Phil Swasey is the director of guitar at Bedichek Middle in Austin and works with ACG to bring perspectives from his experiences as a full-time classroom guitar educator to teachers across the country. If you would like to connect with him to discuss the projects that you are working on or are planning to, email phil@austinclassicalguitar.org.
Wow, what a start to the school year! The teacher’s summits that brought us together over the summer are still fresh in my mind, but it seems like so much has happened since those inspiring moments. The last 4 months have been a crazy swirl of uncertainty, planning, scrapping plans, awkward zoom moments, anxiety over safety concerns, and endless sessions of “I.T. support” with students. Mixed into those moments were also some of the most rewarding experiences that I’ve ever encountered as an educator; so full of clarity and purpose that the memories of the successes will surely out-shine the challenges faced.
The approach and mindset established by my experiences in the summits really helped me focus on strategies that, regardless of the specific circumstances, would allow a flexible approach to instruction. I was able to prioritize differentiated instruction that invited student voices into the process in ways that would have never been possible in a typical live classroom situation.
Our semester in Austin ISD started in early September with 100% of our students working remotely. For every learning block we would have the students for 60 minutes of live Zoom time and 30 minutes of asynchronous time, where the students would continue working towards the goals of our lesson. I decided to focus our efforts on ensemble-based projects that I would edit together as the students were submitting their recorded parts. Despite the changes that happened over the course of the semester while students were slowly being phased into the physical and virtual classrooms, these projects provided a way to balance the two different types of instruction.
Although the process took constant calibration to meet the needs of the music and the students, the results exceeded my expectations, not necessarily in regards to my students’ technical or musical progress, but in the way the students felt about making music together again. In the chat bar of our Zoom classroom, students would chime in with statements like the following:
“It sounded the same way it would in the classroom.” Student 1
“It felt like we were in the classroom.” Student 2
“Me too.” Student 3
“Even though we’re not in class, we’re still making progress in music. I want to hear it again.” Student 4
It’s statements like these that validate and encourage my efforts to create a safe, familiar, and familial virtual space focused on group music making for my students. The piece the students were reacting to was “Intersection” from guitarcurriculum.com. We combined this piece with work from our art-students, and presented it in a virtual concert with the other fine arts teachers. The final edit is linked below if you’d like to hear the result.
Bedichek Middle Non-Varsity - Intersection
I’m really looking forward to reconnecting with many of you at our Fall Guitar Education Roundtable on December 8th at 5:30 CST. The sharing of ideas and experiences over the summer helped me in my approach to this semester, and I’m sure to be reinspired by all of the amazing work from teachers all over the country. If there’s anything that you’d like to share with our education team prior to the roundtable, we’d love to hear from you.
See you soon!
Phil Swasey
