Welcome to the Common Time Podcast, a show designed to give music educators practical, inspiring ideas for you and your program. Each week we sit down with world class educators, composers, and conductors to talk about teaching, leadership and building programs that thrive without burning yourself out. So whether you're a band, orchestra, or choir director, our goal is simple to help you grow and stay inspired and remember why you fell in love with teaching music in the first place. This is season 4, and we're diving even deeper. More real conversations, more actionable takeaways, and more voices shaping the future of music education. Let's get into the episode. Our guest today is Elizabeth Herring. Welcome, Elizabeth.
Thank you for inviting me. I'm happy to see you both today.
Elizabeth is the Director of Bands at Manary High School in Keizer, OR in the Kaiser Salem School District, and we're excited to just jump into her experiences as a music educator. John, why don't you get started?
Thanks, David. Hi, Elizabeth. It's so good to see you.
It's so good to see you too.
So I'm just gonna start off right away, but I'm, Are you able to tell us a bit about your journey to ultimately get to a Mcnairy High School, especially coming from the state of Michigan where the two of us kind of met each other and started working together? And we certainly miss you here, by the way. The state of Oregon is very fortunate to have you. And then, but so the second part of my question are, are there any, any experiences that shaped your teaching philosophy along the way so far?
Yeah, sure. My path to Mcnairy High School was not a straight path for sure. I actually grew up here in the state of Oregon. I grew up in a suburb about an hour north of where I currently teach, and I did my undergraduate degree 10 minutes from where I'm teaching. So I grew up loving music. I didn't start playing the trumpet until I was 15. But as soon as I picked up a trumpet, it gave me a sense of purpose. That and it gave me a community. It provided so much for me. It just clicked immediately. And so it became a big part of my life. I didn't know if I wanted to be a music major. So I went to a small liberal arts school here in, in Oregon, starting as a biology major. And that lasted not long. And I was quickly, I quickly turned into a music education major. And through my experiences there, I, I ended up going to the Aspen Music Festival as a junior. And that's when my eyes were open to things that were east of the Rocky Mountains. And I decided that I wanted to go out of state to get my master's degree. And part of the reason I wanted to do that is in Oregon, when you graduate from an undergraduate degree, you're graduating in most cases without having student taught and without being licensed. And then they tend to funnel you into a masters of, of teaching program. And I didn't want a master's of teaching. I wanted a master's of music. So I ended up going to Northwestern. And my plan was to go to Northwestern, then come back to Oregon to teach. But then my boyfriend at the time, who is now my husband, ended up going to University of Michigan. So I followed him there, right. And I was fortunate enough to land in my first job in the Livonia Public Schools, which is about halfway between Detroit and Ann Arbor. It was perfect location, perfect community. I taught beginning band for a year, a year and change actually. And then part way through my second year, I got a phone call from a high school principal saying that there was an opening at his school and he was wondering if I was interested. And I moved into the director of bands position at Churchill High School and stayed there for 21 years. I expected to retire from Churchill. I, I like if you had asked me where I would be today, it would be at Churchill High School in Michigan getting ready to retire soon. So I, I never expected to come back here. It's a wonderful community, a wonderful place to teach. I learned so, so much from all the, all the wonderful universities that are around there. We're surrounded by U of M, Eastern Michigan State. We have just so much music in that, in that area. It was mind boggling to me. So I, I really grew a lot there. And then the pandemic happened and that seemed to change so much for everybody. And I kind of reached a point in my career where I felt like I'd been there for so long that I had done everything that I could at that school and I didn't have what I needed to keep momentum moving forward. And, and we were really understaffed, underfunded scheduling wasn't great thing. Weird things were happening with our feeder programs. So just on a whim, I, when I was scrolling Facebook one day, I saw a posting for Mcnairy High School in, in Oregon. I googled the band. I'm like, oh, they're pretty good. And I threw in an application and I'd talked to my husband about that and he said that as soon as I threw in an application, he started talking to his boss about being remote permanently. So he knew, he knew that this would be a life changing moment. And it really did turn into a life changing moment for us. And it wasn't something that I'd expected. I'd been kind of putting out feelers a little bit. Mcnairy wasn't the only place that I was, I was looking at, but and it wasn't simple. I, I had, I have three children and my husband is a chemist who still works for a chemical company in Ann Arbor, but now he does it from our, our house in, in Salem. But we had to move our entire family across the, the country and in about six weeks. So I got the job offer in the middle of June and we were on the ground in Oregon at the end of July and I was starting, I was starting. It was weird starting over after teaching in one place for so long. It was really strange starting over and the Michigan pandemic experience and education was so different from the Oregon experience. Michigan barely shut down. Like we, we school shut down for a little bit it from March through June and then like September of the next year. And then they were pretty much open. Oregon hibernated for a year and a half. And so not only was I starting at a new school as a new director, it was also right after a pandemic where the kids had not interacted with each other much for almost a year and a half. And but I found that I, I landed in another wonderful music community. I've been here for the last five years. It's been amazing. And, and I've I've really, I really have no regrets for, for coming back here.
