 Sometimes, being a music teacher has very little to do with notes and rests and everything to do with everything else – like building relationships.
It was 3:12 at my elementary school. Dismissal had just started and I was headed out of the music room into the bustling hallway to bus duty. I don't know if you've ever observed the end-of-the-day dismissal at a 700+ student elementary school. It is a major operational, all-hands-on-deck component of each and every school day. In the hands of a good administrator, the dismissal plan can make a well-oil machine look rusty. The goal is for all of the children to start walking out the doors of their rooms at different times over the span of three minutes and create a flow of students out of the building. It sounds a lot easier than it is to accomplish. My school’s dismissal plan was a cross between Balanchine’s “Swan Lake” and Eisenhower's Normandy invasion. So it came to be that this day at 3:12 that the principal's voice came the school speaker system. “Mr Holmes, immediately report to the B hallway!” As I started walking to the B hallway, I felt more and more like an out-of-place salmon trying to swim upstream in the Monongahela River. The halls were flooded with kids going in the opposite direction. By the time I approached the B hallway, kids were running past me. As I turn the corner and walk down the B hall, I saw the principal at the end of the desolate hallway, standing outside a classroom door. Walking up to her I realized how quiet the school had become. “What's up?”, I asked. “I need you to go in that room. The teacher told me that there's a kid in there who apparently asked one of his classmates at dismissal if he wanted to see a gun that was in his backpack." Going full-on sotto voce, she said, "You need to go in and check his backpack and tell me if there’s a gun in it. We’ve emptied the hallway and are going to evacuate the building depending what you find.” At this point, because I have an over-active smart-ass chromosome floating around in my genome, I started thinking of all the possible snappy comebacks. ”Why don't you want to go in there? Why waste a good administrator should there be a problem, right?” or “Lucky for me, I wore my bullet-proof three-piece black suit today.” “Is he angry?” I inquired as I peered through the window in the door. “That's a good question.”, she said over her shoulder as she ran down the hallway away from the classroom. I entered the room. There was one second grader with a forlorn look on his face sitting at his desk. He was a good kid who loved music class. I asked him to come up with his backpack and sit with me on the rug where they do circle time. Pointing at his bag, I started with, “So I hear you have something special in your bag there. What is it?” “Am I going to get in trouble?” “That all depends. What's in the bag? Did you bring something from home that's in your bag?” The boy started whimpering. “Mommy said I wasn't allowed to bring it to school but I did and I'm sorry. Am I in trouble?” “Well, let's just check out what's in that bag. Unzip it for me, please.” I looked in and along with his take-home folder and some Pokémon cards, there was a baggie filled with “Double Bubble” bubble gum. “What did you tell that your classmate that you had in your bag? Did you say you wanted to show him a gun that was in your bag?” The kid looked at me like I was speaking in a foreign language. “No, I said I had gum. I wanted to show him my GUM. Mommy told me I wasn't allowed to bring my gum to school but I did and I wanted to show him. Am I in trouble?” “Nah, you’re okay,” I said reassuringly. “You're not in trouble with me or with anyone else here at school. Mommy might be a different story." He didn't look convinced. "Tell you what. When we tell Mommy that you brought the gum to school, I'm going to tell her that you're one of my best musicians in music class so that might make her a little less ticked off.” As his fear was began to fade, so did my avuncular smile. “If mommy says don't bring something to school, you leave it at home next time.” We were up and moving to the door. I could see the principal peeking in the window. I turned back to the boy and whispered to him. “But for now, you know what your teachers always say: sharing is caring. How about you share a piece of that “Double Bubble” with Mr Holmes?” which he gladly did. I popped it in my mouth and loudly said “Let's hurry up, I think they're holding your bus for you.” As the boy and I walked out of the room, the principal looked expectantly at me, and quietly asked, "Well?". I turned to her and replied, “He didn't say he had a gun in his bag . . . . .” At that point I blew a big bubble and popped it – which made the kid giggle. “He said he had gum.” Like I said, sometimes, being a music teacher has very little to do with notes and rests and everything to do with everything else – like asking the right questions and bubble gum blowing technique.  Sometimes, being a music teacher has very little to do with notes and rests and everything to do with everything else – like building relationships.
