APPENDIX D: DATA & ANALYSIS IV – DELETED SCENES & QUOTABLES
Deleted Scenes
(featurette)
FADE IN:
INT. ONLINE MEETING ROOM - DAY
DENNIS, KERRIE, and SOPHIE are on screen.
DENNIS
Happy New Year!
KERRIE, SOPHIE
Happy New Year!
DENNIS
How’s the school year going so far?
KERRIE
Well, I think I have PTSD. Half of my students – a third to a half in each of my classes – are gone right now. Principals are subbing, and… it’s a big rack.
DENNIS
Such a nightmare. No fun.
SOPHIE
We have one class that’s down to six students. It was five the other day, but one came back from quarantine, so. And we’re also out a nurse and a secretary, and we just got our counselor back. We have just one of every person, so whenever we lose somebody, and then we don’t have any subs, and we just lost a custodian today, so, it’s just all…
DENNIS
It’s just all crazy.
SOPHIE
Yeah.
KERRIE
I know. I’m at five schools, and it’s like that at each one, and every time I open my email, there’s a notification of some kind, that just, “Out of an abundance of caution, we have to tell you that all these people are gone.” So.
DENNIS
(beat)
I don’t know, when we get together and talk about this stuff, do you get motivated, or do you get discouraged?
SOPHIE
It depends on the day. (laughs)
KERRIE
Both. But I always feel good in the end.
DENNIS
Yeah.
SOPHIE
It’s really frustrating because it feels like there’s so little you can do about any of the big problems as an individual person. There are so many things we talk about in these meetings that should change and could change, all the different things we could do, but when you think about the social momentum that would have to take place in order to change a lot of these things, and the years it would take – many of the things we talk about would take good chunks of our lifetimes, if not the rest of our lifetimes – even if they were worthwhile ideas that had any longevity. It’s interesting, but part of it is disheartening.
DENNIS
I have a student who recently wrote me a card, and just briefly thanked me and said he really appreciated that I have restored his love for playing the piano. That feels good.
SOPHIE
Yeah, I have a new student and he said I was the best music teacher ever, and then gave me a hug. It’s really good. I think it’s because I play a lot of games, most of the class.
KERRIE
My kid and I the other night were talking about how things might be different if people in this country were required to do several years of service in education, the way some countries do that for the military.
INT. ONLINE MEETING ROOM - NIGHT
Participants are on screen.
ELISE
The last time I saw my mom, she denied the existence of white privilege to me, and to other family members, and to my Hispanic best friend. It was interesting to hear, my friend works at the food bank, and we were talking about social programs that my mom is really in support of, you know. My mom use to work at the youth shelter, she talked about the food bank, she talks about all these things that people need, a social safety net, and my other friend sneaks in there, “Oh, then you agree that the meritocracy is a lie, and that socialism is something that we need,” and then, zing!... she left. I mean, she’s saying all this stuff and just doesn’t know she’s on the right side. I don’t know. Family’s weird.
SOPHIE
It’s so interesting how especially conservative-leaning family members can have these views, Christian views, where they believe in charity, and they want people to have good lives, but they are just so against it being done through government. As opposed to it being done through the hopeful goodwill of individuals. But I don’t understand how they can believe that people deserve all these things, but also not believe that it needs to be set up structurally, instead of just hoping that people maybe will donate their time and money and resources to this endeavor.
BOB
“Why don’t they just get a better job?!” It goes back to those mentoring kids that I mentioned earlier. The kids in the schools in my district who have the highest percentage of free-reduced lunch were very likely not read to as much when they were young, as the kids that come from nuclear families with four involved grandparents. We need to take the lens way out, and working with kids allows us to do that, because we see such a wide variety. You pick up on, “That’s the same pair of pants that she wore yesterday and the day before,” and you feel bad. And I would never say anything about that to a child, but all of those tiny little things that we probably all had as kids – I had a stay-at-home mom, which was still that era – that they don’t have, and then they get to be adults and they’re just way behind, totally two strikes against them.
ELISE
I think my mom’s denial of white privilege comes from the fact that she wasn’t a stay-at-home mom, nor did she have one. She had my sister when she was sixteen and got her GED when she was twenty something. She was a single mom from two different men with three kids by the time she was my age.