That's a wonderful story. And you know, the path you've taken to, to really kind of come back home in a way never really expecting to, but here you are.
No, I never, I never expected to. And, and here I am. And it's funny because when I was teaching in Michigan, there are a lot of times where I'd be walking through the parking lot to school in the morning and there would be mountains of snow taller than me and I'd be walking through this frozen tundra and thinking, I never in my whole life would have thought that this would be my life. Like I would be in the middle of South, right? You have to put on a coat just to go to school. I like it. The air hurts your face. And I'm walking through this and we're going, we're going to school and it's 0°. But I walk into this beautiful program and, and I'm part of this wonderful community that I never had heard of before. And, and it ended up just becoming part of the fabric of that community. And the same thing here, you know, I wake up in the morning and I walk to my car and I smell the Oregon air, which is just crisp and clean and smells like pine trees. And, and I have the exact same thoughts. Like, how did I? How was I lucky enough to end up back here in Oregon?
Yeah, that's so wonderful. We don't the air doesn't smell the same way in Houston, TX, just as a just for your information, we don't, we don't have any pine tree smells or it's not crisp and clean. It's none of that.
It doesn't really smell that way in southeast Michigan either, so.
Well, I'm really curious, so yeah, no, go. Please go ahead.
I was gonna say, I think that the things that shaped my philosophy were just I mean, everybody probably has their own experiences in band and mine certainly shape my philosophy, their own learned life experiences and the people they've met along the way that shaped their philosophies. And I was just fortunate enough to and I think the band community is so small that we can go anywhere and instantly find minds to pick and people to learn from. And I was just fortunate enough to land in a place where I could learn from people who were driven and talented and wonderful, both in Oregon and in Michigan. And I've been able to form philosophies based on really my own experiences, but also the experiences of all these other wonderful directors and students and communities that I've been able to work in.
Right. Yeah, absolutely. So I'm just curious when you we talk about you've been through several programs and every, every program that kind of has its own culture, if you will. So I'm curious, how would you describe the musical and sort of human culture that you built at Mcnairy and were there intentional choices that sort of help create that for you and your students?
Yeah, for sure, for sure. And that's something I was nervous about with the transition because the things that I value as a director is I, I want my students to have a place to belong. I want my students to graduate loving music. I want them to continue to have music as part of their life when they graduate and to become the people who go to the concerts, the people who play in the concerts, the people who will continue to pick up their instruments. And I want them to have great memories when they graduate from my program. And then I want them to learn a lot about music. So and I and I felt like I had that at Churchill. It was very easy. Everything was very comfortable. When I came to Mcnairy, I was kind of straddling 2 programs that summer because I was in, in Michigan and also trying to start. I was closing out the, the, the year in Michigan, opening up the marching season in Michigan at the same time I'm opening up the marching season at Mcnairy. And I knew that I was going to be making some changes. And so the first thing I did was I had a Zoom meeting with the drum majors and anybody else who wanted to come. And there were probably 15 kids who came, and I just asked them questions. What do you want to see in your program? What's what, what's important to you? What is Mcnairy like in I? I listened to their answers. And then when I came to Oregon, that was also the first thing I did is I brought in. Well, first I had to, I had to choose section leaders because they're section leaders hadn't been assigned. I only had drum majors. So I had to kind of take the feedback from the previous director and then the feedback from the kids who, who are the leaders, who would be a, a good leader. And the funny thing was Mcnairy's a pretty big school. It's had a big program, but the pandemic really did a number on it. And so I expected to come back to a marching band with about 80 kids, which was going to be smaller than what I was used to. And then when I got the registration spreadsheet, there were 22 names on there and one student had registered twice, so I had 21. I was the smallest marching band I'd ever directed in my entire career in Michigan was 89. And usually we were, I mean we're a big mid Midwest show band. Usually we're in the one 50s. I was literally Googling how to how to teach a small marching band like I'm 22 was unfathomable to me. And so that was my first task. As I told the drum majors, you need to see if you can round up some more kids. And so when we got when I finally got to Mcnairy, I pulled in all the section leaders and I asked them the same questions. What do you want to see? And they their answer was, we just want to make music and we want to be with each other because it was right after the pandemic and they had been a lightly competitive marching band before. And I said, that's great. We can do that and we're not going to compete. And it was the easiest transition from competitive to non competitive that I think you could possibly experience because they just wanted to make music and be with each other. And I ended up with 34 of the best kids in that band that year. And it was incredible to see what they could do. So that's what we started with post pandemic. And that was the culture. We just want to make music and be with each other. And we were able to, to do that and be successful and still continue to achieve. So it was. It was eye opening to me.
