I was just curious, since we've been talking a little bit about giving an A and stuff. How did your music teacher's grade you when you were in high school?--in performance ensembles that is (choir, band, orchestra, choir).
In my high school's both audition and non auditioned choirs we started out with a 75% and then added on points with our own initiative if we turned in things like personal performance critiques, listening critiques, programs, up to ten points in "positive class behavior", research of a composer or analysis of a piece we were singing. Not to mention up to 10 points for 'voice tests' at the end of every semester (one of the songs we were singing at the most recent concert and a sight singing passage on solfege).
I thought it was a fairly good system. You could make your grade what you wanted, and certainly get 100 if you put in the effort--which wasn't nescessarily talent based. A lot of people didn't, and would consequently get like an 83 in choir--choir! But they couldn't complain, because they had plenty of opportunity to turn in extra credit.
THe choir got rid of the system last year.
5 comments:
In my high school choir we were graded like this: 10 points for daily participation (points deducted for gum-chewing, talking incessantly, disruptive behavior, and etc...), attendance/participation in all concerts, and small individual taped hearings for a midterm and final.
This grading system seemed to be effective. If one were to be unwilling to participate during class, his or her grade would suffer. If one did not show up to a concert, he or she would fail. If one was able to sing correct pitches and produce a "refined" tone on the hearings, he or she would pass.
We did not have to do projects and papers and all that jazz. . . it was not something that the administration would allow. Our classes were performance based, the grading I think, reflects that.
The grading system in my highschool career was very chaotic.
Mine was pretty much the same as Chad's until my choir teacher retired. Then throughout my highschool career, I went through several different teachers! It was kind of not fair actually. The first teacher was only concerned in performance so she was easy on the grading system,just as long as we sounded great. The next one was constantly absent because of her divorce so she only graded with what she saw and the rest was theory or video viewing worksheets from subtitutes trying to teach us something musical. Fortunatly we did sounded well but I am not so sure how much of the other students learned that were not in any private lessons or band. My final teacher was similar to my first teacher( except we had to do two papers on composers of our choice and sig a solo for extra-credit) except she had a problem with favoratism, always giving the same students better oportunities. Her grading was fair but alot of students felt alienated so much so, that we got the head of the art department in our district to get involved.
In highschool , I could say I had a brief positive exprience. I think the gradig system should be a balance of basic musical academics ( like what is a quarter note) and performance aspect and teacher should do the best they can with what adminstration would allow or not.
I do find a difference state to state ( along with district to district) on the importance of music education. In Texas, the highschool that I was supposed to go to would give varsity jackets to their choir students and place a high importance in sport and music. Up north just by observing some different school in my area and around, it was not the case. Yet being in All- State choirs ( which my highschool threaten to take away from us) I hear stories of amazing highschool music education taking place. So not all hope is lost.
Ever since my Principal made some drastic renovations (after I graduated 2 years ago) to my highschool and was striving to win the blue-ribbon award , I am hoping that the music department is at its best. I hope for the future student sake that they have a better chance than I did.Saves some time in catching up.:)
In my high school choir, the grading each semester was 25% for the concert, 25% for the writing assignment (which also allowed us to complete our mandatory writing tasks for the school board) these essays were usually to critique the concert after watching it on video, 25% for class participation and attendance, 10% for vocal hearings, and 15% for the final exam. Our final exam was the very basics of music theory: the letter names of notes on the staff, basic dynamic and tempo markings, and extra credit if you could identify key signatures. We would review for this exam during the last two weeks of the last semester. We did not have any mid terms and also in my high school, if you had an A for both marking periods (we had block scheduling) then you did not have to take the final. It was an automatic A. While I did have an amazing experience with my four years of high school choir, I do wish that I could have been exposed to more topics such as music history, etc. We were more focused on the many performances that we did than on learning about the concepts. We won trophies and could perform, but I don't think many of us in the choir made connections as to what concepts we were using to get the results.
I am actually not too sure about the grading system for my high school. My freshman and sophmore years were more structured than my junior and senior years. We had hearings, participation grades for optional sight singing, tests on solfege and basic music theory, ect. I had a different teacher junior and senior year who gave us hearings twice a year and grading based on attendance.
I do not think the grading was fair. I never got less than an A; however, people who did not take choir seriously got As too. I think favoritism played a part in grades and that is never effective. Most of my classmates looked at choir as an easy A.
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