DISSOLVE TO: INT. ELISE’S MOM’S HOUSE - NIGHT
Elise, ELISE’S HISPANIC FRIEND, ELISE’S MOM, and several other FAMILY MEMBERS are sharing dinner.
ELISE’S MOM
Well, I had to work hard, what privilege did I have, anyway?
DISSOLVE TO: INT. ONLINE MEETING ROOM - NIGHT
Participants are online. Elise continues.
ELISE
So.
INT. ONLINE MEETING ROOM - NIGHT
Participants are on screen.
KERRIE
What we do as musicians, we’re commentators, like, during the civil rights movement, music was a big part. Because first of all, everyone listens to music, it’s a way to comment on what’s going on, and also, it’s a way to not be scared if you’re staring at the national guard and they have guns at you and you can all band together and sing, We Shall Overcome, right? And so, we talked about We Shall Overcome and then I tried to teach it to them. And some of my classes were onboard, and some were just like, “I’m not singing in front of my peers! Oh, gross!” you know.
SOPHIE
What I’ve noticed is that it’s always just a few students that will throw – like in that particular fifth grade class, my other fifth grade class usually goes along a little bit better, but in this one there’s like three or four boys that have a terrible attitude and just need to make sarcastic, mean, remarks about everything. And that’s where I was like, “Am I being controlling or am I just asking them to be respectful?” I don’t know. They were using screechy voices, and I’m like, “If you’re going to be miserable keep it in your head; don’t put in on everybody else.” Then everybody else feels awkward.
DENNIS
Yeah, that’s one of the hardest classroom management things to deal with, is when you have just a couple of really obnoxious, you know, noisemakers, or people that have really bad attitudes and bring others down.
SOPHIE
Yeah.
KERRIE
Well, it becomes, it’s like, “Watch me hog the conversation.” And so do you circumnavigate that, or do you address it, or, you know… For me, I just stand up there and just sing, you know, and I ignore it, and I just keep singing. And then today, I was like, “Okay, we’re gonna do call and response, so who wants to do a solo line?” And then they got into it. Then it wasn’t so cool to be weird, you know. But like getting them engaged in it, and believing in actually what you’re doing, you know, I’m just putting it out there, I’m a singer, I’m playing guitar, I’m just gonna do it, and that seemed to work for me. But that’s the performative thing for me that bell hooks was talking about; it’s like, if you are not whole hog into what you are doing, and you’re worried about the reaction of your students, or an administrator, or anything else, your just – it’s just gonna crumble. So, if you just show up and put your thing into it, then maybe it’s better, maybe you get that buy-in. I don’t know.
SOPHIE
I’ll have to try being a little over the top next time.
KERRIE
(laughs)
I wouldn’t say I’m over the top, but I’m definitely, I just present the song and I try to sing it or play it the best I can, you know so that it seems, like I am performing for them, and so they get less comfortable with interrupting that.
DENNIS
Yeah. One of the things that I learned – somebody gave me some advice about this one time and I tried to apply it, and I think it really does work to some extent, is that we want to create a certain environment in our classroom, we want it to be a safe place where people care about each other, and the advice was to talk about that every single class period. So every class period, remind the kids that this is a safe place and we don’t make fun of people in here and we don’t laugh at other people and we don’t giggle when other people are trying to do something, if somebody is trying to accomplish something, and whether they succeed or fail, or whatever, we support them, no matter what. And you just say this stuff over and over and over again, and little by little, it starts to sink in and then people start to buy into it. And if anybody does giggle or laugh or poke fun at, then you have to come down on them, you know, not in an evil way, but just, “No, remember, we do not do that here.” And it’s really hard when you see them just once a week. It’s different when you’re seeing them every day, like when I had middle school classes, I saw them every day, and it just made a huge difference from where I was before when I only saw them once a week.
SOPHIE
Yeah, I’ll have to try that with them, too, because they said… From what I’ve gathered about the previous music teacher, she was really big on getting them to sing, and she’d get everybody to sing, but I don’t know if she necessarily made it the most welcoming and fun environment for them. It was kind of like, “Do what I say, or else,” kind of thing. I’ve only talked to her a few times, but that’s what some people, including my principal, were insinuating. She even described herself once as a “Nazi” in the classroom, and I was like…
(gives expression of dissatisfaction)
My kids love being in music class for the most part. But I wonder sometimes if it’s because I’m too lenient, or, you know, like what is the reason that they like being in my class now? Is it a good reason, or is it because they can get away with more? Yeah. But I’ll definitely try that. Thanks for the advice.
