Question: A couple of issues ago you criticized excessive testing in Alberta’s schools—what would you propose as an alternative?
Answer: Ahhhh, an excellent (and entirely made up) question that gives me an opportunity to retread an editorial I wrote years ago while meeting my editor’s demand that I write something “nice and seasonal.”
About this time of the year in elementary schools all across the province, music teachers are slowly losing their minds. The reason for this is the annual ritual that was (in less politically correct times) called the “Christmas concert” and is now often styled as the “winter celebration” or something similar. In recent years, the event has been on hiatus as we managed the pandemic, but despite the current challenges, it seems that this hallowed event is back on the calendar!
Ever since schools have existed in Alberta, the annual concert has been for many the biggest day of the year. Under the guidance of the music teacher, children are carefully selected for various roles: the extroverts are assigned to be masters of ceremonies, the musically inclined are pushed to the front row of the risers in the hope that they will drown out their off-key classmates, and the “otherwise gifted” are relegated to playing the role of sheep, stars or the occasional tree. Long before inclusive education became the norm in the classroom, it was expected that the concert would involve every student—no excuses.
Of course, it isn’t just the students and their classroom teachers who are involved. Parents are pressed into building sets, finding props, making costumes and providing snacks. Custodians hang decorations. Clerical staff run off programs and school administrators adjust class schedules and supervise the trooping of classes down to the gym for rehearsal. But let’s be frank—it’s the music teacher who’s running the show.
On the night of the concert, parents, grandparents and siblings arrive. After parking six blocks away from the school, they trudge into a stifling gym. Phones and face masks are retrieved from pockets of parkas, the lights dim, the music teacher waves frantically from off stage, the sound system squawks and the concert begins.
The only thing missing...is a provincially standardized concert evaluation system with rubrics and ... Fraser Institute rankings.
Which brings me to my point. The only thing missing from this picture is a provincially standardized concert evaluation system with rubrics and, possibly, Fraser Institute rankings.
In fact, our failure to systematically evaluate and report on the quality of school concerts is surprising. From an evaluation perspective, the school concert is a target-rich environment—so many things just begging to be measured. For example, the ratio of children who bellow at the top of their lungs to those who stand in stage-struck silence; the number of consecutive years the Grade 3 students have performed some variant of Jingle Bells while strumming cardboard guitars; the percentage of sugar plum fairies who manage to dance in the correct/same direction. (I have a particular interest in this last statistic. When my own left-handed daughter, Siobhan, was in Grade 2, she was one of a dozen sugar plum fairies and managed to execute the elaborately choreographed routine entirely in reverse. Mayhem ensued.)
Having determined the measures, we could collect the data and then integrate the results into the jurisdiction and provincial accountability pillar reports. The greens and reds of those reports would suddenly take on a festive flavour!
Before you dismiss this suggestion entirely, I’d like to point out that the state of public education is already being evaluated on this basis. As far as parents and communities are concerned, their impression of the school is far more likely to be influenced by the Christmas concert than by standardized test results. As far as these folks are concerned, if the concert is all right, then so is the school.
Which brings me back to those incredibly talented, stressed out and slightly crazed music teachers. You want to treat them with kindness and loving care and help them make it through to the end of December. The reputation of your school is in their hands.
Best wishes to you all for the holidays. ❚
Questions for consideration in this column are welcome. Please address them to Dennis Theobald at dennis.theobald@ata.ab.ca.