Yeah, I really love that you have a sense of what you want your students to experience. Like what? What are they going to look like? What are they going to feel? What are they going to experience at the point of graduation like when they look back. That's important. You have like a real clear sort of artistic North Star in that way, and I love that.
I do and I guess, oh, sorry, just go ahead, John.
No, please go ahead.
I, yeah, I It's so easy to get caught up in the moment of, of what's happening day-to-day and all the things that are going on that we have to understand that this is just a fleeting part of, of the students lives. And it's, they're not going to have it forever. They never have an experience like this again unless they continue on and band programs in college. But even that's not the same as being in your high school band. So we sometimes have to put the rest of that aside and, and think what, what are we really teaching our kids? What do we want them to remember? How do we want them to feel when they think about their experiences? And there's so much that we can do just with the rep that we choose and the events that we put on our calendars to guide that.
That's so true. That is so, so true, you know, so I'm I'm going to change direction slightly. I was always very impressed with your rehearsal pedagogy. How like you commanded the rehearsal from the podium was so efficient and inspiring to me really. So are you able to share with our listeners a rehearsal habit or strategy that consistently moves the needle in a positive direction for your students? I mean something practical that other directors could possibly try.
Yeah, for sure. Two things, a habit and a strategy. So one habit that is pretty deeply embedded into what I do is I provide myself with protected time every day. And for me, that's early in the morning where I get to school very early and I don't answer emails, I don't knock things off my to do list. I just look at my schedule for the day, the classes that I have and make sure I, I have everything that I need to be successful in those classes. So obviously I've got the plan of what rep we're going to attack and what sections we're going to attack, but I also have to make sure that I've got the supplies that are needed, that I've got scores marked that just, I, I never want to walk into a rehearsal unprepared. So having that time and it's so easy to open your inbox and just start whittling that down and then you're not prepared for class. So, and, and I do that in the mornings here now, but I, I'm also a parent of three kids. And so I know what it's like to not have that morning time. And when they were little, I would actually get up before they'd wake up and I'd go do it at home at the kitchen table before they woke up. So there's just, you just have to find that time, even if it's just 20 minutes. So that's my habit and that's been part of me probably forever. My strategy. I was thinking about this the other day, and I think one of the things that moves the needle the most for me is that I record rehearsals constantly, and it's not every day and certain times of years. I record more frequently than others. Right now we're just moving into our contest season, so I'm recording a lot and I'll stick a Zoom recorder behind me on a stand, record the whole rehearsal. And then at the end of the day, I put the SD card into my computer and throw it into a Google folder with the date and which ensemble it was. And then I'll when I go to the gym that night, I'll listen to it. And so and you know, I usually just fast forward and listen to the music and then kind of jot down things that maybe I wasn't hearing. But I also sometimes listen to how I'm teaching, like especially if I know there is a moment and I go back and, and, and think, did I really address this with kindness? Did I allow this student to keep their dignity? And usually I'm, I'm pleased with myself. So but yeah, it's I, it's good to also see how you're interacting with kids and, and what the vibe is in rehearsal that way. But also just listening back to those recordings. When you record your ensemble with a recorder behind you, it doesn't sound good. It sounds bad. And so it really is motivating to, to go because there's no resonance there. You're hearing a lot of kind of high, high reeds, depends on how big your room is doing, what you're using. And so I think it makes me over prepare on things like precision and, and, and it helps me find intonation flaws more easily. It helps me hear weird breaths that I maybe didn't hear live. And then and then I get all anxious about how bad everything sounds. But then we go into the auditorium. I'm like, oh, actually sounds good. So it's, if I know there are directors who record their ensembles. But if you do it regularly and have again, a habit of when you're going to listen to it, it's super helpful.
