it. The state of being caught up does not exist anymore. Not in today’s technologically advanced, globalized, fast-paced world. I will never, ever, ever be caught up. And that doesn’t mean that there is something wrong with me. Or something wrong with the world. Rather, it means that I am involved. Connected with other people and organizations. Interacting with individuals, groups, and ideas. Embedded in the real world. This is a good thing, not something to complain about. Rather than thinking of myself as running as fast as I can to catch up, I need to relish the connections, the involvements, the interactions, and the embedded-ness.

I hope that ridding myself of these illusions and delusions will help contribute to a healthier attitude and a more realistic stance towards myself and my life.

Episode Three of Teach: Tony Danza aired last night. There are two main lessons to draw from this week’s installment of the show.

1. It’s difficult to establish/maintain healthy boundaries as a teacher.  Tony finds himself overwhelmed by having made too many commitments to the students and the school community. As says, he has trouble saying no because “everything’s a good cause.” He’s right. Everywhere you turn in schools, there are worthwhile causes that you can become involved with – working with students and parents, meeting with teachers and administrators for various projects and initiatives, and so on. The challenge is how to be dedicated to your work and your students without overextending yourself. At one point in the show, Tony remarks that he woke up that morning with all of his students on his mind. He cares very, very deeply about the students in his class, and he wants desperately to reach them and to help them succeed and grow, both in English class and in their lives. These impulses and good, but for his sanity, Tony has got to find a way to turn off his preoccupation with his students for some of the time in the day/evening so that he can recharge and have a more balanced life. He needs to create appropriate boundaries, while still remaining a caring, dedicated teacher.

2. Teaching is not something that you can dabble in. The impression that I get from Tony is that in most of the other areas of his life (acting, dancing, playing music, etc.), he is a sort of dabbler. He tries things, learns some about them, and then incorporates them into his show. Teaching is not something that one can dabble in. When you are teaching, you need to give it your full attention. Tony and his instructional coach notice that his teaching is suffering – regressing to what it was like early in the semester, when he was all over the place, talking too much, etc. – when he is overly busy with outside commitments. Teaching demands more than that in order to be effective. Tony has got to prioritize his teaching job if he wants to make a real difference in these students’ lives and be the most effective teacher he can be.

There were some lovely moments in this episode. One of the girls who had been struggling in Tony’s class and had been reluctant to participate is shown participating in a class discussion. One of the boys whom Tony is having trouble reaching realizes that Tony really does care about him. Another boy who is contemplating leaving the football team has a terrific game (a couple of great tackles), and Tony is there to support him and provide encouragement for him. We do see positive effects of Tony’s work with some of his students. I’d like to see much more.

Many student teachers and new teachers find themselves worrying about the wrong things. Here is a list of things that you should NOT worry about if you are a new music teacher:

1. That you didn’t cover everything you planned to in a single class/rehearsal session. Most new teachers overplan – they pack far too much into single lesson/rehearsal plans. And then they beat themselves up when they don’t get to it all in the space of one session. Remember that good teaching is not determined by whether the teacher can check off all of the plan as completed. Good teaching is determined by whether/how the students learn. If it takes your students longer to learn what you planned for them to learn on a particular day, and you take that time to help them, then you should feel good about your teaching, not bad. I tell my students all the time, “We are teaching the students, not the material.” Student learning is our objective, not (as Saphier, Gower, and Haley-Speca would say) coverage.

2. That you don’t have a fully formed, ready-to-go system of assessments in place. Developing assessments takes time. You need to think long and hard about what you want to assess, how you want to assess it, and what information you need in order to evaluate student learning and get feedback on your teaching. Assessment is very complex. It takes years to develop effective assessments. You will begin teaching without having all of your assessments in place – in fact, probably without having many assessments in place – and you will develop them over time. This is normal, not something to worry about. Be realistic and work gradually over your first few years of teaching to develop your assessments – and be sure to tweak them and improve them as you go.

3. That you don’t have a fully-formed, ready-to-go curriculum in place. Unless you happen to work for a school or district that has a music curriculum waiting for you (which is much more rare than you might think), you won’t have a curriculum that tells you what to teach on Monday morning at 10 at your disposal when you begin a new job. This is the challenge and the opportunity of being a music educator – you get to plan your own curriculum, within the guidelines that you are given by your employers. Enjoy this opportunity to create a sequence of materials, activities, assignments, repertoire, and skill development that is meaningful to you, age appropriate, appropriate for your school context, in line with the State Frameworks and National Standards, and in accordance with whatever materials/guidance you are given in your school. Relish in the change to make changes to this curriculum as your interests and ideas change, and as you get to know your students and school community better.

