mentoring

Students are not Starfish

Starfish on the beachby John Gardner (via LinkedIn)

The starfish story (not my original) is about someone trying to make a difference and I think of it periodically when I find myself trying to balance that healthy, professional detachment from the lives of individual students with the reality and significance of those lives and my desire to make a difference by being more than “just” a classroom teacher.

Working with students is not a life or death proposition, of course, but some seem to get washed up on the beach. Here’s the story and 10 ways to make a difference. Those 10 ways represent my core beliefs in teaching and working with teens.

The man was out for a walk on the beach when he noticed a boy frantically picking things up and throwing them into the ocean. Curious, he approached the boy to discover that he was picking up starfish that had washed up on to the beach — and was throwing them back into the water.
“Son, what are you doing?” the man asked.
“The tide is going out and these starfish got left behind. I’m throwing them back into the water to save them.”
“But son, there are hundreds of miles of beach. You can’t possibly make a difference.”
As the boy picked up another starfish, he threw it into the water and then turned and said to the man,

“I made a difference to THAT one.”

———————————

Teen years can be trying times.  Parents may be fighting, separating, dating and remarrying, which means the teen now has to not only deal with a break up of a foundation in his/her life, but often now has to live in multiple households. Some have to adjust to step-siblings, job losses, financial struggles and more. Then, there are the complexities of school with seemingly unending pressures to perform, trying to get through the dating games, often without an anchor or example to follow. Influenced by increasingly negative social standards, or lack of standards….. teens can get caught in the rise and falling tides. Most learn how to negotiate life’s trying currents, but can turn the wrong way, make a miscalculation or poor decision — and find themselves high and dry on the beach…..and they need help. Not every student needs, wants or will accept a teacher’s help. Sometimes the teacher’s effort is both unappreciated and unsuccessful.

But try we must…because we CAN make a difference “to THAT one”.

Ten ways to make a difference:

  1. Be real. You can’t fake it with teens, they will see right through you. If you can’t be real, you should not be there. Please leave education.
  2. Be available. How easy is it for a teen to say to YOU, “Can I talk to you?”? What if it is not during class or immediately after school? In how many different ways are you available and do students know and understand that? Do they know if it is ok to email, call, text or instant message you? When a teen says they need to talk, somebody needs be available. Be that person. Consider your use of texting and social media.
  3. Be there. Yes, you’re “on duty” at school. What about when a student is in the hospital, at the funeral home, pitching in the softball/baseball game, getting baptized, being awarded Eagle Scout status, or when their garage-type band is playing at the coffee shop? Take your spouse or your kids and just be where you can when you can. They will notice.
  4. Trust them. If you want trust, you need to give some. I have a periodic discussion about trust, abusing it, losing it and the difficulty in earning it a second time. Read: “I WANT To Trust You“. Teens make mistakes and the trust area is one of those places where they can mess up. But help them learn. Take a reasonable chance. Yes, you’ll get burned some….but you will also empower leaders to rise up.
  5. Respect them. There is a good chance they will recognize and return it.
  6. Advocate for them. Of course you have students who are financially challenged and could benefit from music lessons, a better instrument, participation in a select ensemble or some other training. You won’t always succeed, but try to find funding to help. Call the employer to help him get that job. Write a letter to help her get that scholarship. Help them with college applications their parents can’t (or won’t).
  7. Listen, really listen. Teens typically think that people don’t listen. They think adults are quick to lecture, criticize and correct, but are slow to listen. You don’t always have to have the answer. Sometimes there isn’t an obvious answer. Sometimes listening is the answer, because in allowing them to share, you enable them to find their own answer. Unless they are sharing something illegal, dangerous, hear them out. Don’t argue. Don’t interrupt. Don’t pre-judge. And when you can, share your wisdom, experience, expertise and advice.
  8. Expect and Encourage Excellence. Students will complain when the load is heavy and the challenge is significant, but they know, even when they won’t admit, that achieving excellence requires work. They want to achieve and succeed. Being there for them doesn’t mean lowering your standards. Make them stretch. They’ll appreciate you eventually, even if not today.
  9. Don’t assume. A question I ask often is, “You okay?” Simple question….and sometimes they shrug it off, but there have been many times for me that this gives them the opening to ask for help.
  10. Don’t give up. It can be difficult, disappointing and even deflating when teens mess up. Don’t give up on them. That’s what the rest of society wants to do sometimes…. They will be disappointed that they disappointed you, but your unconditional support (not approving what they do) is vitally important to them.

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10 Anti-Excellence HS Peer Pressure Standards

By John Gardner

When I asked my high school Valedictorian son why he had chosen a particular top-tier university and why he was tired of being the geek.

I’m tired of being the geek. I’m tired of ruining the curve. I’m tired of people getting mad at me because I do the extra credit anyway. I want to go somewhere I can be normal; where it is okay to be an achiever.

