Stuffy woman at a cocktail party: They say the eyes are the window to the soul.
Frasier Crane: If only you had one.
We were all told as kids to “keep your eye on the ball”.
Some kids get this eye discipline easily and some don’t. If you don’t believe me, attend a T-ball game for five-year-olds and get back to me.
Tracking the talker is a skill that has to become a habit in kids.
When teaching little buckaroos, eye contact is everything.
Before I would start class, before I would start a song, before I would start a new segment of the class, I would make eye contact with every single child in the room for a split second. If I couldn't achieve contact because they weren't looking at me, I waited. Children figure this out and learned to know that eye contact was not an option; it was a requirement to move the addenda forward.
By the way, when day was done, my eyes were often the most tired part of me.
We have to teach kids to look up, both figuratively and literally. Some children developed the habit of looking down at their shoes or are reluctant to look up when talking with authority figures. I would often take a knee to assume a more face-to-face altitude.
Eye contact is the first step in learning how to give a good handshake. After getting some good eye contact, the next thing we would often work on was introducing ourselves. I would often film the kids simply smiling while they looked into the camera and said their first name. I would then show the movie on the Smart Board. There was a lot of laughter but at its core, every child got an affirmation of their smile and name from their peers and their music teacher.
The conundrum with many classrooms is that children are sitting in groups of four at round tables or square desks and are positioned to look at each other. Fifty percent of them are potentially sitting with their back to the teacher.
Have you ever noticed that whenever you concertize on stage, everyone in the audience is pointed in your direction? And when a rabbi or priest is standing before their congregation, isn’t everyone is facing them? And when we go to a movie theater, are all the chairs bolted into the floor and facing the screen? Those cemented screws were not indicative of options or suggestions for seating arrangements: it was a dictate.
But teaching is not about being set in cement – there needs to be latitude for adaptation.
I learned at the Leach school that if a child has to adjust their vision radius even a few degrees either way, there was a probability that the struggle would limit their ability to see me. It was crucial that, along with the support of helpful paraprofessionals, I position students in wheelchairs at the most optimum sight line.
If you haven't read “Teach Like a Champion” by Doug Lemov, you should pick up a copy. Lemov is a master of classroom presentation and optimizing teaching environments. There are various video examples online that go with the book. Almost all of them have the class directly facing the teacher.
Tracking the talker doesn’t mean looking at the teacher all the time. It has implications for the teacher’s tracking, too. Tracking the talker means if a student is talking, all people in the room – including the teacher - are supposed to turn and look at the talker. Students come to realize I'm also going to turn and track the talker because it's a shared responsibility. It is a sign of respect. It goes hand-in-glove with S.T.A.R.’s “sitting like you're smart”.
Concerning the piano and guitar, if the music teacher has to constantly look at their hands and fingers when they play either the piano or guitar, you can bet that the kids will figure out two things: first, “This is the best time to do whatever I want to do because the teacher is concentrating on his hands” and second, “If the teacher doesn’t have to track me, why should I have to track the teacher?”
Tracking the talker might seem like a trivial point - until you're standing in front of a two-hundred-member fourth and fifth grade chorus. The habits that you've encouraged in groups of twenty or thirty in your classroom will pay huge dividends and will amount to life-saving skills for a choral director.
I will leave you with one last valuable tracking tip that I learned watching English actor Michael Caine in an “Actor's Workshop” episode. He was asked “what is the secret of acting?”
His emphatic, clipped response was “Nevah, nevah blink!! It shows weakness! But if you want to appear weak, blink!”
By incorporating that little tidbit in my teaching, I worked hard at not blinking and it really did pay off - I could go for long periods of time without breaking my gaze with my students.
It sounds like a crazy premise but it really works!
Frasier Crane: If only you had one.
We were all told as kids to “keep your eye on the ball”.
Some kids get this eye discipline easily and some don’t. If you don’t believe me, attend a T-ball game for five-year-olds and get back to me.
Tracking the talker is a skill that has to become a habit in kids.
When teaching little buckaroos, eye contact is everything.
Before I would start class, before I would start a song, before I would start a new segment of the class, I would make eye contact with every single child in the room for a split second. If I couldn't achieve contact because they weren't looking at me, I waited. Children figure this out and learned to know that eye contact was not an option; it was a requirement to move the addenda forward.
By the way, when day was done, my eyes were often the most tired part of me.
We have to teach kids to look up, both figuratively and literally. Some children developed the habit of looking down at their shoes or are reluctant to look up when talking with authority figures. I would often take a knee to assume a more face-to-face altitude.
Eye contact is the first step in learning how to give a good handshake. After getting some good eye contact, the next thing we would often work on was introducing ourselves. I would often film the kids simply smiling while they looked into the camera and said their first name. I would then show the movie on the Smart Board. There was a lot of laughter but at its core, every child got an affirmation of their smile and name from their peers and their music teacher.
The conundrum with many classrooms is that children are sitting in groups of four at round tables or square desks and are positioned to look at each other. Fifty percent of them are potentially sitting with their back to the teacher.
Have you ever noticed that whenever you concertize on stage, everyone in the audience is pointed in your direction? And when a rabbi or priest is standing before their congregation, isn’t everyone is facing them? And when we go to a movie theater, are all the chairs bolted into the floor and facing the screen? Those cemented screws were not indicative of options or suggestions for seating arrangements: it was a dictate.
But teaching is not about being set in cement – there needs to be latitude for adaptation.
I learned at the Leach school that if a child has to adjust their vision radius even a few degrees either way, there was a probability that the struggle would limit their ability to see me. It was crucial that, along with the support of helpful paraprofessionals, I position students in wheelchairs at the most optimum sight line.
If you haven't read “Teach Like a Champion” by Doug Lemov, you should pick up a copy. Lemov is a master of classroom presentation and optimizing teaching environments. There are various video examples online that go with the book. Almost all of them have the class directly facing the teacher.
Tracking the talker doesn’t mean looking at the teacher all the time. It has implications for the teacher’s tracking, too. Tracking the talker means if a student is talking, all people in the room – including the teacher - are supposed to turn and look at the talker. Students come to realize I'm also going to turn and track the talker because it's a shared responsibility. It is a sign of respect. It goes hand-in-glove with S.T.A.R.’s “sitting like you're smart”.
Concerning the piano and guitar, if the music teacher has to constantly look at their hands and fingers when they play either the piano or guitar, you can bet that the kids will figure out two things: first, “This is the best time to do whatever I want to do because the teacher is concentrating on his hands” and second, “If the teacher doesn’t have to track me, why should I have to track the teacher?”
Tracking the talker might seem like a trivial point - until you're standing in front of a two-hundred-member fourth and fifth grade chorus. The habits that you've encouraged in groups of twenty or thirty in your classroom will pay huge dividends and will amount to life-saving skills for a choral director.
I will leave you with one last valuable tracking tip that I learned watching English actor Michael Caine in an “Actor's Workshop” episode. He was asked “what is the secret of acting?”
His emphatic, clipped response was “Nevah, nevah blink!! It shows weakness! But if you want to appear weak, blink!”
By incorporating that little tidbit in my teaching, I worked hard at not blinking and it really did pay off - I could go for long periods of time without breaking my gaze with my students.
It sounds like a crazy premise but it really works!
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