Professional Documents
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I visited Batchelor Middle School to observe Mr. Joel Brainard’s choir class today, and I
observed many things that were very appropriate and fun for the age group, while some aspects
were inappropriate and even seemed unhealthy for the students’ voices. I assume that this was
mostly because Mr. Brainard himself was a percussionist. Hopefully our classmates who are
visiting this class can be helpful for aspects that he may be having limitations in, such as vocal
First of all, the set-up of the classroom was very nice: chairs in 3 rows facing the front,
where the projector and the board was at. There was a keyboard separating the students and the
teacher, which allowed the teacher to play the keyboard while facing the students. The teacher
had a wireless microphone on, which helped his voice project just a bit better. Students were
expected to be in their assigned seats, and they went to their seats immediately. However, the
teacher put on very loud and rambunctious music when students were walking in, which I
thought was not the best way to calm the students down and get them ready for class. Students
seemed to be very distracted, and because the music was so loud, they tried to chat on top of the
noise, making the classroom very chaotic and unfocused right before class. Right when the class
started, Mr. Brainard mentioned about some housekeeping things first before getting into the
lesson, and this was about the pencil clipped behind each student’s chair. I thought this was a
brilliant idea for fostering the idea of having a pencil at every rehearsal. The student in the
assigned seat was responsible for the pencil, and he mentioned how one student accidentally
After all of this, Mr. Brainard turned the class’ attention to the board, where the lesson
plan was listed. He had the class work independently on a worksheet regarding note and rest
names, which some students were already good at, while some were struggling a lot. One thing
that was really bothering was that there was constant chatting in the classroom, but the teacher
did not care too much about it. Later, Mr. Brainard asked me and Peri to go around and help with
students, as he had to proctor a student in the other room. When he came back, he put on music
(again) that was not at all related to what they were trying to finish, and probably distracted the
students who were not finished at the point. When the teacher finally halted the class to check
their answers, he went down the row for students to answer one question each. What I liked in
this process was that he clarified on some terminology that students seemed to not understand,
such as measures and bar-lines. However, in the answer check process, the teacher could have
gave more acknowledgement when students gave correct answers, as Skinner’s Reinforcement
Theory shows that small reinforcement for certain behaviors reproduce them.
After spending too much time (about 25 to 30 minutes out of 45) with the worksheets, the
students were instructed to stand up to stretch and warm-up. Vocal siren on “ooh” was very
appropriate for the women to get in their head voice, and men to get in their falsetto, but after
such a nice siren, the teacher instructed to do a siren on “yee-hah” and reach the highest pitch on
their voices. I personally thought that defeated the purpose of a siren, as singing a very high note
on an “E” vowel is not the optimal, and also the pitch on “yee-hah” does not go from the low
register to high; it just stays on the relatively high side of the range. From listening to the
students, I could tell that some students were over-using their voices, and stretching it to a point
After the sirens, “Hmmm” on 54321 descending was very pleasant, except that the
teacher could have taken the tempo slower, to have the students singing with care on each note,
and the accompaniment a little softer, for the students to listen to themselves while singing. After
that was “Ooo” on 54321 ascending. This was also a nice warm-up, however he did not change
the vowel to an open one after getting in to their breaks and passaggio area, which did strain the
young voices. Then he went on to the low register for the men, but he went way lower than what
middle school male voice can sing (it went past a low C, which I have not seen on any of the
choral pieces even at a university level). Then “I lo-ve to sing” on 51531 ascending was sung
with the students, starting on D major. The teacher went all the way up to C major, having the
students singing C6, which is never appropriate for middle schoolers’ changing voices. It was to
the point where I was getting worried about the students’ voices, because it was obvious that
something will happen if this was to continue every day. Like it was mentioned in chapter two of
the textbook, all warm-ups should range within a fifth, because that is the appropriate range for
all; unchanged, changed, and changing voices. If I were to improve something from this set of
warm-ups, I would encourage the students to sing softer and gentler, so they could listen to their
classmates and blend in as much as possible. I remember the teacher used the phrase “Battle of
the Heights.” Just from the nuance of the phrase, it encouraged loud and almost straining kind of
singing. Considering the changing voice and their weakened vocal folds, middle school music
After the warm-ups was tongue twisters, where the teacher projected a daily tongue
twister and had the students read it twice. He told the students that this was for diction, and how
clear diction was necessary for singing. I am not sure how much these tongue twisters would
help with choral diction, but the students seemed to be having fun. He had students volunteering
to read the sentence twice without any mistakes, and he had candy for people who got to read it
through. I loved what he told the students before anyone volunteered, “We all need to applaud
even if someone makes mistakes.” This was very nice and appropriate for a welcoming and safe
environment. However, I am not sure if candy for reward was the best for this situation.
Reinforcement does not necessarily mean giving students a gift or food, because giving
something or food rather can work in a negative way; if the reward is taken away, so might the
motivation. Also, it can get to a point when students might be asking for more even before the
confirming smile, thumbs up, or stickers to collect, students will still be motivated enough and
their positive behaviors will be reinforced. After a few students got to take a turn in reading the
tongue twisters, the bell rung. No real music making was done, and the students warmed up for
Although there were many disappointing aspects where the teacher could have led the
choir in a better way, he was quick in understanding students’ needs and appropriately adjusting
to the current needs of his students. If I were to change something in this particular lesson, I
would take less time on the worksheets, or even give them out as homework, and allow students
to sing and vocalize more. I would also take out the tongue twisters and focus on diction in a real
musical setting (repertoire), because vocal diction and onset is different from speaking many
similar sets of words. Like we mentioned in class last week, flexibility and open-mindedness are
crucial to teachers. Music educators, or any educator, should be quick to recognizing what is
needed right at the moment, and should be listening out to the current state of students and be