It was about 7:30 on a spring morning when I pulled into the elementary school parking lot. I had just taken my dreadnought guitar case out of the back seat and set it down to get my travel mug and lock the car door when I saw someone running out of the school's entrance. As he ran by me into his car, there was no mistaking the fear on his face. I asked what was wrong. He said, “There's a guy in that school with a gun! I mean he's got a gun!” I put down my dreadnought, muttered my favorite obscenity under my breath, and broke into a trot to the school entrance. When I was about ten yards away from the front door, a gentleman, about five foot six, in his thirties with a beard and mustashe, came out the front door wearing camo pants, an NRA t-shirt, and a baseball cap. On his hip look to be a glock in a holster. He was oblivious of me. I walked up to him and said, “Sir, my name is Holmes and I work in the Colonial District. Is that a gun on your hip?” He gave my three-piece suit a suspicious look. “Yeah? So what.”, he said. “Do you realize that you are in a gun-free zone, where you're not supposed to have guns within one-thousand feet of a school? And you just took one into a school?” He came right back with, “Is that a fact? Well, I got a license for this gun, and Imma gonna to carry it wherever I want.” Clearly by his speech inflection and articulation pattern, he was southern. There was dentalization of the “th” sound and a substitution of the “i” sound for “e” which made me think he was from Alabama. He started to try and walk past me to the lot but I side-stepped into his path. I responded with, “Look, I totally understand the fact that you might have a license for this gun, but hey, we don't have it here with us right now, do we? As things stand, you are not to be inside of school with a gun.” He took a step forward toward me. With unsympathetic determination, he leaned in, rested his right hand on the glock's grip, and said, “I got a right to have this gun.” The way he said “right” sounded almost like he was saying “rat”. At this point he was unyielding with no hint of backing down. I didn't even have my dreadnought case to defend myself. I was armed with a three-piece black suit, a fountain pen, and a pocket full of guitar picks while he had a glock. It felt way beyond uncomfortable. He knew I was blocking his way on the sidewalk. I was afraid of what I might find inside the school and I didn't want him to run away. I decided to play the numbers. While I had only been in the school for several months, the membership in chorus was huge and the kids who were in the lower grades all wanted to be in chorus. If he was a parent, there was good chance his child was in chorus. I looked at him and asked, “Hey, isn't your kid in chorus?” His face lit up. “Oh, you're THAT Mr. Holmes! Our kids LOVE you! They're always telling stories about how you that throw a guitar up in the air and catch it!" I smiled, “Yep, that’s me.” “And they're always singing those crazy songs in our car! They LOOOOVE you!” In a matter of seconds, his whole demeanor and physiognomy transformed. “That's awesome”, I said. “But let me just ask you this, dad. The next time you need to go into the school, could you please leave your gun under your seat in the truck or maybe in the glove compartment?” “Yes sir, I will do that definitely, sir. Wait till I tell the kids who I saw today!” I shook his hand and said, “Well, that's awesome.” I lowered my voice. “I'm glad we understand now how to do this next time in the parking lot with a gun. Here, take these for the kids.” I reached in my pocket and gave him a handful guitar picks to take home. “Oh my lord, the kids are going to go nuts when they see these! They talk about those guitar picks all the time! Thank you so much thank you, thank you, thank you!” He headed to his pickup truck and I ran into the school where I found out he came in to complain about some fee he had been charged that had been attributed to his children that wasn't warranted. Like I said, sometimes, being a music teacher has very little to do with notes and rests and everything to do with everything else – like convincing a dad to keep his gun in his truck.  Sometimes, being a music teacher has very little to do with notes and rests and everything to do with everything else – like building relationships. In one of my elementary schools, we had several afternoon bus runs where fights often broke out, resulting in injured kids, massive paperwork, parent meetings, and follow up meetings for the administration in my school. I’ve always considered one of the hardest and critically important jobs in a school district is driving a bus full of kids. The driver is basically trapped behind the wheel and can’t go eye-to-eye with disruptive students. On the morning run, many kids get on a school bus with incredible anger and emotional baggage from the home they just walked out of. The bus is the first place they can vent. The same at the end of the day. The bus is the first place where some kids feel that they are back in power after a seven hour school day. That said, I learned a lot by observing superior bus drivers build solid relationships with their student passengers by implementing brilliant behavior strategies. I often volunteered to my administrator to ride some of the more problematic buses on the afternoon rounds to keep the peace. The bus driver would take me back to the school after they dropped off the last kid and went to the bus yard. Having a teacher sit at the back of the bus had a calming effect on the kids. They would quickly settle down, start conversations or read a book. They also knew that many of their parents would be waiting at the bus stop and I would talk to their parents if their behavior warranted it. One afternoon, the principal asked if I would ride the next morning bus run because of a developing situation. There were often student conduct issues on morning runs but we had never placed a staff member on a bus to monitor behavior. A morning problem? Apparently, angry parents had contacted our school saying that the bus driver had laid hands on a student on the bus that morning and threatened they might confront the bus driver the following day. The bus driver swore that she hadn’t touched anyone. There were kids who said it happened and there were kids it said it didn't happen. The idea was to have me on the bus that morning so that when it approached the bus stop in question involving that child, I would be there to cool down any potential emotional issues before admin could sort things out at school.  As we approached the bus stop, I couldn’t believe the group of parents congregated at the street corner.