Yeah, that's great advice. I want to like hammer that home. Recording your rehearsals is so eye opening. I used my first year to teach the director of bands came.
He was like, you need to record your rehearsals every day and they need to go back and listen to them with your score. And the number of things that especially then I wasn't hearing, even though I thought I was hearing was immense. And you know, you get better as you go. But the thing that I love most about what you said is you also listen to how you were teaching. And that's something that I think sometimes we as teachers, we're so focused on the music and getting the music to a certain level that we, we don't focus on how did we present that information? How did we get that sound out of the student? Did they, did we save their dignity? So I'm so glad you said that.
I'm going to switch gears here, but I'm just, I just want to reiterate, I'm so glad you said that out here. But you mentioned a second ago student leadership and working with them when you first got to Mcnairy. And I know this looks differently with different programs, but how do you empower students to take ownership of both their music as well as the ensemble community that you're talking about?
Yeah. And so that's a great question. I know there's a lot of directors who are really intentional about using different leadership programs. I feel like I've got great student leaders, but I don't follow any particular program. We do take advantage of some of the leadership opportunities in the area, but I think I've done a couple of things that really allow students to take ownership in. In Michigan. It was, it was much easier, I think to build that leadership ownership because I had an enormous program and not enough staff. And so it was it would have been impossible to run without kids. I would, I got to the point where I would have so many kids lined up at my door at lunch or at breaks or whatever that I just had to train them to don't ask me questions. Please don't ask me questions. Go ask somebody else you can. If there's a question that only I can answer, it will eventually get to me. And, and so the, the seniors and the section leaders really did start to take ownership just out of necessity. And I felt like we had real positive leadership here. I'm really fortunate the we're a city school, we're in the state capital. We're very real world. We're actually a high poverty school. 67% of our students are considered impoverished, but we have incredible music programs in Salem Kaiser because of the level of support that we receive. And it's very different than the support that I received when I had a big program. It's just me. So I have an assistant band director and I actually have a coaching staff. And so this is all wonderful. I also discovered that when the kids have all these adults telling them how things need to go, that they tend to not step up as much. So I actually have to be a little more intentional, intentional about having them step into leadership positions and make decisions on their own. One thing that I've started doing that I, I used to do a lot in Michigan and I in I just started doing again here is something that I learned from John from watching your Michigan marching band rehearsals. I remember one of my favorite traditions was bringing part of my marching bands to Michigan every August. We would start the season by coming to watch. We would, we would watch probably about half an hour of your rehearsal and then we go to Cottage Inn for pizza and it would just be whoever wants to come. And then it was finally like, I'm only renting 2 buses. So it's I, I, that's it. So as soon as those two buses fill, then nobody else can come. But we would bring those kids and we'd watch. And one of the things that I loved about the way you rehearsed was you were very clear, you were very concise. You knew exactly what you wanted. You would ask them to do something, they would stop. And then you would say, OK, leaders talk. I don't remember exactly what you said, but you'd have like, leaders there telling the people around them what they saw because we can't see everything, right? And we can't hear everything. And so that's something that I've started to put into, especially my top band rehearsals, because I don't hear everything from the podium. There's things happening in the middle, there's things happening in the back. And I know my section leaders here and sometimes they'll tell me. And so now I can say, hey, we did the section. Here's my feedback. Section leaders, will you share with your section other things that you heard? And it allows them to take ownership in a way that's really crucial. And it also shows them that I trust them and I trust their musicianship and I trust their ability to make great musical decisions. So little things like that are just kind of embedded in an organic way without any branding or super intentional structures actually allow the kids to take ownership in the program.