4. That you make mistakes. Teaching is a very, very complex profession. Teachers are required to make dozens of decisions every class period, and probably hundreds of decisions a day. Sometimes, because we are human, we make mistakes. We handle things in a way that we wish we had done differently. We don’t know the rules/procedures in our new schools yet, and we brush up against the system in ways we wish we hadn’t. We say something in class in a way that we wish we hadn’t. Or, what might feel even worse, we make a musical mistake in front of our class.

Let yourself be human. Humans make mistakes. It is not the end of the world. It is what happens after a mistake that is most telling. Just like when we are playing at a performance and we make a mistake – it is how we recover that demonstrates our true musicianship.

If you make a mistake as a teacher, admit it, apologize, correct it, and move on. How we handle mistakes in front of our students helps to create the atmosphere in which they will make mistakes as part of their learning process. If your actions demonstrate that it is safe to make mistakes, then your students will feel safe to make mistakes in your classroom.

I hope that this post eases the troubled minds of new music teachers and student teachers in music classrooms. We have plenty to think about and be concerned with as educators – we do not need to worry unnecessarily.

In the second episode of Teach: Tony Danza, Tony struggles to meet the needs of all of his students. Some of his students are bored and feel that the class should move more quickly, and other students are having real challenges with the material.

“The tag of teacher” must be earned through student learning. Tony’s principal tells him, “You don’t earn the tag of teacher until the students are learning.” This is after half of his class failed Tony’s first quiz. In this principal, we have a vivid portrait of a wise and thoughtful educator. She is absolutely right. Teaching is earned through student learning. No matter how much you love your students (and it is clear that Tony Danza is getting quite attached to his class), their learning is a teacher’s highest priority.

Tony must find ways to help his students learn. He seems to believe that all a student must do is put in effort and s/he will learn. It appears as though he is generalizing from his own experiences in school and applying them to all of his students who are having difficulties. Tony has a lot to learn about student learning, and particularly about special education. In one pivotal scene, Tony attends a seminar about dyslexia and sees what a page of text looks like to students with dyslexia. The seminar clearly challenges a lot of Tony’s underlying beliefs about students who have trouble in school.

The teaching profession demands respect. Tony’s principal notes that Tony Danza has many talents that she respects greatly – singing, dancing, acting, boxing. However, she also demands that Tony respect the teaching profession. Her words ring loudly for the general public, as well. Just as it is not easy to sing, dance, act, and box – and just as those skills take years of hard work and practice – it is not easy to teach. Teaching is a highly complex and multi-layered activity that is incredibly rich and challenging. It takes years of hard work and practice to become an effective teacher. Every day as a teacher is filled with challenges of various kinds – interpersonal (with students, other teachers, administrators, parents), logistical, administrative, instructional, emotional, intrapersonal, etc. Effective teachers know how to meet those challenges in multiple ways so that they can match their approaches to the particular situation or student.

If there is one thing that I hope that Teach: Tony Danza can do for education, it would be to provide the general public with a more realistic, balanced, and grounded perspective of what it takes to be a teacher – to increase people’s respect of the teaching profession.

There’s a new TV show on A&E: Teach Tony Danza. Yes, that’s right – the star of “Taxi” and and “Who’s the Boss?” is now pushing 60. Years ago, he studied education and was licensed to teach in the public schools. He’s decided to move to Philadelphia and teach 10th grade English in a large, urban high school. A&E is documenting his first year in the classroom.

Having seen just the first episode, I feel strongly that this television show is a must-watch for all educators, and would be very valuable for anyone interested in education policy. In just one hour, two very important lessons were communicated:

Most People Think Teaching is Easy. It’s Not. Tony’s principal makes this point later in the  show. Because we have all been to school ourselves, we all have gone through what sociologist Dan Lortie refers to as the apprenticeship of observation. We all think we know how to teach effectively, and that all you have to do is stand up in front of students and deliver instruction. Seems so simple. In fact, teaching is a very, very complex and difficult endeavor. It takes even excellent teachers several years to evolve into their work. There are many, many elements of good teaching that can develop only with experience and coaching. I am pleased to see that Danza works with an instructional coach during his first week of school. I hope that he continues to have a great deal of support. He needs it. He is a pretty awful teacher, at least at first.

Teaching is NOT a performance. Because Tony wants so badly to do a good job as a teacher, he is very nervous as he works with his students. When Tony gets nervous, he goes into “actor mode” – he gives long, rambling, semi-entertaining, charming speeches. Giving speeches and entertaining students is not teaching. Teaching has some elements of performance, to be sure – good teachers activate students’ imaginations and present material in an engaging way, and some good teachers use drama in various ways in their classrooms – but ultimately, the students are not your audience and you are not a performer. In the performer/audience scenario, what takes place is about the performer. It is the performer’s job to entertain the audience, and the audience’s job to applaud the performer. In the classroom, what takes place is about the students and their learning. It is the teacher’s job to get out of the way and facilitate student learning, and the students’ job to engage with the material, follow the classroom/school rules, and learn.

