Imagine you are in choir class. It's one of your favorite classes, a haven from math and English and science, where you don't have to sit hunched over a desk taking notes. Imagine you love to sing. You don't want to grow up to be a singer, or maybe you do, but you love it just the same. The way it makes you feel to be surrounded by voices all working together, learning together, you are a part of a machine and that machine makes music. It expresses emotions. It's complicated..and easy..and dark..and uplifting all at the same time. It's freeing and it's fun.
Imagine your choir teacher, your leader, the giver of tools that make 10 or 20 or 90 voices all work together as one. You respect them..you listen to them (most of the time)..maybe you even want to be them when you grow up. Imagine that person pulling you aside, or holding you after class, or calling you into their office to tell you that you're not a very good singer...that maybe you should think about taking band next year..maybe just 'mouth the words.' Now imagine you're 12 years old.
Now you're 35 and you haven't sung since. Not in choir. Not in the shower. Not even in the car when you're alone. You're not very good, so why try. This might sound ridiculous. How can one person..and I use choir teacher as a generalization, this could be any kind of educator or parent or authority figure..make such an impact? Why not just tell them where they could shove their opinion and continue to do the thing that made you so happy? How could one comment last for all those years? Sticks and stones right?
I wanted to write this post because I feel so strongly that it is our job as educators not to tell a student what they can't do, but to teach them how they can. Stephen Sondheim said it best, "Careful the things you say, children will listen," and it's true. I wish I could say that the above scenario was made up to make my point, but it is true. It's a story I've heard from numerous students, mostly adults, who come to me after years of not singing because someone told them they weren't very good. Now they're grown, and they're wondering if maybe..just maybe..they could sing again? "I know I'm not very good...I don't really sing..I don't have a very strong voice," I've heard them all. And almost without fail each of these "not very good" singers, were pretty good.
Why are we so affected by negative comments? We're hard wired to be. In a NY Times article Clifford Nass, a communications professor at Stanford, says, "The brain handles positive and negative information in different hemispheres. Negative emotions generally involve more thinking, and the information is processed more thoroughly than positive ones." In the same article Roy F. Baumeister, a professor of social psychology at Florida State says, "Bad emotions, bad parents, and bad feedback have more impact than good ones. Bad impressions and bad stereotypes are quicker to form and more resistant to disconfirmation than good ones." And the bad memories stick around. Professor Baumeister did a series of interviews with children and adults up to 50 years old about childhood memories and found more unpleasant memories than pleasant ones, even among people who said they had a happy childhood.
So what do we do? We criticize constructively, and sparingly. This ties in very well to Jeannette LoVetri's method of Somatic Voicework (tm), which I study and teach. Jeannette rarely says, "no" she says, "that's not quite working..lets try this," she doesn't tell a singer they're off pitch, she adjusts the exercise to help them find the pitch naturally. Students are far less nervous. Muscles stay far more relaxed. The intimidation factor of teacher looming over student, the judgement, dissolves. You can sing, let me show you how.
Heaping meaningless praise is not helpful either. I am lucky enough to be the child of a world renown and respected educational consultant, Terry Doyle, who makes the point in much of his work to say that you shouldn't tell a student how smart they are. Why? Well..the student you're telling is most likely 1) quick to pick things up 2) hasn't come across something they can't pick up quickly...yet. So what happens when they do? They don't think they're smart anymore. They give up. They're just "not good" at whatever it is. Instead we give meaningful praise, "Look how hard you worked on that," "Look how well you focused," "Look how much time you spent studying."
It's the same with singing. If you tell a singer that they're "great" they're probably 1) a pretty good singer naturally and 2) they don't have to try very hard to be great...yet. What happens when they come across more challenging repertoire or something stylistically different? When their voice develops and changes? When they all of a sudden can't pick it up so quickly? They think they aren't a very good singer anymore. Trust me. They do. I've been there. So instead try focusing on the work. "Wow..I can tell you've been working your head voice." "Did you hear how high your belt went today, what have you been doing?" Praise meaningfully and often.
In conclusion, words have weight, and negative words weigh more than positive ones hands down. "Careful the things you say, children will listen," but children will also absorb, and remember. We need to be the protectors of our students' voices, physically, mentally, and emotionally.
NY Times Article: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/24/your-money/why-people-remember-negative-events-more-than-positive-ones.html?_r=0
Terry Doyle, Learner Centered Teaching: https://learnercenteredteaching.wordpress.com/
Jeannette LoVetri, Somatic Voicework: www.somaticvoicework.com
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