Principals dread getting irate phone calls from parents about their child’s teacher. This is the story of the day I was the cause for that phone call and how I handled the resolution of the conflict.
Fifth grade general music was in the middle of a break and on go time one day when I playing random hooks from pop songs at the piano, waiting for the end of our break. I stumbled into “How Long?” by Charlie Puth and suddenly there were at least 15 kids singing it, complete with dance moves and imaginary microphones in their hands. I stopped them in the middle of the tune and asked if they would you like to sing this song someday in class.
Yes! Can we sing it in chorus, too?
Yes and yes, I responded without thinking twice.
I did my typical formatting of a lyric sheet. I went to AtoZlyrics.com, copied and pasted the song lyrics into a word doc, put it in Tahoma font, made the text as large as possible, and printed off a few copies. It was nothing I was ever going to do in a concert. It was just something for fun that I knew they wanted to sing.
The next day, I got a call from my principal who had received a call from a parent incensed that I had her daughter singing a song with vial, offensive language. And even worse, I was going to have her daughter sing it in chorus – which would mean she would be withdrawing her daughter from our singing ensemble.
“There’s an offending line?”, I asked the principal.
My problem was I didn't know what the line was. And then it hit me.
“I was drunk, I was wrong.” It had totally slipped past me.
First things first. I apologized to my principal, Beth Howell, for the careless mistake I made.
My principal was proactive as well as understanding. She was talking a mile a minute.
“Yes, the parent was very upset about her daughter singing a song about drinking alcohol but I’ve found another two other “Kid Pop” versions of the song that changes that line so that when you do it –“
I stopped my principal cold and calmly said, “We're not going to do the song anymore.”
“Wait. You're just not going to do it again?”, the principal asked.
“There's no need. Give me the parent’s number and I'll apologize.”
“But don't you want to do this song, maybe in concert? It’s a good song and the kids really like it!”
“Absolutely not. If there's one line in the song that offended someone, no matter if I change that word, they will continue to hear the offending word in their mind and that it's just not worth the trouble. Trust me, I know thousands of songs. I think I can find one to replace this one.”
“But are you sure?” My principal now seemed like she was inconveniencing me and was amazed that I was not pushing back. She was expecting for the stereotypical music teacher response of “this is my artistic choice, this is what I want to do!” I was having none of it.
My principal was so relieved that she said she would call the mother and explain how I hadn’t realized the word was in the song. Which was true.
I’ll cover the topic of learning songs in another post. For now, let’s just say that I crank these tunes out faster than you can imagine and while speed is a reason why it slipped past me, it was not an excuse. I was always sensitive to lyric’s editorial content but that one word skated by me. Before I left the principal's office, I assured her I would collect all copies of the song, throw them away, and write a ‘thank you/apology’ to the mother for bringing this to my attention.
Classroom discipline
Principals hate getting classroom disciple phone calls from teachers.
We had a professional development session my last year at Castle Hills Elementary School, where the principal reported crunched data concerning discipline and behavior write-ups within our school. The bar graph showed in descending order where discipline problems occurred in the hundreds to places where there were no reported problems.
There was only one spot in the school were there had been no behavior referrals or calls to the office. That was my classroom. The principal pointed to the zero next to music room and asked the assembled staff was that number is a zero?
I'm not saying that over my career in public school teaching that I did send a few kids to the office. What I am saying is that if you’ve read any of my “Golden Hour” posts, you know that establishing student self-discipline habits started on day one. My goal was to solve behavior problems before they could start – but if they did occur, I wanted to correct them within my own four walls.
There were times when I wanted my response to bad behavior to be a visual reminder for them to carry forward. Often when I directed a kid go to the office, I moved in front of the door and premeditatedly “changed my mind”. “No, it’s better for you to just stay here with me. I think I can be your special helper for the next 45 minutes. Why should I share your ridiculous behavior with the secretaries in the office. I'll simply write you up later.”
Take Away Point: Only send kids out of your room if they are presenting a danger to other kids. Otherwise, it is better to create your own safe productive environment for your class.
The dirty truth about sending kids to the office and entering them into the on-line referral system is that ultimately it creates paperwork and phone calls for principals, assistant principals, and student advisors. They already have more paperwork than they know what to do with these days. Anytime a teacher can help them diminish their paper workload, it is always greatly appreciated.
An elementary music teacher has a secret weapon that has the power to stop a slew of bad phone calls to the principal before they ever happen. I’ll cover that in “The Gift Your Principal Wants You To Give Them – Part Three”.