Ownership is I think is so important, right and I actually use student feedback heavily in every aspect of the program instructionally or organizationally, logistically, I mean all things, you know, but also too I mean I can fix one problem at a time. The 88 student leaders can fix 88 problems at a time times however many people that they're talking to you, right. So I think it's extremely efficient, but you have to set it up the right way. You can't just be like go and get them. Right a little bit of chaos happens and then it just kind of goes from there. But anyway, I, I, I appreciate you kind of mentioning that. But so now I'm going to take a bit of a macroscopic approach to this upcoming question because your, your teaching career is incredibly impressive. I mean, not only because of the products that you teach, but the students that have come from your programs are doing everything that you're saying. They love music and want to be a part of it for the rest of their lives. I mean, that's a testament to you. So do you have a specific moment from your career that changed how you approach the podium? It could be a success, a struggle, a surprise. I mean, is there any anything that was like, oh, OK, everything is different.
Yeah, I think that I'm not sure I have like an everything is different moment, but I have kind of pivotal moments that started something that changed the face of my program. And I think I have a success and a struggle and a surprise that I was considering as I was reflecting upon this question. I really early in my career, when I started at Churchill, I came in, in the middle of the year and, and, and I came into a program that had been successful but was having some trouble. And I was the band and the orchestra teacher. And we were a AA high school, which for people outside of Michigan is the, the largest category. And we went to festival as a AA band and a AA orchestra. And my AA orchestra went to festival, did not do well, went into the sight reading room and the adjudicator actually said to them you need to learn how to play your instruments before you can come back to festival as a AA orchestra. So this was like the year 2000. So it's a long time ago. And, you know, I could have just taken my ball and gone home, but one of the things I try to teach kids is that we can do hard things and that we're, we're resilience and we don't quit. And so it actually kind of lit a fire under me and I started calling, just cold calling people. Will you come watch my orchestra and then give me feedback? Will you come teach my orchestra so I can take notes? Do you have — I would — I actually connected with the Eastern Michigan a lot. Do you have music ed majors who can come lead some sectionals? We never had that experience again. So, and that bit that showed me how valuable it is to build a whole community for your kids that they're not just learning from you. And, and my learning never stops as a director. I feel like if, if we ever get to the moment where we, we think that we have nothing else to learn, then we're, that's, we need to retire because even now after teaching 27 years, there's more things that I want to learn. So I, I built that village and, and I've, and I've always tapped other people. I mean, I've always, I've never been afraid to ask questions and bring people in just even for another set of ears. Even when the band is sounding amazing, I'm like, I just need another set of ears because I've been listening to this music for the last three weeks and I know there's things that somebody else is going to hear. So building that village came from that one very unsuccessful moment. I think a moment of success that changed things for me greatly was when I moved here. Mcnairy also is a program that's had a history of success. But again, the pandemic destroyed everything and we're a 6A high school, which would be the equivalent of the Michigan AA High School. And the Wind Ensemble for a couple of years did not have all the instruments that were needed. We actually went to festival the first three years. Well, the first year, I think I had first two years I had two saxophones, and then I had two years with 0 saxophones, 0, I had 22 kids in the Wind Ensemble. No saxophones, no double reeds, incomplete horn section. I think I had one horn for a while, 2 for another, another year. And I had to figure out how to make this band successful at the 6A level because that's what's expected here. And so I learned to read scores and to rescore things and to teach in a way that I'd never taught before. Like I now study scores so differently than I ever have before to a new depth. I now have so much and I have so much respect for directors of small programs because I know what it feels like to rely on that one kid that, you know, if they go off the rails, it's over. Like so, so you're like, you need to go to English class and turn in these assignments and stay eligible. Like there, there are conversations that had to happen at a deeper and more urgent level that I've never had to experience before. And we're kind of through that, that through. But boy, I learned so much and I, I have such a better perspective of what it's like maybe in our small rural schools or in schools that just don't have the, the, the kids to put in the seats.
Absolutely. Yeah, can I tell you my surprise too?
Please sure go ahead.
OK, so I also have a surprise. This one was in Michigan and there was a year where they were going to be renovating our auditorium and we weren't going to have access to it. And so I knew this was coming. And so my plan was to rent Hill Auditorium at the University of Michigan, which is a beautiful space, amazing sound, historic building. Like the people who have played on that stage are incredible. People have walked on that stage are incredible. And it was going to be life changing. And so you have to rent Hill like a year in advance. The schedule opens up. I don't remember what date, like midnight, November 1st. So I stayed up till midnight. I sent in the dates I wanted. I got the dates and then I went to the booster meeting and I'm like, this is what we're going to do when the auditorium closes down. And it was real quiet. And then one mom goes, well, I don't know if I want to drive to Ann Arbor for a concert and we, we're 25 minutes from Ann Arbor. So then I was like, oh, no, but we prepared. We went to the we had the concert date. I had the kids come in for a dress rehearsal that day. I was standing in there's this little parking lot behind Hill with this very nondescript door that takes you into the stage. There were 281 kids all crushed in this parking lot. I stand up on like a ledge and I'm telling them, OK, when you go in, you're there's no room there. You're going to immediately walk through. You're going to go put your cases in the seats and then you're going to set up for our finale, which is going to be all of you together. And the stage manager, by the way, Dane, I don't know if he's still there, was not pleased.