DENNIS
I’m sure they learned that you care about them, and that’s probably what matters the most.
SOPHIE
Yeah, that’s what I kind of figure, especially since, you know, they move so often at my school.
DENNIS
Yeah, that’s tough. That’s really tough.
KERRIE
Well, I’m excited to read the rest of the bell hooks book. And just kind of get re-energized to give up some of my control or my expectations of student behavior versus my vision for what should happen in a year of like, “Hey, I’d like you to know about these things. How can we make that happen?” You know. And I don’t want to be the only person that’s in charge of that. But I don’t know what that looks like in a pandemic. In better years, in more balanced years, it would be like, “Oh, well I’m just going to try this strategy and see what happens.” And now I only get fifty percent of my kids showing up… And we’re trying not to sing too loudly, or, you know, double masking… Hmm.
SOPHIE
We focus so much on discipline, but I almost wonder if it should be focused more around respect. Because a lot of things, our critique within education, for like, sitting still, or being quiet, and listening to when other people are talking, or you know, like walking on one side of the hall. It can be seen as very, “Do what I say, or else,” but it can also be seen as, “This is a respectful way to interact with other human beings, that makes our lives run smoothly.” There may be a disconnect in how we think about it and approach it.
DENNIS
I hear people say things like, “If we don’t teach them when they’re young then they’re not going to learn. If we don’t teach them discipline when they’re young, then they’re not going to be disciplined when they’re older.” But it’s like, “Wait a minute. You’re also complaining about all the kids in fifth grade and eighth grade and ninth grade that aren’t disciplined. So did it really work?” I mean if it works, then why aren’t all these fifth graders just doing exactly what they’re told?
SOPHIE
But for adults they’re upset that they can’t speak up or against systems or they feel crushed, right? But I’m like, “Well, what do you want?”
KERRIE
Well, and so, how did kids learn, how did humans learn before schools? You know, I mean, they learned from their families, they learned by imitation, they learned through trial and error, and they learned, well, especially a lot of these social cues, from their parents, right? From their family – the interaction of the tribe or the extended family. And as teachers we kind of forget that that’s part of what they’re going through as well, you know, and so if they’re definitely not able to handle it at school, you can’t take that on you. You know, it’s like you’re not the one that’s teaching them how to be a human. It’s part of us, it’s part of what we do, but also, maybe we’re just there to teach them how to research? How to explore, how to be curious about something, how to organize stuff? And to that, Dennis, then you’re saying, “Well what do you know that they are interested in?” So, we’re teaching them how to learn.
DENNIS
All true, and then part of me says, well, but let’s take one of those things, like let’s say, organization. We teach them how to be organized. But from my experience, the kids that are naturally organized, they just get really good at being organized. And the kids that aren’t naturally organized, a lot of them just struggle and they never learn how to get organized. Even though they might pretend to from time to time – maybe the ones who are on the fence, maybe they learn a little bit, but it’s like, do we really teach them all these things that we think we teach?
SOPHIE
Speaking as a kid who was highly organized in K through 12 school, I was always with my planner and had my papers in all the right folders. But once the structure of the requirement that you had to do it was gone, organization was out the window. So, is it really that the kids are getting better at being organized, or is it just because they’re being forced into compliance?
INT. ONLINE MEETING ROOM - NIGHT
Participants are online.
BOB
The majority of highly successful ensemble directors in the 6th grade to 12th grade age range in this country are not creatives. They’re highly organized math type people who happen to have fallen in love with music. They have fantastic leadership abilities, they can get all of their little soldiers to do all of the right things on all of the right music, these kids would run through a brick wall for them, and they score really, really, really well. The guy I student taught under is a classic example. He was one of the top choir directors in my state at the time; got first division ratings. He was a math guy, he was super strict, super organized, the kids were all scared of him, and he got straight “ones,” every time, because all the ducks were in a row. But not one thing during the semester had anything to do with composing, improvising, creating… “No, we don’t do that.”
