Taking away an honor slip is done very matter of fact, quick- ly and without drama. She doesn’t give offending students attention by stopping the class or making a scene of the situ- ation. “If there’s blood, I stop class, otherwise, we roll right through,” Dempsey said. Yet there’s a consequence. Stu- dents know she means what she says, but taking away an honor slip is not done in anger or with harshness in the voice. This is something she says requires practice to perfect.
Dempsey doesn’t classroom rules but tells students her ex- pectations as the school year progresses. Listening to in- structions, including rules, is a skill music students need to learn. According to Dempsey, listening to instructions is everything. Students in her class get pretty good at it – even when she only says something once.
The honor slip system doesn’t seem to become old or trite for students, even when they enter high school. She has nev- er had a problem with students thinking the system is imma- ture or demeaning. Students know she cares about them as individuals and they trust her to be fair.
Dempsey’s classroom management system includes a check- off chart for each student, listing tests and assignments. There is also a line on the chart for honor slips. If a student loses an honor slip, she makes a quick note of it and students update their own chart.
Focus on the Behavior
If a student’s behavior is bad enough, she is quickly on the phone with parents. Occasionally, she is forced to recom- mend that a student take a different class. This happened with one young man who constantly disrupted class. She explained that she couldn’t have him doing this, so he trans- ferred out of the class only to show up in orchestra again the next year. At first, she thought she was in for another round of negative behavior, but she was pleasantly surprised. “He became one of my most wonderful students.”
She feels this was the result of her effort to focus only on the behavior and not letting the issue become personal. Parents have come to realize she has the student’s best interests in mind when she makes disciplinary decisions. “I can’t tell you the benefits of treating students respectfully. It makes everything better form the get-go.”
Pacing
Dempsey paces her class fairly quickly. When working with one section, the rest of the orchestra listens, because they know she will be asking them questions: “Is that in tune?” “Are they together?” “Is everyone playing the correct note?” She has discovered through the years that when students give
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feedback, they not only become invested in what the class is doing, but their skills and behavior change more quickly. When one section is having difficulty with a rhythm, the other sections count along with them.
Routines
Every class rehearsal begins with a warm-up routine that is varied as students’ skill levels increase. She also has students sight-read almost every day and makes a habit of asking stu- dents what key they are playing, asking them to play the scale. She usually has them start the scale, playing four times on each step; then three times; then two times, etc. This pat- tern is sometimes varied, but the main thing is that they play perfectly together, repeating the scale again and again until it is tonally accurate and rhythmically precise. She has noticed that students work harder when she invests them with the power to play together.
This routine allows her to multi-task, taking care of the class roll, passing out music or doing any of a number of things that need to be accomplished at the beginning of class, in- cluding dealing with individual students.
Once or twice a week, she gives a rhythm test, writing a rhythm on the board for students to copy. Students then write down the counting and draw beat-lines in the correct place. They trade papers with another student, and 50% of their grade is based on how accurately they grade their part- ner’s paper. Someone is then invited to write the counting and beat-lines on the board. “This exercise catches kids who have missed learning things like time signatures, note val- ues, shapes, etc.,” Dempsey said. When this is done, stu- dents play the rhythm until all do it correctly. “When they pass it off, they cheer. It’s great.” Students can then mark that they have passed-off that test on their check-off chart.
Superpowers
Dempsey feels that a teacher needs to have a strong perso- na, allowing that if a teacher doesn’t feel like they have that strength, they need to at least pretend. But she says it’s o.k. for a teacher to make a mistake. If he or she isn’t sure what to do next, they should just say, “Give me a minute” and regroup.
According to Dempsey, the day of the all-powerful teacher has pretty much vanished, but she tells students that teach- ers have superpowers. “Mine is listening,” she tells them, saying she can hear if something is being played incorrectly. She wants students to know that she cares enough to have them do their very best. “Letting a kid constantly play some- thing wrong is not caring.”
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