It wasn’t the final reel of “Frankenstein” (cue the pitchforks and torches) as the town folk approached the castle but it was similar enough to make me nervous. There were at least a dozen and a half parents waiting for this bus. One of them held a hastily-made sign that implored “Don't touch our kids!”. After the bus stopped, the door opened as the students came on board in single file. Some of the moms tried to tag along at the end of the line of kids. That’s when I had to step up and try to block the door. One of the offended parents forced her way pass me and started yelling at the bus driver behind me. I had to get between her and the bus driver and back her down the steps to the sidewalk. After I got the mom off the bus, I was now off the bus, too, and standing on the sidewalk with the parents. The bus door slammed behind me. While women were banging on the bus door and yelling at the driver, the bus driver sat in her seat looking straight ahead, wearing the countenance of a sphinx. One of the parents apologetically came up to me with a heavy Delaware accent. “Mr. Holmes, we all respect you here, we know you're a gentleman, and we know you're kind to our kids.” The volume and intensity of her voice slowly started to ramp up. “We know you would never do anything bad and we would never want to disrespect anyone or talk disrespectfully in front of you but I will tell you this, Mr. Holmes.” By now she was shouting. “Mr. Holmes, my friend is going to f*** up that woman bus driver, I swear to God she's going to f***ing pull her out of that bus and f*** her up!” At which point, all the other parents start cheering. Three burly fathers walked in front of the bus, arms akimbo, blocking any forward movement of the bus. We were at a stand-off. These people were not happy and not inhibited in the least in showing their displeasure and anger. I noticed someone in the crowd holding a broken broom handle behind their back. Then I look down at myself. I was armed with a three-piece black suit, a fountain pen, and a pocketful of guitar picks. I moved in front of the bus door so the ladies had to stop hitting it. Hands up and palms out, I invited the mothers to come back to school, meet with the administration, and sort all of this out. I made a suggestion. “You know, the kids really want to get to school. We’re doing a lot of fun stuff in all the grades today, including pianos and guitars in music. If you would agree to come to school and iron this out with the student advisor, maybe you could stop in the music room for a song or two and we can get this bus on the road so the kids won’t be late . . . for breakfast.” The word “breakfast suddenly got everyone’s attention. “You want your kids to have breakfast, don’t you?” I looked at my watch. “You know, they stop serving breakfast in a little while.” I turned to the bus and asked the kids, “Who on the bus needs breakfast today?” The bus started rocking as every kid shouted that they did indeed not only wanted but needed breakfast. The three husbands fathers who were still blocking the bus from going forward looked confused. One of the mothers, referencing their son on the bus, screamed at her husband, “Well, are you going to get him breakfast? Because if you ain’t, you better move your ass and let him get to school!” Insert pregnant pause. I intoned my most “old soul” voice. “You know, we all need nourishment, both for the body and for the soul.” It was so still that you could almost hear the drama leaving the balloon. I overheard one of the mothers murmur, “Mr. Holmes says the smartest f***ing things sometimes!” Consensus can fast and furious. The mothers agreed to come to school. The fathers moved away from the bus. I got back in the bus and barked at the kids that only the hungry kids were showing me that they wanted breakfast and the noisy ones weren’t hungry and would be skipping breakfast that morning. A kid named Joey yelled, “You can’t do that!” I whipped out my fountain pen and a scrap of paper and without making eye contact with Joey barked even louder, “So Joey wants to be first in the ‘I don’t want breakfast’ list. Who’s next?” Pin drop moment. We headed off to the remaining bus stops and made our way to school. The bus driver story got sorted out in a meeting with the parents that day. No one touched any one – but there had been a lot a yelling including inappropriate remarks. Like I said, sometimes, being a music teacher has very little to do with notes and rests and everything to do with everything else – like getting the bus back on the road.  When I was seven, my father started teaching me how to play pool. He worked at WILM-AM, a radio station that was on the first floor of the International Order of Odd Fellows building at Tenth and King Street in Wilmington. The second floor was another radio station, WDEL-AM. The third floor was reserved for the Odd Fellows Club. It was like rolling time back by a hundred years. The old-style accordion elevator doors opened to a cavernous hall full of echos, rarely populated by members, dimly lit with six pool tables, a couple of poker tables, and an old fashioned carved wooden bar complete with spittoons and a jaded bartender. My father’s cigarette smoke drifted and hung in the air just above the wood bead score wire in it’s own little mesosphere. It might have been just a pool hall but when I was there with my dad, it felt like sanctum sanctorum. One of the first things my father forced me to do as I was learning the mechanics of the game was to play position pool and always call my shot. That meant that I had to read the table, assess the best pocket for each ball given the current location of the cue ball, and plan where my next three shots were going. In many ways, when teaching music, I approached my year-long planning that way, like a game of position pool. I wanted to have skills and ideas lined up that led from one to the next. I called it stacking. Why? Because each new skill or activity was stacked on top of the preceding attained skill or activity. Stacking give you more bang for your buck. Just like two speakers achieve more power when coupled directly next to each other rather than spread far apart, musical concepts gain more power and momentum when coupled. Stacking also reduces a student’s anxiety level because they are always referencing previously attained skill when attempting new ones. This diagram gives you a basic idea of how I coupled basic concepts in music.  Yes, Dorothy, all roads lead to guitar.