Pressure surrounds teens.

Parents push them to do better. Teachers need performance data in the ever-increasing “prove-you’re-teaching-and-they-are-learning” world of government schools.  The strongest pressure, however, can come from peers.

In handing out a “pre-test”, a beginning of a semester assessment to find out where students are on a subject, a teacher was explaining to the class.

“This is NOT for a grade. This is to help me find out where to start. If you already know most of what is on this pre-test, I’ll be able to give you higher-level work.”

A student in the class spoke up,

“Fail it!”

The message was clear.

“If we look like we know stuff, they will give us more. If we all fail the pre-test, we’ll get easy stuff to do. LET’S GO!”

Anybody can be mediocre


Here is some of the unwritten peer-pressure-code of many high schools:

  • Go easy on the pre-test. Save your effort for the one that counts.
  • Don’t ruin the curve.
  • If you turn it in early, you make the rest of us look bad.
  • If the instruction says 500 words, don’t do 501.
  • Just do what you have to do to get the grade your parents won’t yell about.
  • Don’t study at home, practice at home or do extra research at home because they’ll start expecting MORE.
  • The teacher will adjust the level of work to the level of the class. We vote for easy. Don’t mess it up for us.
  • Share your work with us…. we’ll change a few words and get away with it.
  • Teachers are the enemy. Don’t be a “teacher’s favorite”. The only time you should be “friendly” to a teacher is when you need something – or when you’re asking for more time, etc.
  • Snitches get stitches. C’mon! Who’s side are you ON?
  • If they give us the entire class period to take a test – take the entire time. If we get done too early, they will start on something else.
  • Tell your teachers what they want to hear, even if you have to make it up.
  • Use up the entire limit: number of times you can be tardy, number of times you can be called out before discipline, number of assignments you can miss, number of low grades that will be dropped…..and then use your puppy dog eyes and maybe even a few tears to plead for mercy, forgiveness and another chance — after the limit is hit.

Below are a few of the pics/graphics I try to use to encourage a different path…..

If you want to do
This pic is from the goal line of Lucas Oil in Indianapolis. Indiana bands have state finals here. Drum Corps International and Bands of America have national finals here. And…. many of my students call me ‘G’…

Excellence

Get Things Done

If the notes are on the paper


You should seldom have to tellSlide29Slide30

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Is it ever ok for a teacher to LOVE students?

There is more to school life than what happens during the academic day. Some academic teachers are also coaches or extracurricular sponsors. Coaches develop strong bonds with their athletes. Music and theater arts teachers spend considerable extracurricular time with students – evenings, weekends, summers. These teacher/student relationships are significant and life long impacting.

Is it ever ok for a teacher to LOVE students?

In a reunion with some of the students from my first teaching job, as they were sharing memories, one person put it this way:

“Come back to teach the students of the students you taught.”

I expected to hear some of the heart-warming stories and did, but one comment caught me off guard a little. As one was listing attributes he appreciated, he included…..

“…and your smile.”

What teachers do you remember most 10-20-30 years out, and for what do you remember them?

Band is the ultimate team.

Unlike a basketball team with its starting five, there is no bench in band. Everybody is in. Everybody is a starter. Few other types of groups will involve people from such varied backgrounds. There are children of doctors and lawyers performing with children of single-parents working multiple jobs or utilizing government help. There are the students who have their own cars and those who need rides, those with the iPhones and the free phones or no phone. You will find students in most bands from every church in the community and others who have never been inside a church.

High school provides a memorable time for teens and parents to be on the same team before graduation and the empty nest.

If only it were like that for all teens.

At this most critical time in their decision-making years, if teens can’t find love, acceptance, encouragement and support from parents, teachers and mentors, they will search for it elsewhere, often with disastrous results leaving them with consequences that change lives and crush dreams.

But even more than TEAM, band is FAMILY…

Most high school athletic teams are together for a “season” — maybe six weeks with a few more for preparation. Band meets in the summer, including band camp which can be 8+hours a day. Then there is every day at school with additional rehearsals in the evenings, plus the Friday football/basketball game and the Saturday competition.

…and more functional than some.

As I stood outside Door 34, she jumped out of the passenger side of the car and ran past me, teary-eyed, crying,

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

As she went by I saw the papa, for the first time, approaching me and angrily waving a piece of paper.

“How much of this schedule is mandatory?”

I paused, if only for a moment as I thought through his reaction to my answer…

“All of it.”

After grumbling something that I probably couldn’t repeat, he returned to the car and didn’t quite lay rubber in his exit. The daughter was waiting in my office, still crying and apologetic. I hugged her. How does such a sweet daughter have a parent like that?

There are loving parents who are working 2-3 jobs each, going to school and dealing with the challenges of large families – and it is somewhere between difficult and impossible for them to spend a lot of time at football games, parades and competitions. I get that. But what do you say to this parent?