He's still there.
He's like, you're not going to fit that many kids. We fit them, but so hold my iced tea Dane, watch this. Yeah. We did it, but so I opened the door and they had this job to do and I'm like, it's not moving. Like the kids start going through, but it stops, it's not moving. So I kind of push my way through the students and then I go in onto the stage and I realized the reason it's not moving is they've gone through this like back door cellar. And then you walk in and you're on stage at Hill Auditorium and you look up and you see what you're standing on and they just stopped and didn't move. They were so inspired by where they were standing. And so I had to give them that moment and I got them all the way through and it was just, it really was life changing. And then I said, OK, set up for the finale. And it was, to me, like my heart was so full watching these kids like little bees setting up all these chairs and stands while I just stood there and watched. And then the parents came, like, these students are going to remember this for the rest of their lives, but they had no idea. It went from I don't know if I wanted to go to Ann Arbor for a concert to this was a moment that I will never forget and it's something that I will take with me forever. And so after that moment, I realized that there are experiences that my kids haven't had that I have, and I need to expose them to that. So we started doing dinner and music nights, Friday night Symphony band concerts. I would just put a list on the wall, I want to go see this concert, who wants to go with me? And they would sign up and then we would get some parent drivers. We would drive down to Hill Auditorium. I would just drop them off. I'd say go get dinner somewhere, meet me back here at 8:00. And we'd see the — they'd show up in ties and suits and dresses. It was amazing. So it, that completely changed my approach to what I need to do to expose kids to what's possible. So now I'm, I'm doing things like that. They've gone down to OSU, they've gone down to U of O, they've played up in Portland, they've — I've brought in guest artists. And it's all because of that moment where I realized that kind of impact it has when they're seeing something they've never seen before that they don't know how great it actually is.
That's incredible. I'm glad that you shared it because that really — we have so many resources if we reach out and give the kids the opportunity. But sometimes I think I, I was this way when I was teaching. Sometimes you get busy and it's another thing you add to the plate. But this one really matters because you are, you're providing experience where their, their eyes are open. So Hill Auditorium is it's incredible. I, I want to ask you a little bit about musical excellence because I know that's clearly been in your path, but you also have talked about student well-being and how what you want to have happen in your program and into the road, what it looks like. So balancing those two, musical excellence, student well-being, how do how do you do that, especially when we're talking about high pressure seasons that include marching band or concert festival prep, that kind of thing.
Yeah, that's actually a big topic of conversation here in Salem Kaiser, because we're a district that's known for music. It's it's very well supported. We have a lot of music activities. It's a pretty competitive district. I've moved from a festival state to a contest state. And there's some, I think some kind of tacit expectations and definitely directors put some expectations on ourselves for sure, even if we don't have anybody saying that to us. And at Mcnairy, I, I counted up last year with all of the different bands that we have and jazz bands and marching band and pep band and pit orchestra and Symphony Orchestra. We have 70 performances in a year, 70 performances. Now. The kids aren't all involved in 70 performances, but any, if a band kid did everything, that's what they'd be doing. If I did everything, that's what I would be doing. But I mean, we, we, I have a teaching partner here, so I'm not doing all of that either, but it's very easy for kids to get overloaded. However, my thoughts on student well-being and scheduling has changed a little bit in the last decade. I think we, there used to be a, a real concern about over scheduled kids, right? That just don't have downtime ever. I the pendulum is swung and it's, I think it's swung kind of in a concerning way where there's now an avoidance culture where things get hard. Kids are dropping maybe classes that are hard for them. Kids are pulling out of activities that get hard. Kids are maybe not going into social situations that make them feel uncomfortable. They're not able to practice some of the skills that are needed to be emotionally healthy because they're avoiding things that maybe give them some complicated feelings. If they reach a point where they're not as successful as they want to be, they may pull back from that too. And what we see it in very tangibly and quantitatively is even just school attendance. The chronic absenteeism rates in Oregon is 38%. And that means that 62% of kids are the ones that are coming to school regularly and 38% are not. Sam Kaiser schools is even higher than that.
