Mentoring and Retention

Today after school, the high school orchestra director brought about a dozen of his students to my middle school and worked with my students. It was a great experience! The H.S. director is a very experienced and effective teacher (as evidenced by both the size and quality of his groups) . His students did a great job demonstrating, giving suggestions to my students and just being models for my students! I was very pleased that 100% of my students who were in school today participated (sometimes that can be a problem for after school activities).

The H.S. students were seated between two middle school students so that each one could both hear and see the H.S. student as they played. The director rehearsed the pieces we are working on for MPA (Florida’s term for Festival or Contest). Some of his suggestions echoed things that I had told my students. He also had a number of excellent bowing and other suggestions that are “keepers.”

Events like this, in my view, are a “win, win.” My students have an opportunity to learn first-hand from more experienced players, get great suggestions from another teacher, and have fun! The H.S. director now becomes someone my students know which helps a lot when they make the decision as to what classes they will take in H.S. Since they now have rehearsed under the H.S. director, H.S. orchestra is not a “great unknown” and that makes it easier to choose to continue orchestra. I gained some valuable suggestions from a fellow teacher and students that are even more excited about being in orchestra.

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 6th, 2008 at 8:50 pm and is filed under music education, strings, teaching. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.