“We need to pull [Benjamin] out of band because he won’t clean his room and he needs to learn respect. He loves band and so this is the only valuable thing we can take away to make our point.”

Or this one?

“Why should I pay money for her to spend time spinning a flag. There are no colleges that will offer scholarships and besides, what job is that going to prepare her for?”

Or to these students?

“Can you please give me something to do. I’ll straighten the library….anything….just don’t make me go home.”

“I have a job so I can earn the money for my band fee, and I keep hiding it, but my mother keeps finding it and taking it.”

“I have to quit music lessons. My dad found out I was using some of my job money for music lessons and says that if I am going to waste my money on that – I can start paying rent.”

“Please don’t try to introduce yourself to my dad. Please don’t. Please, please, please don’t. He is not a nice man.”

I want to share the LOVE they may be missing.

Educationally, the L-word is dangerous. Administrations encourage admiration and respect, but love is conspicuously absent. Understandable. Inappropriate teacher student relationships make national news and destroy lives. Elementary teachers can hug students, but by middle school it is to be a touchless relationship. I disagree.

Sometimes an appropriate touch, handshake, high five, tap on the shoulder or even a hug – can be powerfully effective in mentoring, consoling or encouraging. It doesn’t have to be physical. It can be listening and responding when others won’t.

C.S. Lewis in his book, The Four Loves, divides the Greek vocabulary for “love” into four categories:  Storge (στοργή storgē) -affection, Philia (Philia (φιλία philía) – friendship, Éros (ἔρως érōs– romantic love, and Agápe (ἀγάπη agápē) – charity.

None of those match completely what I’m trying to define. Storge (affection) can include the physical. Philia (i.e. Philadelphia – brotherly love) comes close but can include the sexual. Éros is obviously not appropriate, and Agápe, often interpreted as the love between Christians is also close, but gets into spiritual and that is not quite it either.

I “L” my students with a parental type. I see their potential and their youthful enthusiasm and I love that. I love their willingness to share with me things that they can’t comfortably share anywhere else.

“You are always the one to trust with issues like this because you treat us like people and not just another bunch of “teenagers”.”

ADMIRE students who…

  • pay band fees out of a paycheck
  • pay for private instruction lessons out-of-pocket
  • seem completely self-supporting (clothes, obligations)
  • apologize for the way their parent(s) behaved
  • juggle the extra rehearsals and activities with job and homework — and go for the best grades without parental encouragement or expectation
  • keep a positive attitude when others have parents involved and but they don’t

Nobody said life is fair. Those who endure hardships can be the better for it later. Trust me on that. As the oldest of five children raised in a single parent family by a polio surviving mother (and if you have no idea what that means, thank God), I understand poverty, but also how to work through it, with it, around it, and above it …. so cut me some slack when I don’t expect less from the less fortunate.

Students often impress me with friend choices and for the way they support and encourage each other. It is moving to see how friends and band members surround one who is hurting, physically or emotionally. With proper relationships established, teachers can be included in, or involved separately in similar support and encouragement – even of some personal issues.

RESPECT students …

  • who work through moderate pain or discomfort without complaint
  • who have the musical ability to thrive, but can’t get the new instrument, or the private lessons, or go to the summer camps….or even stay in band, because of a parent who doesn’t see the value of band or color guard
  • expect more of themselves than their parents do
  • endure custody battles and try not to allow it to interfere with band

I hope these students appreciate how hard I try to make their situations work out.

And we have students whose parents are their biggest cheerleaders and amazing supporters…..

  • helping them earn the highest of Boy or Girl Scout honors
  • supporting their garage band
  • encouraging out of country mission trips
  • inspiring them to pursue the same vocation as the parent
  • or spending countless hours volunteering for band (committees, sewing, cooking, feeding, chaperoning, driving, etc)

We have CARING students who….

  • stand outside Wal-mart when it is below freezing to ring bells and play Salvation Army brass ensemble music
  • volunteer in nursing homes and with church youth groups in a host of different types of volunteerism
  • help raise money for those sick and injured

I am a retired high school teacher who appropriately loves, admires, and respects students.

Teacher Student Love

 

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Private lessons can be like paying for college…1 week at a time

By John Gardner

I was sitting in the driveway of my son’s trumpet teacher writing out a check.

The teacher had requested going from a half hour lesson to an hour. I recall the teacher’s response when I asked if there was a discount for the double-session…..

You get me for twice the time at twice the price.

As I wrote out the check, I shared a sentiment with my son,

I consider this an investment in your college career. I hope I am paying for your college one week at a time….and by the time you’re ready to graduate that you will be good enough that a college will pay for you.

He worked — and his did. This video is a portion of his senior recital. He had the flashy stuff too, but I thought his tone was fantastic….. I had the honor of guest conducting his high school band, which accompanied him on this same piece during his high school final semester.