That's concerning.
So yeah right. It's kind of, it's very concerning. And so I when I'm thinking about my students well-being now, of course I don't want them to be overwhelmed and over scheduled. But it the same time they need to be engaged in life and they need to learn that they can do hard things. They can push through things that might give them a feeling that's not good if they're not successful. It's something the first time I've got kind of a unique life experience that helps me to model that. For those who don't know me, I'm an above the knee amputee. And so when I talk about doing hard things and not making excuses, I can actually model that just from the way that I live and I can bring some of those experiences in into it, even though it's not necessarily a part of my identity. It is whether I like that or not, but I when we talk about students well-being, I think it's important to talk about this avoidance culture and that mental health involves sometimes experiencing different feelings and how to navigate that with also balancing how much is too much for kids.
That is so true. I mean it's and the attendance piece. I'm going to do some reading on this. I think if that's similar across the country, that's really scary.
Yeah, I think Oregon is one of the higher chronically absent states when I was looking at it. But this is something that's happening nationwide. I started to notice it before the pandemic when I was at Churchill Kit, but it wasn't like prevalent through the whole community. But I would notice certain kids would just stop coming to school regularly. And most of it was due to anxiety. And now I feel like it's not always just anxiety. It's just I want to do that or, or I don't, I don't even know. I don't know.
Yeah. It's tough, but you know, I mean, so I have a question that I am fascinated to hear your perspective on. If you could give yourself one piece of advice from your current career place to your younger self, what piece of advice would it be and why?
That's a great question. I feel like I wish future me could give me advice now, right?
Me too. That's a great response, never thought of it that way.
Yeah, it's true. I think the one thing that I would probably tell my younger self is that you're going to lose a lot of sleep over things that don't matter. And so learning what matters and what doesn't matter, what's worth losing sleep over and what's not. And I think I'm better at that than when I was younger. But there's a lot of things that happen that in the moment feel like big mountains. And then a year from now, you're not even going to remember it. It's not that important. It's band. It's supposed to be fun and it's supposed to be enjoyable.
It is fun. Yeah, absolutely, man. That's that's it's true. I wish I could go in the future and tell myself, like, what do I need to be thinking right now? That would be fantastic. I need to, we need like an app that just tells us like it could be random, it wouldn't matter. Probably just change your direction. But anyway, so kind of wrapping up, looking ahead, what excites you most about the future of your program? But I'm also curious what's currently stretching you as an educator.
I'm going to answer that in reverse order because I like to end on more positive things. So the thing that I think stretches me the most is we are on an AB block schedule here and even in my fifth year, I cannot get used to that. Now the great thing about it is the kids are taking eight classes and I just don't have schedule conflicts in Michigan. A whole part of my career was helping kids understand how to fit band in for four years and still get into the University of Michigan because you have to take all these other classes. And with only six classes a day here, it's I've got seniors that are in like 5 band classes. So I don't have that problem. But what I do have is the problem of especially my younger kids, they have band three times a week, a short class on Monday and then a longer class on Tuesday and Thursday. That means every weekend is a three day weekend from band that if they miss a Thursday, they're not going to have band from Tuesday to the following Monday. And especially with the younger kids, I know they're instruments in their locker and it's not at home being practiced for those five days. So I find that there's a ton of backslide between days for the younger kids, not so much for the older ones that actually go home and practice and are involved in a million different band things. But for the younger kids for sure, and especially because they come from a middle school program where they meet five days and then they come to the high school and it's every other day. It's a whole new hurdle. And I don't know if there's other people on AB block that have the secret solutions. I would love, I would love to pick brains because this is one that I have not gotten comfortable with yet and I don't think I've navigated it as well as I'd like to. As for what am I excited about, I'm not sure there's ever a day I'm not excited about band, but I think that just waking up every day having a new day to be better at what I do, to help my kids reach the next level, to work towards the next piece. One of the things I'm really excited about right now is some of the rep that we're working on which kind of unintentionally ends up to be really tied to the fabric of things that are happening in our nation today and kind of opens up a door that may not have been accessible before. We're currently working on Fanfare Politea by Archer. It is a great piece. And I didn't actually know the history of it until I was at Midwest and with you guys and Jason Fettig was there. And then we shared an Uber afterwards and he very politely asked me what we were working on. And after I'd asked him and when I told him that piece I looked at him like, wait, you commissioned this? Can you tell me about that? And so the whole story of how that piece came to being, I was able to share that with the kids, and the genesis of that piece was the insurrection. So I could talk about that without talking about that, if that makes sense. And then we just sight read the first movement of James David's second Symphony, which is based on poems from beat poets in the 1950s. And the first one is based on a poem called Junk Bands Obligato by Ferlinghetti, which is all about kind of anti-consumerism and the problems we encounter when we're conforming to things like that. So I cannot wait to dive more deeply into that and share the poem with the kids. It's actually set to like jazz music when you listen to the actual poem and you hear some of those melodies that come into that movement. So that excites me a great deal and I'm really looking forward to teaching that repertoire this semester.