As an example, I don’t think I heard Tony Danza ask a single academic-related question of his students in all of the teaching clips in the first episode. (He did ask some students about themselves as they were talking in the first class, but those questions did not take place during an academic lesson.) Good teaching is not telling, where the teacher does all of the talking and the students passively listen. Good teaching requires asking, where the students are asked to inquire, think, and discover for themselves. The first thing Tony Danza needs to learn as a teacher is to stop talking so much and start listening to his students. His instructional coach said just this in one of their meetings. Tony is also working with the football team as an assistant coach, and the head coach also told Tony to stop talking so much. Teachers need to talk less and listen more – something Tony has yet to learn.

Teaching is About Relationships. At the football game, Tony’s principal emphasizes to Tony that he needs to get to know his students well and establish strong relationships with them. She is absolutely right. Good teaching is undergirded by relationships – most importantly, between teacher and students, but also among teachers, between teachers and administrators, and between teachers, students, and parents. Tony must get to know the people in his school community. Teaching is a human endeavor conducted by human instruments. Relationships are the foundation of excellent teaching. Students can be more willing to engage, learn, participate, and grow in the classroom when they feel secure in their relationships with the teacher and the other students. Teachers can be more productive when they have strong relationships with their students and when they are supported by good relationships with colleagues, administrators and parents.

I am looking forward to the next episode of Teach Tony Danza. I hope that there are more lessons ahead – for Tony Danza, who has some work to do as a teacher, as well as for anyone who is interested in public education.

There has been a great deal of hype about Davis Guggenheim’s documentary, Waiting for Superman, which finally opened in Boston this weekend. Many education bloggers and scholars whom I respect have expressed outrage over the film because of its oversimplification of the issues in public education today, its teacher-bashing perspective, its adoption of a crisis  narrative, its creation of heroes in Bill Gates and Michelle Rhee, its treatment of charter schools as silver bullets, and its lack of examples of successful and effective public schools (especially urban public schools). While some of these charges that are aimed at the film do hold some water, I was surprised to find that the film does present some of the issues in public education in a reasoned and thoughtful way. At the same time, I found other problems with the film that haven’t been mentioned in the press. And I do continue to share the concerns that the film’s oversimplification of the issues in public education could mislead the general public, who is uninformed about these issues.

So what do I think was presented in a reasoned and thoughtful way in the film? Guggenheim argues that there are serious issues in public education today. He points to many aspects of public education that remain as they were over 100 years ago, such as the tensions between local, state, and federal control over education and the role of teachers’ unions. Throughout the history of public school education in this country, there has been a battle between local forces and federal forces over a number of aspects of the ways that schools are run, curriculum is created, and funding is allocated. These issues plague our educational system today. Teachers’ unions were first formed at a time when teachers were victimized by corrupt administrators and school boards. They desperately needed protection and organization. Today, our schools remain structured in ways that are tied to the world the way it used to be – even down to the agrarian need for a long summer break. Guggenheim appropriately argues that these arcane elements need to be reexamined and that we need an educational system that reflects today’s world. That should include teachers’ unions, but there needs to be some serious rethinking about the ways that teachers’ contracts are structured. Tenure is not necessarily a bad idea, but maybe it should be earned.

Problems with the film? The superficial treatment of several profound issues in education. First, No Child Left Behind and its influence on public education in this country. It was completely glossed over. The tyranny of the high stakes test, and the use of high stakes tests as the sole means to evaluate students, teachers, and schools was barely addressed. What high stakes testing has done to schools in terms of pushing out subjects that are not tested did not even get a mention in the film. Second, the well researched correlation between the socioeconomic status of students and their academic achievement was touched on, but very superficially. Third, we see very, very few examples of public schools (and particularly urban public schools) that are effective. We hear very, very few teachers’ voices about their work. The narrator mentions the profound impact that excellent teachers can have on students, as well as the demands and responsibility of a teacher’s job, but we don’t hear about that from teachers themselves, which I see as a grave omission. They also say just a few words about the fact that only a small percentage of charter schools are successful, but so much of the film focuses on a handful of very successful charter schools, that the point is probably lost. And there is no mention that the original intent of the charter school legislation was for the best practices of charter schools to be replicated in regular public schools. And there is almost no discussion of the issues regarding the evaluation of teachers – how we can do it better, and what that would need to look like (in my view, a combination of many data points, including sustained observations, peer review, review of their service to the school community, and many other measures). Finally, there is a lot of time spent pointing to other nations whose students outperform ours but very little time spent discussing some of the reasons for this, which often include a more homogenous population and national curriculum.

So what’s my overall verdict? The film should not be the entire extent of a person’s knowledge about the issues in public education. That is my fear – that folks who know very little about education will see this film and think that they are well informed. However, I do think that there is the possibility that fruitful discussion can spring from this film, and that may help move the conversation about public education in this country forward.