Private lessons (coaching / mentoring) provides much more than that…

…even for students who will NOT be majoring in music in college. …

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Earning and receiving a great reference letter

referencesBy John Gardner (retired July 2020)

As a teacher, I was often asked to be a reference on a job application or to write a recommendation letter for students applying for scholarships, jobs, and/or colleges. I received a nice thank you from a former exchange student who had just re-used the letter I wrote for her as she was applying for graduate studies toward her doctorate at a university in Germany. Because I find myself answering the same questions or asking for the same information whenever students need this help, I’m going to organize them here and then refer students to this post when they want my letter-writing help.

How do you EARN a good letter and when do you START?

When sophomores and juniors interested in auditioning for Drum Major asked, “When are auditions?” My response was normally, “Your audition started freshman year.”

Similarly, a good reference doesn’t happen just because you ask or need one…. it happens because you have earned it during your years of association with, in this case, a teacher.

Few teachers or coaches get to know a student as well as a band director because it is often a 4+ year participation class — and especially marching band involves much more interaction than in a typical academic class. Students should realize and appreciate the value of such a letter — and work all four years to develop a stellar reputation the teacher will be happy to brag on.

Hire MeWhat makes a good letter?

I usually structure my letter to focus on multiple areas:

  1. Band experience. Which ensembles, what years, any additional responsibilities – i.e. section leader, drum major, etc.
  2. Qualification. Especially for scholarship letters, I like to emphasize genuine need and why I think meeting that need is a good investment for the scholarship provider.
  3. School experience. Grades, other extracurricular activities, honor rolls, awards, achievements.
  4. Community experience, especially volunteerism. Camps, counseling experiences, etc. Jobs.
  5. College/Career goal. What will you major in or what do you plan to do after graduation?
  6. Reputation. I like to reference the quality of friend choices, the wisdom of decision-making, and generally, the types of comments peers and teachers might make.

What YOU should provide the letter-writer.

  • Resume. Resumes typically contain much of the information needed for a good letter. If you don’t have a resume, use the above list and organize information. If not an official resume, at least a list of activities, honors, awards, jobs, volunteer work, and after-graduation plans.
  • Stamped, Addressed Envelope with sufficient postage. Although I often do provide a copy to the student, the customary approach is to provide everything to the letter writer who then can put the letter in the envelope, seal it and drop it in the mail. OR… links to the online application and an email to which to send a copy to the student. Don’t use your school email, which may expire after you graduate.
  • Additional Paperwork completed. Often there is an accompanying application or information sheet to go with the letter and it is both inconvenient and inconsiderate of you to expect ME to take that additional time. Fill in your addresses, names, and numbers. If I see that it will take extra time, I tend to procrastinate on the project.
  • TIME! The worst was a student approaching me after school about writing a letter requiring a same day postmark! C’mon…. If you want a comprehensive letter, give me time to do it. I will typically write a letter within a couple of days — but give me a week, please.

I love writing letters to help achievers because when I was where they are — there were people who went to bat for me and this is my way of returning that favor by passing it on….. Teachers don’t expect a lot in return, but a smile and a thank you can go a long way.

SUGGESTIONS for getting ADDITIONAL letters and help!  If a teacher has taken the time to organize and write a professional letter on YOUR behalf, consider a short, hand-written THANK YOU to the teacher. Guess who gets the better letters cranked out faster the next time?

Thanks for reading.

 

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10 Ways for Adults to Make A Difference in Teen Lives

By John Gardner

Large group of smiling friends staying together and looking at camera isolated on blue backgroundTeen years can be trying times.  Parents may be fighting, separating, dating and remarrying, which means the teen now has to not only deal with a break up of a foundation in his/her life, but often now has to live in multiple households. Some have to adjust to step-siblings, job losses, financial struggles and more.

Then, there are the complexities of school with seemingly unending pressures to perform, trying to get through the dating games, often without an anchor or example to follow. Influenced by increasingly negative social standards, or lack of standards….. teens can get caught in the rise and falling tides.

Most learn how to negotiate life’s trying currents, but can turn the wrong way, make a miscalculation or poor decision — and find themselves high and dry on the beach…..and they need help. Not every student needs, wants or will accept a teacher’s help. Sometimes the teacher’s effort is both unappreciated and unsuccessful.

But try we must…because we CAN make a difference “to THAT one“.

Teens will listen if they respect and trust. Trust is one of the most valuable mentoring requirements.
Teens will listen if they respect and trust. Trust is one of the most valuable mentoring requirements.

Ten ways to make a difference:

10 Ways for Adults to Make A Difference in Teen Lives Read More »

My Philosophy of Education and why I interact with students the way I do

My Philosophy of Education and why I interact with students the way I do Read More »