Well, hello and welcome back. We are here at Hillbrook School. My name is Bill Selleck, I'm director of technology, and I am so excited about the three humans joining us on this podcast.
Today we have Jamie Piata, Derek Silberman, and Vanessa Holmesilberman.
And we are talking about performing arts. Not just arts, performing arts. Jamie, let's jump right into it. We're going to talk about, first of all, what each of you do. You're going to pick kind of one part of performing arts, and we're going to talk big picture, how this fits into curriculum, learning, education, all that kind of stuff. But Jamie kick us right off.
So teaching lower school has been quite a journey over my career, experimenting with different methods and trying different areas of curriculum. This last summer, I completed the level two of the Orph Scholwork approach and really fell in love with it over the last couple of years. And I've been incorporating that more heavily in my classroom. It's a very child centered approach that allows children to be playful, use their imagination, and still use singing and dancing, a little bit of acting and speech along with percussion playing. And I think that this specific approach really allows children to explore being a musician and being celebrated, to make mistakes and to just see what happens and see where it goes. As we incorporate improvisation, it really makes them feel confident and like, wow, I can really create something that I didn't really realize that I could. And so I've really been enjoying exploring that with the children in the classroom and have been impressed with how well they're picking up playing Xylophone xylophones and bass bars and incorporating Austinatos and melodies and singing at the same time.
And one of the things I love about the Orph approach is the Austinato. For those playing at home that aren't professional musicians, that's where you repeat, you pick the same, like 10 seconds or eight measures, and you tend to do that again and again and again. And so you're not spending weeks or even hours learning this really complicated, constantly changing piece of music. It's this one thing that you can basically memorize pretty quickly, right?
Yeah.
And that's actually a huge idea of Orph is like, you're able to learn it quickly and you're able to have fun with it quickly. There's so many. When I think back to University of being a performance major, it wasn't like that. It wasn't easy. It required a lot of work. And while there is definitely merit in that, I think introducing music to children in a way where they can be successful in a 20 minutes lesson even, and we're playing something and they get to walk out of the room feeling like, wow, I really created something.
Well, and for those listening to it, it doesn't sound like a 20 minutes. Like, oh, they're six year olds and this isn't music. It sounds like a legit piece of music. It sounds really incredible. Yeah, I love that so much. Derek, walk us through. We're doing instrumental, right?
Yeah. So going into the middle school level with instrumental, the goal often is to try to build on what has already been established in the younger grades. So trying to implement a lot of those core concepts that have been applied of rhythm and time and starting to get into reading, really balancing the rote versus note aspect of music. Nobody can get away with just one side of it. We all have to have some reading, but we have to understand what the reading sounds like. And so starting to incorporate that at the middle school level, still relying on core musicianship skills, those things that we learn, whether it's singing or playing at the young age, still apply through professional levels. And so trying to incorporate that in the middle school level, we have a very varied program. Our rock band right now has about 20 students in it.
Your rock band has 20 students?
Yes.
Okay.
It means doubling a lot of things that are not usually doubled. It means asking for flexibility on the student side. So we have kids who are singing and playing ukulele. We have lots of guitars. We have multiple basses, multiple drums, kids switching back and forth. In the end, it's always talking about listening. What are you hearing and what are you communicating with everybody else? And that's fundamentally what it all comes down to. It's how we communicate with other people. It's a language that we're all trying to develop and share, and it's a language that works in between genres.
Well, in the last episode, Claire and I talked about kind of the classic four C's, one of which is communication. She's blown it up. Four is not enough. She's like, at 13, we're looking at 20 C's. But communication, I think, is one that educators often come back to and one that parents can often name of. Like, what is the soft skill? What's the skill that as we think of preparing our students for a world we truly cannot imagine, communication is such a key part. And what you just described around deeply listening and communicating when you're in a rock band performing on a stage, if you're not deeply communicating with someone, everybody knows you can't not communicate.
