​Pilots and Co-pilots: compounded learning

• College educators refer to them as dyads.
  

Classroom teachers call them pairs.

I like to call them pilots and co-pilots.

It is an often overlooked component of teaching music that adds value by the minute.

Whenever we were doing instrumental work with guitar, xylophone, piano, or recorder, I always had the kids in pilots and co-pilots. You might think of pilots and co-pilots as simply a classroom management technique, but it actually paid incredible musical dividends. Working with a peer partner is one of the greatest multiplier for educational gains in elementary music.

Peer partners see issues of learning with the same nascent point of view. They explain what they are doing to each other in terms and references that are often not valued, understood, or percieved by the teacher.

Each year when I introduced idea for the first time, I would ask the kids what they knew about pilots and co-pilots. They could connect most of the dots on their own - that the pilot flew the plane while the co-pilot helped.

They often had to take turns. Sometimes when the pilot was flying, the co-pilot was taking a nap or eating lunch or going to the bathroom. If they didn’t cooperate, they risked crashing the plane.

I didn’t match the kids – the kids did that. I would quickly say “Stand up, hand up, pair up!” Every student would quickly stand, raise one hand, give a classmate a high five and freeze with their hands still together so everyone could see the partners.  This technique takes three seconds.

I would then say “shoulder to shoulder”, “back to back”, or “face to face” so partners knew how to align as they sat back on the floor.

Pilots were usually on the left, co-pilots on the right.

There were times though, when they would be an odd person out without a partner. That's when I would say, “It's amazing that you were the one that's left without a co-pilot because if I was going to pick on someone who could fly the plane all by themselves, it would be you. Tell you what. I know you're going to have to do some extra work today – you’re going to play on every turn -  so here, take these three Mr. Holmes guitar picks, and you can sit close to me today and be my helper.”

The effect was that the kid that no one wanted as a partner suddenly had more gravitas than anyone ever expected they would have.

One incredible benefit of pilots and co-pilots: After identifying my beta-students, I could match them with students who could profit most from their skills.

What is a beta-student? Sure, go ahead and search it. You won’t find much. I’ll explain the power of identifying and capitalizing on your beta-students in another post.

With the xylophone, there was always only one mallet so the pilot and co-pilot had to share. Whichever partner was not playing, they were not to take a break, or as I used to say, “This is not a time for you to go to Wawa and get yourself a slushie”.

When a partner was not playing, they were a second set of eyes and hands for the playing partner. They were to be watching their co-partner, giving advice, and even more importantly, giving support and praise on a consistent basis.

With the xylophones, piano, or recorders, it was important for the person who wasn't playing to make sure that their partner was controlling it their instrument, because if they weren't, I would take it away from both of them. That definitely gave the non-playing partner a little bit more skin in the game.

Pilots, Co-pilots, and Proximity Effect

A crucial part of teaching is something called proximity effect: the effect that your distance from the student affects their success. Some teachers have to be very close to their students or else they lose the class. I was always working on extending the proximity between myself and the students - the farther away, the better.

It paid off when the last row of chorus was thirty yards away from me.

When I taught at the Leach School with children who had severe cognitive and orthopedic disabilities, some of the kids had extreme proximity needs. As a teacher, you had to measure the distance between teacher and student in inches, not yards. It required me to be up close with my guitar.

In a general music class, having the co-pilot sitting closely to the pilot is sort of a proximity “cheat” for the teacher. The non-playing partner is doing a bit of my bidding and carrying more than just a little bit of my water. The time they were in dyads was minuscule in comparison to the time they were simply on their own it didn’t bother me that much – but it had a significant positive effect on management and peer reinforcement.

This is a picture of pilots and co-pilots very early on their journey with the guitar. As you look at this picture, observe how each child’s ability with the guitar is at a different place.  The non-playing partner is engaged and doing work that would be impossible for me to do simultaneously with all the guitarists. This is teaching gold.
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By the way, the boy in the far left bottom corner was a beta-student.

I kept things at a fast pace. Co-pilots and pilots quickly learn that their turn is always coming up before they knew it. There's not a whole lot of waiting involved. We would switch from pilot to co-pilot in very short bursts of time; sometimes once every one minute, sometimes every ninety seconds.

Take away: If you don’t have a deep and wide understanding of the power of compound interest and have applied it to your investments, you probably can’t accurately visualize or appreciate the value in pilots and co-pilots.

For that matter, if you are fuzzy on compound interest, you are also likely on shaky ground with why a Roth IRA is preferred to a traditional IRA.

Please: in the career of any public, private, or collegiate school music teacher, that bit of knowledge is waaaaay more important than harmonizing modes or retrograde rhythms.
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You probably know enough music content to teach right now if you had to. Just trust me on pilots and co-pilots – and find a teacher who can educate you in the finer points of the above three paragraphs.

Pilots and co-pilots have a real word association for little kids. It is not an abstract idea – they get the idea that the plane crashes and everyone dies if the two people flying the plane don’t cooperate and work together.

Busy kids have fewer opportunities to be distracted. Pilots and co-pilots keeps kids on their toes when they’re using their fingers.
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Here’s a video of pilots and co-pilots playing xylophones and pianos. They start by "flying" the xylophone  together - then  "parachuting" to the pianos.
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They are playing “Hot Cross Buns in C” (Ionian for all you clever people out there) and then “Spooky Hot Cross Buns (D dorian).