Jeremy Murphy

North Central High School Portrait

> North Central High School is located in the urban area just north of Indianapolis
Demographics
3,636 students

Meals

41% Black

52.2% Paid Meals

35.2% White

41.6% Free Meals

13.5% Hispanic

6.2% Reduced Price Meals

6.2% Multiracial
4.1% Asian

This map shows the geographical area that North Central High School covers

NCHS Observations
The first class that I observed at North Central High School was their 2 nd concert band.
The room was set up in a typical concert band setup, with the woodwinds in the front and the
brass in the back. One unique thing about the band setup was that they had risers. The risers
probably made it easier for the students to see the conductor from where they sat. The students
had the typical instruments that you would find in a concert band, as well as some unique
instruments like the contrabass clarinet. The classroom had a projector displaying what students
would need in class during the day. It told them what pieces they would be playing and listed
them in the order they would practice them. I thought this was very informative and helpful so
the students knew what to expect for the day. One other thing posted in the room was a board
with band announcements, upcoming events, and classroom rules.
I did observe that there was a student teacher in the room, in addition to the band director.
The student teacher was not directly running the class, but he was certainly helping out students.
The student teacher was playing euphonium with the students, which was a good demonstration
for the students, without taking away from the band directors time. The class period is 50
minutes long and the class is offered each day.
Different objectives and music was rehearsed throughout the class. After given time to
warm up on their own, the class did a group warmup. The class was first asked to work on
balance. The director gave them specific instruction To not play louder or softer than their
neighbors piano, or forteetc. Once the students were balanced they worked on tuning,
listening to see if they were higher or lower than the desired pitch. They then played a chorale to
work on ensemble balnce between the SATB voices. Then they jumped into rehearsing the two

pieces they were going to work on for the day. Their objective was to work on the style of their
pieces.
Throughout the lesson, the director changed his pacing. To begin the class, the warmup
procedure was rather lengthy and the students were given plenty of time to warmup. As they
worked into the pieces the pace was picked up. The teacher had plenty of eye contact and
addressed individual sections throughout the lesson. The director also had plenty of nonverbal
communication, such as when he was off the podium he was less serious, but when he stood on
the podium students were ready to play. Overall the director had a good control of being serious
and fun at the same time, such as when he was serious on the podium, but he had the students say
the words to Happy Birthday to a student. At the end of the lesson the students seemed more
comfortable with the piece they had just sight-read the previous day. Also, the students style on
the first piece had improved. Overall, the director had accomplished his goals of the lesson.
The next class that I observed was the Wind ensemble, or their highest band. During this
observation I focused on the directors strategies. The director did various types of modeling
throughout his lesson. Most of the time that the director was modeling was when students were
struggling with parts. For example, at one part he was singing and counting students parts back
to them while they followed along in their music. One strategy that he used to help prevent was
to have the students say the beats per measure out loud. This was in a piece with lots of meter
change. This was an effective way to have students demonstrate to each other how to count their
parts.
When the class rehearsed their pieces, the director did not always have the whole band
playing at the same time. During the piece they played with all the meter changes, he had
individual sections play while others said their counts. This was a great example of teamwork.

While certain sections played their part, the other students stayed engaged by saying their counts
and helping the students who were playing to keep the rhythms correct. While they played their
other pieces, the director had students finger along or count rests while others played so they
were Always doing something. While practicing with individual sections, he also incorporated
repetition. He did this during their warmup where every section played a part alone, and finally
the whole band played the part together for one last time.
The directors strategy for learning the new music they were reading was based upon
repetition, and chunking parts together. The band would repeat large sections of the piece then
put them all together. During this time, the director would diagnose and correct mistakes. I liked
the fact that the director gave explicit description of what the problems were. For example, he
explained that a part was not being attacked together and that to fix it the band would need to
breathe together to play together. Some corrections were addressed like subtle reminders, such as
when he reminded students of the fermata. Finally, the director knew that he did not always need
to give the band praise for what they had done. He gave a good balance of positive feedback and
constructive criticism.
The last class that I observed was a jazz class for people with less experience with jazz.
During this observation I focused on the behavior of the students and the classroom management
of the teacher. The director of the jazz class was the director of the 2nd concert band. The student
teacher was also involved with this jazz class. As with the other classes, the student behavior was
very respectful. It is also good to note that the board with class expectations was posted in the
room. The board of expectations seems to be effective because all of the classes I observed had
excellent behavior.

One very interesting thing that I observed was the way the students interacted with the
student teacher, and vice versa. The students had a high level of respect for the student teacher.
During this jazz class, the student teacher ran the first 15 minutes of class and conducted their
warm up. One good thing that I noticed was that the student teacher did not treat the students any
differently than the director did. This is good because the student teacher demanded the same
amount of respect that students gave the director.
During this jazz class there was a lot of student feedback. Students would play and other
students would be asked to respond with what they had heard. All of the students gave respectful
answers, in which they may have complemented each other or gave constructive criticism. The
way the director allows students to give feedback to others helped to set up a comfortable
environment for students where they respected each others abilities and growing skills. The
students had a clear understanding of what was appropriate and what would not be. Because the
students were respectful, it seemed that they had a comfortable learning environment where they
could all learn from each other. In order for this environment to work, I believe the director must
have established these practices on his own for a while, then opened the floor to student
responses. I believe that the respectful student response would be a learning environment I would
like to have in the future.