SOPHIE
Yep. At the high school and middle school where I student taught, and it was the best band program in the area, which more equated to being the most funded band program in the area, but they still did really well in competitions, but all five band directors there, except for the percussion guy, were all fairly strict, fairly organized, like, we do things this way, yada yada yada. And at that school and at the other school I taught at for band, it was very much like, we’re gonna rote teach, practice these things every day, make sure you memorize your notes, your fingerings, stuff like that – which is all important when you’re learning a band instrument. But then they’d get to high school, and it’d be like, “Why aren’t these kids playing with dynamics? Why aren’t these kids playing with expression? Why can’t any of my kids in jazz band improvise?” Well, you didn’t do any improvisation the entire time I was in your middle school class.
BOB
Improv, and creating, they’re in everyone’s curriculum; everyone’s state benchmarks have something about “kids must improvise a melody” – it’s in there. It’s because nobody wants a balance. That director that wants to be an honors band director isn’t going to think there’s time to do the other stuff, because they only want to make… you know, it’s like the show choirs that work on one or two shows for the entire school year, or competitive marching bands that do the same show for literally nine months. It’s like, “Oh my God!” I mean, I am a musician and a teacher who doesn’t mind repeating things, but I don’t know if I could do the same show for nine months. To get to that level of perfection, what has to give? Well, improv, creating, dance… We could do so much stuff that could be added to any music class on an improvisational level. It just takes the guts of the teacher to start it.
SOPHIE
I also feel like whenever there are those directors who are hyper-focused on being the best and winning the marching band competitions, sometimes it boils down to the school district, and their funding kind of depends on them continuing to do well. But then I’ve also seen it where it’s highly tied to the band director’s ego. I feel there needs to be a little bit more of a conversation about how going to competitions and doing these things isn’t supposed to stroke your ego. Even if you say, “Oh, but it’s for the kids.” They talk about it in their free time; they’re like, “Oh, I want to show up these other band directors.” It’s like they're competing with other adults.
BOB
They’re all type A personalities. Complete, you know, generally speaking, assholes. Really good ones. They’re assholes. But they’re great! They’re just assholes.
INT. ONLINE MEETING ROOM - DAY
Participants are on screen.
ELISE
I had parents complain that we didn’t have a musical theater program. So, I started one, and then her child never joined. Where I cohabitate… there’s two schools in my building… “The other school has an orchestra program. Why don’t you have an orchestra program?” “Why isn’t my kid learning what I learned in school?” “Are they going to be ready for the next thing?”
DENNIS
What about the language arts teacher who doesn’t want to teach Shakespeare, who wants to do more contemporary, or ethnic authors, and so, “You’re not teaching the Great Works?” “You’re not teaching the traditional canon.” Are there schools out there that give teachers a choice whether to teach, say, Common Core versus traditional math, or whatever?
SOPHIE
I guess we’d have to ask ourselves as both teachers and parents, or hypothetical parents, are there going to be dire consequences if our child does not learn about this one thing, or is it more important that they gain critical thinking skills? To be able to participate in that subject and analyze whatever it is within that subject. As opposed to, “Oh, they didn’t learn Shakespeare.” “They didn’t learn Beethoven.” “They didn’t learn any pop music.” Or whatever else you could say for any of the other subjects. I think we get it so much in our heads, especially the older we get, like, “Well, we learned this and if you don’t learn this then what are you learning?” Can you not learn those same things from different mediums? I know sometimes as a teacher I feel, “No, they have to learn this!” But then I think, “Well, maybe they don’t.” Or maybe they need the overall skill, but do they have to do it the way I’m doing it?
EDEN
I really struggle. I’m a parent, and I’m a very opinionated parent. I have a background in social studies, education… So, I have things that I think children should learn. But I’m also a piano teacher, and we’re kind of struggling in our school district with who’s taking over the school board, who’s taking over the curriculum… Right now, there’s a curriculum committee I’m participating in, that is talking about the social studies curriculum, and what is allowed to be taught, and the parents want this taught, but these parents want that taught… I’m in an emotional spot where I’m backing off the idea that parents should be dictating the curriculum. I feel if parents want to dictate the curriculum, they need to homeschool their children and dictate the curriculum in their household. I’m not a fan of parents coming in and dictating the curriculum for a whole group of children. I feel like that’s the job of administration and teachers and researchers who are experts in pedagogy. But, that said, I think we as a people, including myself, I think we’re very stunted in what we think education is, and we get trapped in content conversation, and not in the big picture of what education is about.
