About ten years ago, I switched from teaching traditional band, orchestra, and secondary general music classes to teaching music technology and production full time. I had to figure out what to teach, how to teach it, and how to sequence everything in a way that made sense. Some of the projects and assignments I created that first year worked well, but to be honest, many of them were utter failures! Over the following years, I failed time and time again, but each failure led to a new understanding. Now, a decade later, I have a solid curriculum of projects and assignments that work. Some of these projects are described in “Designing a Music Production Curriculum: Five Project Examples,” my chapter from the new book Action-Based Approaches in Popular Music Education.
Failing does not feel good. We get embarrassed and worry about being perceived as stupid or incompetent. To cope, we develop defenses, such as ascribing blame to others or to external circumstances. To be sure, there are many factors in our students’ lives that are completely outside the teacher’s control. But when an entire class is struggling with material, is unmotivated, or is “out of control”, we must look at ourselves and our instructional design as a prime suspect for the cause.
Instead of avoiding failure, I suggest that we actively pursue it. We must learn to manage the feelings associated with failure and become accustomed to that awful twinge of embarrassment. Failing in front of a class gives teachers an excellent chance to model coping skills, humility, and tolerance for one’s own shortcomings. In our present age of anxiety, that may be the most important lesson we can teach.
When we do fail, it’s important to know why we failed. There are a lot of things that can go wrong with a planned lesson. Perhaps the timing was wrong- delivering that dry lecture on sample rate and bit depth on a Friday afternoon wasn’t the best idea. Maybe the task is not appropriate for students’ age or ability level. If an assignment is too easy, students will be less likely to engage with it.
In my teaching, the most common reason for class-wide failure is poor instructional delivery. What seems obvious to me can be mysterious to my students, so I am prone to leaving out a critical step in my demonstrations or project guidelines. Sometimes I don’t communicate the purpose for the lesson, or I forget to show an example project. This leaves students confused, even if they don’t know it themselves. I routinely ask my students if they understand what I want them to do, and if what they are learning is valuable to them. I encourage them to be honest by assuring them that they will not hurt my feelings.
By allowing failure to be a part of the instructional design process, we can eliminate a lot of fear and shame for ourselves and can show our students that failure is a necessary step toward success.
Ryan Van Bibber teaches music and audio production at the Fort Hayes Metropolitan Education Center in Columbus City Schools and at Columbus State Community College. He previously taught instrumental and general music in grades 3-12. Ryan holds a Bachelor of Music Education degree from Ohio University, a Master of Arts in Music Education from The Ohio State University, and a Master Certificate in Music Writing and Production from the Berklee College of Music Online.
Ryan is an Avid Certified Instructor for Pro Tools (Operator|Music) and a Berklee PULSE certified instructor. He serves on the board for TI:ME and regularly puts on clinics and workshops in Ohio and around the US, with topics ranging from sound systems for schools, to using social media in class, to integrating production software into the music curriculum.