In music. We don't just teach oral communication. We actually teach more visual communication than most areas. Because when you're in the middle of performing, you can't just stop and go, hey, everybody, you messed up. You have to actually look at the person and make eye contact and try to signal, like, we're not right there right now. And so there's a lot of different kinds of communication. There's actually a whole set of sign language that musicians have for where's the top of the song? Where's the chorus? Are we doing this again? Is it ending? Are we going to a new key? People don't even think about it. It almost should be a class in college for musicians. That the musical hand signs, besides the Kerwin hand signs for soulfge that we.
Should all be learning. We'll talk about soulfge another time. It's also incredibly interesting that so much of the nonverbal communication is such a critical part of performance, and if you're not doing that, if you're staring at your music, you're missing all the things happening around you.
And that was totally the conversation. Our last rock band rehearsal was, you can't just start your job and zone out. Just like you can't start driving your car down the freeway and zone out. Yes, you totally could. But yeah. And so, yeah, that thing of like, we have to listen and pay attention to what we're all doing together, and that if we don't pay attention, it's a train wreck and everything falls apart.
Yeah, I love that. I have a very quick story that's hilarious. I played bass in the church band for about ten years. Drums, bass, guitar, piano singers, all the things. I was playing bass, and then I think by the time we had our second kid, it was like, I need to just sit with the family. It can't be me playing bass while my wife's holding a newborn and another kid. And so we were in the front row and I did that. I took advantage of the nonverbal communication with Robert, our singer. I would just like, I'd be doing stuff or like, he'd do a thing that repeats and I'd be like, What'd you say? And he has to say it again. But I very much took advantage of the nonverbal communication and was who, like, Razzing, the band that I had played with for ten years, because we had it all just dialed in and yeah, I didn't have to actually shout at them exactly to get them to chuckle or start, you know what I'm saying?
Yeah.
Anyway, it was fantastic. So talking about singing, Vanessa, lead us away.
So we have worked really hard this year, both Jamie and I and Derek, to create a super choral program here at Hillbrook. Right now, we have four choirs. Yes. And just to put that into perspective, three years ago, there was no choir. Yeah, I remember the first year that we offered choir for 7th and Eigth grade, we had what we now call the choir OGS. There were four kids that signed up, and I remember thinking, like, as a choral educator, okay, that's not a choir. By the end of the year, that year, we had, I think, 14 or 15 kids that had signed on and seen what we were doing and been like, I need to be a part of that.
That's incredible.
This year, we have a second through fourth grade choir that Jamie leads that has 25 singers in it. So you see, starting from the bottom, the kids are being really engaged with singing and then in middle school, we have a fifth and 6th grade choir that Derek and I co lead that has 15 singers in it. And we have a 7th and Eigth grade show choir, which is kind of our premier sort of top group in the school that has 25 kids in it that we do a pretty substantial amount of arranging and singing and dancing with that group and traveling around and performing. And then this year, our new high school, the 9th graders came to me and said, we can't do school without choir.
Say that sentence one more time. That's our pool quote.
School without choir. That is it. And so we put together a choir and they made the commitment to meet at 08:00 A.m. On a Wednesday morning. I mean 9th grade, 08:00 A.m on a Wednesday morning. It shows you how singing has now become an incredibly important part of our culture here at Hillbrook.
And that's a big thing for a couple of reasons. Because singers typically don't like to sing early in the mornings.
Right.
Voices don't. Yeah. As Jamie's like.
No.
And then also our high school doesn't start at 08:00 A.m., so it's actually coming before school.
They actually take a shuttle from the Marchmont campus at 730 in the morning to get to choir practice. It's pretty impressive, the sacrifices that the ensembles just in general make in order to be able to do extracurricular things here. I'm very proud of the engagement that all of the singers have, and the rock band as well, I would say.
