Kim's Post:
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| Image from Clipart Mojo |
I was very happy to find that Benjamin Zander revisits his notion of the “silent conductor” in the earlier part of this reading. (I say revisits because we were first exposed to this idea during his TED Talk on music and passion.) During the TED Talk, I was struck by his comment that a powerful conductor is one who can inspire greatness in his musicians; that the conductor’s success is not so much measure by what he does, but by what others do under his leadership. This idea extends easily to the profession of teaching. The most successful teacher is the one who inspires the greatest work from his students. And, I see the connection between conducting and teaching even more prominently, in fact, in my action research project that focuses on the flipped classroom. The overarching goal of flipping is to make the classroom more student-centered than teacher-centered. Zander describes how implementing small changes like allowing the orchestra members to contribute their insights to his musical interpretations made them feel empowered and valued. In the same way, I hope that flipping my classroom will enable me to work with and hear from more of my students, so that they see the material as more approachable and relatable than they might otherwise feel in a lecture-based class.
My Comments:
Kim,
I too was "struck by his comment that a powerful conductor is one who can inspire greatness in his musicians; that the conductor's success is not so much measured by what he does, but by what others do under his leadership."
When I read that, I thought of the long-running Music Under the Stars summer concerts put on by the Toledo Symphony in the Toledo Zoo amphitheater. The same conductor had been leading this tradition for 59 years, until last summer when they announced a hiatus due to Maestro Szor's health. The first song the symphony always played (after the Star Spangled Banner) was a march that was "conducted" by a corporate sponsor. I always thought it was interesting that the musicians could play this piece without the conductor leading them (the guest conductor never seemed to know what he was doing!), but his is only because Maestro Szor had led them to be able to perform without him.
Maybe this is the ultimate goal of educators ~ to empower our students to perform without us at all.
When I read that, I thought of the long-running Music Under the Stars summer concerts put on by the Toledo Symphony in the Toledo Zoo amphitheater. The same conductor had been leading this tradition for 59 years, until last summer when they announced a hiatus due to Maestro Szor's health. The first song the symphony always played (after the Star Spangled Banner) was a march that was "conducted" by a corporate sponsor. I always thought it was interesting that the musicians could play this piece without the conductor leading them (the guest conductor never seemed to know what he was doing!), but his is only because Maestro Szor had led them to be able to perform without him.
Maybe this is the ultimate goal of educators ~ to empower our students to perform without us at all.
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| Music Under the Stars 2009 toledo blade.com |