Fifth grade general music was in the middle of a break and on go time one day when I playing random hooks from pop songs at the piano, waiting for the end of our break. I stumbled into “How Long?” by Charlie Puth and suddenly there were at least 15 kids singing it, complete with dance moves and imaginary microphones in their hands. I stopped them in the middle of the tune and asked if they would you like to sing this song someday in class.
Yes! Can we sing it in chorus, too?
Yes and yes, I responded without thinking twice.
I did my typical formatting of a lyric sheet. I went to AtoZlyrics.com, copied and pasted the song lyrics into a word doc, put it in Tahoma font, made the text as large as possible, and printed off a few copies. It was nothing I was ever going to do in a concert. It was just something for fun that I knew they wanted to sing.
The next day, I got a call from my principal who had received a call from a parent incensed that I had her daughter singing a song with vial, offensive language. And even worse, I was going to have her daughter sing it in chorus – which would mean she would be withdrawing her daughter from our singing ensemble.
“There’s an offending line?”, I asked the principal.
My problem was I didn't know what the line was. And then it hit me.
“I was drunk, I was wrong.” It had totally slipped past me.
First things first. I apologized to my principal, Beth Howell, for the careless mistake I made.
My principal was proactive as well as understanding. She was talking a mile a minute.
“Yes, the parent was very upset about her daughter singing a song about drinking alcohol but I’ve found another two other “Kid Pop” versions of the song that changes that line so that when you do it –“
I stopped my principal cold and calmly said, “We're not going to do the song anymore.”
“Wait. You're just not going to do it again?”, the principal asked.
“There's no need. Give me the parent’s number and I'll apologize.”
“But don't you want to do this song, maybe in concert? It’s a good song and the kids really like it!”
“Absolutely not. If there's one line in the song that offended someone, no matter if I change that word, they will continue to hear the offending word in their mind and that it's just not worth the trouble. Trust me, I know thousands of songs. I think I can find one to replace this one.”
“But are you sure?” My principal now seemed like she was inconveniencing me and was amazed that I was not pushing back. She was expecting for the stereotypical music teacher response of “this is my artistic choice, this is what I want to do!” I was having none of it.
My principal was so relieved that she said she would call the mother and explain how I hadn’t realized the word was in the song. Which was true.
I’ll cover the topic of learning songs in another post. For now, let’s just say that I crank these tunes out faster than you can imagine and while speed is a reason why it slipped past me, it was not an excuse. I was always sensitive to lyric’s editorial content but that one word skated by me. Before I left the principal's office, I assured her I would collect all copies of the song, throw them away, and write a ‘thank you/apology’ to the mother for bringing this to my attention.
Classroom discipline
Principals hate getting classroom disciple phone calls from teachers.
We had a professional development session my last year at Castle Hills Elementary School, where the principal reported crunched data concerning discipline and behavior write-ups within our school. The bar graph showed in descending order where discipline problems occurred in the hundreds to places where there were no reported problems.
There was only one spot in the school were there had been no behavior referrals or calls to the office. That was my classroom. The principal pointed to the zero next to music room and asked the assembled staff was that number is a zero?
I'm not saying that over my career in public school teaching that I did send a few kids to the office. What I am saying is that if you’ve read any of my “Golden Hour” posts, you know that establishing student self-discipline habits started on day one. My goal was to solve behavior problems before they could start – but if they did occur, I wanted to correct them within my own four walls.
There were times when I wanted my response to bad behavior to be a visual reminder for them to carry forward. Often when I directed a kid go to the office, I moved in front of the door and premeditatedly “changed my mind”. “No, it’s better for you to just stay here with me. I think I can be your special helper for the next 45 minutes. Why should I share your ridiculous behavior with the secretaries in the office. I'll simply write you up later.”
Take Away Point: Only send kids out of your room if they are presenting a danger to other kids. Otherwise, it is better to create your own safe productive environment for your class.
The dirty truth about sending kids to the office and entering them into the on-line referral system is that ultimately it creates paperwork and phone calls for principals, assistant principals, and student advisors. They already have more paperwork than they know what to do with these days. Anytime a teacher can help them diminish their paper workload, it is always greatly appreciated.
An elementary music teacher has a secret weapon that has the power to stop a slew of bad phone calls to the principal before they ever happen. I’ll cover that in “The Gift Your Principal Wants You To Give Them – Part Three”.
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