But it’s the journey, not the destination, right? Planning this way allowed me to predict with ninty percent accuracy before the year started what we would be doing in my music room the last two weeks of the school year. It’s all about the architecture, the infrastructure, and the meat that you put on the bones. Over the years, I learned that my best years resembled good stories : Introduction, exposition, development, recapitulation, plot twist, resolution, and coda. I orchestrated my planning so that the last forty-five minutes of the school year that I spent with my students resembled a grand dénouement where we connected all the dots like they were some magnificent constellation in a spring night sky. So yes, it all started with my father making me read the table, call my shot, and then make it. Know where you’re going in your school year. Decide how you can stack the skills and material you are going to present over the next nine months. Know your shot and call it.  I was in 6th grade in the middle of a trumpet lesson on a Saturday morning with my teacher, Mike Gibson.
Mike was hip, a combination of master musician, orchestrator, sensei, guru, and role model. Tall, glasses, long hair, mo-ped, boots, corduroy jackets, Marlborros. My weeks centered around the one half-hour that I spent with him. His lessons were no-nonsense. He effortlessly talked music theory. And expected me to hang with his thoughts. He often had me scat my etudes before he allowed me to play them. It seemed that he was the essence of knowing not just about music but how music worked. And I want to be like him. And then there was his brief case packed with hand-written scores and parts, all on ultra-think Pissanto manuscript paper and created with an osmiroid fountain pen that he often brandished during my lesson. I mean, he was one of those confident guys who wrote first editions in ink. Mike could always sense when my embouchure was begging for mercy because my protruding upper teeth were cutting into my lips. We would take a short break, drain the blood from my spit valve, and talk for a minute or two just to allow the juices to flow back into my lips. During those interludes, we discussed a wide range of topics: books, silent films, the Renaissance, jazz, instruments, Russia, arranging, music, art, sports. Even more importantly, he wanted to know what I thought. He would actually shut-up, lean in, and critically listen to my point-of-view and weigh my words. After every lesson, I’d always have a name, word, or idea I that he would casually drop in conversation that I was clueless on and needed to ask my parents about or research in the library. But on this one day he was more pensive then talkative. After about ten seconds of silence, he turned and looked at me as if he was going to ask for the secret of the ages. “Sophia Loren . . . . . or . . . . . Gina Lollabrigida?" He looked at me and waited. I did not see that one coming. No one told me that “Italian actresses” was going to be on the test. I paused. I knew who both women were, knew they were beautiful, had seen their pictures in Life and Time magazine many times, and knew they had their own distinctive perspectives, especially in the articles I had read and roles they had played. Was he asking me about their films, their looks, their accents? Or maybe . . . maybe he was asking something more elemental about their essential aura? I slowly answered in that tone of voice a student uses when they're not sure if the answer they're going to give is correct. “Gina Lollobrigida . . . ?” His face lit up. “Yeah, of course, Gina Lollobrigida! I mean no comparison, right?!" He lit up another Marlborro. "Ok, back to the horn.” And that was that. We didn't talk about it again. But his smile seemed more knowing. Had stock had risen in his eyes because of my answer? It seemed so. I was left with my own personal notable question which was what if I'd said “Sophia Loren”? I had a feeling he would have made it work. |
AuthorBoyd Holmes, the Writer Archives
February 2025
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