INT. ONLINE MEETING ROOM - NIGHT
Participants are on screen.
SOPHIE
Any ensemble activity for children that requires the parents to do volunteer hours is automatically discriminatory against students who come from nontraditional families and families who struggle financially. If your parents have to work multiple jobs or if you only have one parent, then how are they supposed to get their kids to all of these out-of-school functions and how do you expect parents to volunteer their limited free time? They may have more than one child and multiple jobs and too much on their plate already. I was lucky because my parents worked normal hours and when I was older, I had a car and was able to drive myself to orchestra rehearsals, but the cost was hard, I think it was $900 per year. That’s a lot even for a family who’s fairly well off. It was an out-of-school orchestra because all the in-school orchestra programs had been cut in order to focus on math and science – thinking that was the solution to everything. There were some really good players who could not afford it. And then the orchestra started pushing for kids to also get private lessons, and it was required if you wanted to move up to the advanced level orchestra. My parents couldn’t afford the private lessons on top of the orchestra fees, but at some point, I started receiving some financial aid. I might not be where I am today if that hadn’t happened. Why do we create all these burdens for kids to get an education? None of these circumstances they’re in are their fault.
MARY
I wish I could teach kids whose families can’t afford lessons. Because it could really be amazingly beneficial for them. But I don’t have the capacity. I keep my lessons fairly affordable, but it’s impossible for lower income brackets. I wish we could bring music lessons to lower income folks who can’t afford them.
INT. ONLINE MEETING ROOM - NIGHT
Participants are on screen.
BOB
After my pedagogy training, I tried to fit the suit. I went to choral festivals because that’s what I thought respected choral directors had to do. And “you can’t let your kids sing pop or rock songs because everything needs to be sung with tall, warm vowels and pure tone.” But hearing Jeanie LoVetri stress that all music styles deserve equal respect really resonated with me. And so, if you’re going to sing a pop song with your choir, they shouldn’t be singing with tall, dark vowels. They should sound close to the original recording, you know, to make it authentic. Authentic is a great word, because that is when I started to become more authentic to my students, being my own true self in the classroom, teaching music I really loved and was passionate about.
EDEN
I don’t feel we private piano teachers have the benefit of the broad perspective that educational, classroom teachers have, especially in a public school setting. We don’t have anywhere near the level of understanding that teachers have who are specialized in learning needs. We’re still stuck on the old John Thompson method, or something that has evolved from that. I feel that if we would talk more to teachers and glean more about the way teaching and education is moving, we could actually learn a lot more on how to work with our students.
DENNIS
There are many teachers that have gone in completely different directions, such as the School of Rock programs, the kinds where you start out by learning pop music, and composing, and songwriting, and recording even. I have a friend who considers herself a piano teacher but actually most of what they do is recording, she has a real recording studio, so her students learn how to use all that electronic equipment, and they compose music for short films, and that’s their introduction to piano – they learn the keyboard as they are learning these other things. So, there are things out there, but they’re not real common.
EDEN
Right, they’re still seen as a little fringe.
DENNIS
You know, we’re always talking to students about history as something that happened in the past, but I love the way Freire thinks about history as something that’s in the making; like, we – along with our students – are making history right now.
KERRIE
Education for the people, you know, we need to use this as a tool, not an end goal – it’s not a control situation, it is information for you to live a better life. So yeah, Freire really speaks to me, too, about how much we can try to control kids in the classroom setting, as opposed to giving them choices with the information that we present, a more constructivist approach, and stepping back, you know… Yeah, Freire’s a hero.
