In March of 1995, I wrote an article that appeared in the Rutgers Music Education Newsletter reacting to a session that John Whitwell, Director of Bands at Michigan State University, gave at the Mid-West Band and Orchestra Clinic the previous December. The point of my paper and his talk was that directors need to give students responsibilities organizationally and educationally - essentially to expect more from our students. In this way, directors have more time and energy to do what they should be doing: teaching music. (For those interested in seeing that article, it is reprinted on the Rutgers Music website.)

As I sit to write this article at a time just following the 2001 Mid-West, I am reflecting on an extraordinary session that Whitwell gave at this year's clinic, "To Beat or Not to Beat - That is the Question." More than physical conducting technique, his session focused on what conducting should be about in the school setting: teaching the art of music to students. I would like to comment on part of his discussion, and that is making students accountable, this somewhat related to his session of several years ago.

We hear so much in our modern society about the need for schools to be accountable. Many calls for accountability however are not particularly sensible. They don't recognize that accountability is a path with multiple directions. Certainly teachers and schools need to be held accountable, but administrators, schools boards, and state agencies must provide resources and be rational in their demands of teachers and students. Societal calls for accountability are too simplistic and are largely reactions to genuine problems without providing realistic solutions. But that is a topic for a different article.

The focus here is on student accountability. Teachers must demand that students learn the material and produce results. But is it really that simple? Just as in calling for teachers and schools to be held accountable, holding students responsible is not as simple as it appears either. Teachers play an enormous role in the equation. Teachers and students share in the task; it is a two-way street.

So often teachers make demands of their students but they don't really allow or expect them to fulfill the expectation. We ask them to practice a certain passage, but then forgive them if they don't. I often hear band and orchestra conductors say that student practice outside of the rehearsal is not a reasonable demand; students are just too busy to practice and they may then drop out of band or orchestra. When this is the expectation, why would students practice? The rehearsal becomes little more than a supervised practice session where students learn technical elements through rote learning and repetition. We should expect students to practice and come prepared to rehearsals. This is a reasonable expectation.

Students are assigned homework in other classes. Why can't they be given a modest amount of homework for band and orchestra? It is part of the conductor's responsibility to make realistic assignments and then test to see if students have made satisfactory progress. In this way, students are held accountable in a reasonable manner. As stated earlier, student accountability falls on both the teacher and the student. The teacher must have fair expectations and the students must work to meet them.

The rehearsal must be an educational experience in itself and not just simply a means of preparing for the ultimate performance. On this point, the school ensemble is very different from the professional, and in many ways, collegiate models. If conductors hold students responsible for learning their parts, more time can be devoted to teaching the art of music, which should be the primary goal of the performance ensemble in the music education setting. With less emphasis on technical mastery, the rehearsal can be directed to developing better ensemble performance skills as well fostering greater musical understanding.

If students can develop broad understandings and master concepts, they might even be able to perform on higher levels. Less time would have to be spent on rote teaching since students would be more advanced. For example, instead of teaching specific rhythmic patterns by rote, students would be able to decode the patterns on their own and more time could be then spent on more highly evolved topics. There are any number of techniques where conductors can help students develop rhythmical independence. (Whitwell provided a dozen!)

Intonation is another area where students can be held to higher expectations. When I taught high school, I almost always checked every individual in the band with a tuner. I also spent a great deal of time telling students if they were sharp or flat. I was the person who took primary responsibility for their playing in tune. I now recognize that this is not the best approach. We need to use tuning machines but to help students learn how to listen, not to substitute for their active involvement. Students must be taught and then be expected to play with good intonation. I have found that singing in rehearsals is one method to involve students in listening.

Directors need to speak to their ensembles in musical ways. If students are taught about phrase structure then they can be expected to experiment with interpretation. They can understand musical form and conductors can refer to formal elements in rehearsal. For example, the conductor might say to start at the recapitulation instead of at the relevant rehearsal letter. Music students are then expected to act like musicians. Whitwell spoke of the need to transfer responsibility for art to the students - to teach the gray matter. He said that the goal of music education should be to bring our students to a point of becoming musically independent. I will say this a bit differently: a goal is to give them the ability to think about music critically, this certainly part of being independent. Conductors must encourage students to use their minds and their ears.

I must admit that I am very fortunate to be teaching in a setting where my students are highly motivated and are excellent musicians. However even in my "ivory-tower-environment" I have learned that the more that I step back and let students assume responsibility, the more effective I become and the better the result; the educational experience for the students is considerably richer. I firmly believe that when students have some ownership of the situation, they will rise to meet greater challenges. While the principle might take somewhat different shape at different levels of teaching, the idea still holds validity.

Whitwell included the following quote as part of the handout that accompanied his session. It seems an excellent goal for all band and orchestra conductors/teachers.

Imagine the musical results if we could ever unleash the collective enthusiasm and genius that is within our students. This can only happen when the students have a strong sense of ownership for their individual growth and their ensemble skills.