I love it. I love your passion about it. That's fantastic. All right, so Elizabeth, here's the time in our conversations where we ask each of our guests a couple of standing questions that everybody gets. So the first one is do you have a soapbox topic? And it can be anything in music, band, life, whatever you want.
I think one of my soapbox topics is that everybody sets up their Wenger podiums wrong and the top tier doesn't go in the middle, it goes on the side so that you have a normal size step. But every time I go to a festival, the top tier's in the middle. So you have this little step that's like 3 inches that you have to get up and try not to fall off of. And it's especially precarious for somebody without 2 legs to do that. So I wish people would look at the picture on the Wenger website and see how you set up that podium.
I've struggled with that same one. I get to an honor band and be like, I just move it myself. Like it's right in the middle. You got like this little tiny, doesn't work.
We're on the clock at festival, it's like, do I take 45 seconds from my clock and get a time penalty just so I don't fall off this podium?
But anyway, so that's one. And then my more, I think my deeper one is that I think self education has become branded and monetized and I wish that would go away and parents would just put their kids in band and sports and theater and art because that's honestly all we need.
Yeah. Nope. Yes. So my question is, is there a particular book or books that have inspired you in your journey?
Yes, there is one that I read probably 20 years ago, and this isn't helpful because I don't remember the title and I think I lent it to a student teacher and it never came back to me. But it was a big black book that had just little paragraphs from famous band directors from the last 50 years. And I don't remember who said it, but there was one director who said I realized that if I didn't like something the way something was going in my classroom, that I could just change it. And those words were monumental. Of course, you can just change it. If you don't like that your kids don't always have pencils, then you change that. Whatever it is, it doesn't even matter. You can just change it. And sometimes we forget that we can do that. More recently I read the book written by H. Robert Reynolds, In Pursuit of Great Conducting, and this is actually kind of timely since he just passed away. I read it about a year ago and the first half of the book is about his life, which I found incredibly fascinating. I love hearing about directors' journeys. The second half was interviews with musicians who played under great conductors, asking them what makes a great conductor. And I found it really affirming that almost nobody said baton technique. Nobody talked about what a conductor's baton technique was, what they look like on the podium. I've taught high school band for 27 years. My baton technique probably does have a lot of bad habits, doesn't look great. But the people said what made the great conductors is the people that they were, how prepared they were for the rehearsals, how they knew exactly what they wanted, how they treated their musicians. So I loved reading that. That was important to me to hear.
All right, so now the ultimate question, and arguably the most important question. Elizabeth, what's your favorite time signature?
Well, I'm going to have to give you 2. My favorite time signature, this one is just for John and he's going to know why I picked this time signature. It's going to be 5/8. That's my favorite time signature, but of course I have to say common time.
Yes. Genius. See, I always knew genius. That's right.
Well, Elizabeth, this has been such a fantastic conversation. I really do appreciate your passion and the tidbits you gave today I think are really valuable. We covered so many topics, but thank you so much for your time today. We really appreciate you.
Thank you so much for inviting me.
And that's a wrap on today's episode. Thanks for spending part of your day with us on the Common Time Podcast. If today's conversation gave you something to think about or something to try with your students, we'd love for you to share this episode with a colleague. And you can also follow us on social media for episode clips, behind the scenes content, and updates to our upcoming guests. And if you haven't already, please be sure to subscribe so that you never miss an episode. Until next time, keep making music and keep making a difference.