ELISE
I was a teaching assistant at a K-8 school with two teachers who had their master’s in education, who believed in a constructivist approach to teaching, where they didn’t teach how to read music, they didn’t teach any basics, and they had a piano lab, and xylophones, and they encouraged students to just compose, just create something. And I’m the little teaching assistant, and this is kind of frustrating, it was September all the way to January, and the director came up to me and said, “Their music’s getting really boring, it’s been kind of the same stuff that they’re composing since September.” And I’m like, “It’s because they have no skills, they have no fundamentals to build from. You just said, ‘Create!’ and it was really cool in September, but you didn’t scaffold on top of that, you haven’t built from that, you haven’t given them any tools to work with. And, yeah, so they’re out of ideas by January.” So, I feel like I had a tiny little view into what it can look like when you go too far the other way. I think we need to strike a balance between developing skills so that I can read and write music notation and have a way to communicate my music to other people, and then also develop creative ideas and give students the space to do that. Without developing skills, they can’t build something greater than whatever their baseline was at the start.
BOB
Don’t you guys sort of have the vibe that the old-school teaching mindset is on the way out?
MANNY
I would say that we’re in a place where there’s a lot of uncomfortable conversations happening.
FADE OUT
Quotables
(featurette)
Bob: It’s tough to make six figures with an arts degree.
Eden: I’m in a really good spot right now, probably better than I’ve ever been in. I love every family, things have been really easy, everyone is really grateful, especially after the experiences with COVID, just to have real relationships again. If there’s one thing I feel like I need to work on more, it would be, I would like to know what that trick is in developing that parental relationship, where you get parents to push a little bit harder at home, and to know when that time is right and when it’s not. In our area I don’t really have the kinds of families who will dedicate themselves solely to piano. They want a little bit of piano, a little bit of horseback riding. I want to expose children, but I don’t expect total dedication.
Bob: You know, I would never publicly state this, so please don’t anybody quote me on this, but seriously, “Don’t suck!” And “Don’t be boring!” And “Don’t only do classical music!” (beat) There, I said it. That last part was sort of an editorial, but, I mean, you know, if you have a personality, you should be able to teach children, or teenagers, or even adults, with some amount of fun involved, and passion. I mean, God! We love this stuff. right? So, it doesn’t matter if they suck – still be fun and not boring. It isn’t rocket science.
Kerrie: My mom was a fifth grade teacher who grew up in the city during the depression, and went to City Unified School District, or whatever they called it at the time, and she said, “We didn’t want for anything. No one had any money, but we had art, we had music, we had a rich curriculum, and people thrived in school during the depression. But it was not enough, I guess.” And then it got weird for a while. Fortunately, when we were in school, I felt like the band programs in all my schools were thriving, and there wasn’t any more money than there was now. It’s just a different way of looking at it, right? All of these things are possible, it just depends on who comes in, the superintendent or whatever, and then sets the tone. And a lot of people that are in charge now, who went through that period of time when there was no art and there was no music, they don’t even miss it. They don’t understand why it’s important. “Well, we got along without it at my school, so…”
Eden: I have a friend who’s a minister, and he says fifty percent of his work hours are given to prayer and thoughtful meditation to prepare for, and research for his sermons. So, fifty percent of his job is internal work to be able to put together a twenty minute sermon. You can’t do anything effectively if you haven’t had the time, right?
Bob: One of the local high schools did In the Heights a few years ago, and they did have one person of color in the cast, but other than that everyone else was white. And I asked the director, “Dude, are you sure?” Because, you know, that’s a whole thing right now, at least more than it ever has been. And he noted that apparently Lin Manuel made a statement that he wants every school that wants to do this show, to do this show, regardless of ethnicity. Colorblind casting. So.
Elise: One of the good things about Zoom, one of the positives coming out of a very dark time, is the idea of bringing more outside people into my classroom via Zoom. A few years ago, my school did pen pals with a school in another state, and we did a Skype call with someone. But now, Zoom is a normal thing, and so we can bring in people, for example, local working musicians, or even anyone worldwide who’s willing to visit our classroom online and talk to the kids.
Eden: I have one child who’s stressing me out. She may be the first prodigy I’ve ever met, and so the challenge of how to work with truly a genius… I’ve never experienced it.
Kerrie: Music makes us better people. Better humans, better citizens, better listeners, better observers, better participants, better team players, and a little more empathetic toward people who are willing to take a chance. “I’m going to perform, I'm going to make a mistake, and that’s cool. I’m going to take that chance.” Music is cultural literacy. Music is all-inclusive. Music is the great equalizer. We just need bigger ears. We need bigger imaginations.