All the programs, because our five, six choir, they give up a regular lunch period to be there and sing two through four. They're after school. So at every level, they're making a choice to either be in that ensemble or do something else. And it's really amazing to see how often they make that choice to be here. Getting fifth and 6th graders to remember to be somewhere at lunchtime on a Monday.
On a Monday, dude.
Yeah.
And they take full that's the thing. There's so many reasons, Bill, why I think vocal education is important, like choral education. What I tell the kids all the time is that do I think I'm raising you as musicians to be a professional musician? I mean, part of my musician heart hopes so, but another part of my musician heart hopes, never. But I don't necessarily think in 25 years of teaching, I've probably had maybe 3% of all of the students I've ever taught have actually grown up to be adult musicians.
You mean professionals?
Professionals, yeah. Professionals. But do I think that we're raising a generation of CEOs that know how to stand in front of a group of people and comfortably present yes.
Or even just appreciation. You just showed me a video of a student from how long ago?
Yeah, I was just going to say that actually, the idea that we might not even be raising people who can stand in front of a group, but we are raising people who then want to go see a show. Want to go support a local choral organization by maybe joining, by maybe donating, by being philanthropic because they had this engagement as a young person. I mean, I remember my experiences when I was in 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th grade. I remember those experiences even now. And they have definitely shaped both how I educate and how I appreciate well.
And I think an important thing to note, and I want to keep going down this path that you just kind of started. If we backtrack just a moment. All of these different choirs, all these extra commitments are in addition to music time that's part of the school day. So when I was teaching fourth and fifth grade music choir was only during lunch. You couldn't actually be a part of choir unless you missed an entire lunch for it. And other than that, they just had kind of a generic music appreciation once a week. And this is not that they're getting music throughout the week and doing all these extra things with the lower school music, with the rock band, with the various choirs, which is just incredible.
Yeah. And what it does is it does give them that foundation and then it gives them the teamwork aspect of it, which is huge. For me, I will forever and always see ensemble education exactly like I see sports education.
Tell us more.
For me, as being both a musician and a sports person, I see that teamwork is the only way to make either of those subjects work. And when we treat an ensemble like we treat a sports team, that we all come together, we do this together, we can't have one person missing. I know Tim Downes, the athletic director, and I have had this conversation where both of us dabble in each other's fields. And so when you think about it in terms know, he said, I just can't have a volleyball player missing from a match.
Oh, interesting.
And I said, And I can't have an actor missing from a performance.
Right.
And so we were able to even work together, which is like the infamous OOH sports athletics and the arts. Oil and water, oil and water, but not really. They're actually the same.
That's so interesting. I had such a different experience growing up playing soccer. I was not great. And so it's just like kick the ball to the good kid and the good kid would run. So I never actually felt a part of that team. And then also in high school with swimming, everybody did their individual and it was actually total points. So if you weren't there, your team would get less points, but you could actually like it was a complete independent work. So I wonder if that's part of why I gravitated after swimming in high school into music, because you had to show up, you had to be present, you had to develop all of that communication.
I also wonder though the quality of the teacher who's creating the situation. Vanessa goes out of her way to create community in all of her ensembles. She does activities that are specifically geared towards just making the students comfortable with each other. Whereas not every AYSO coach is trying to get the kids to actually function as a team. And that might just be because it was a parent volunteer, not a professional.
Music in the defensive sports. Not every choral musician is getting their ensemble to be a team.
Well. And that's my point, is the quality of the coach, the teacher. They are the ones who have to guide that principle that if there's not that vision from the top that we are a community and we are working together as teams, it doesn't matter if it's a soccer team or a band or a choir or whatever, that it has to be about community.
Well, and so much of what I'm hearing right now, if we just replace a couple of these nouns, it sounds like lower school with responsive classroom. It sounds like middle school with developmental designs, morning meeting or advisory. This is just how we talk about community. This is how we talk about education. Right?
Yeah.
And that word community was on my mind before you said that, Derek, but we've only finished three rehearsals of lower school choir so far. But there's 2nd, third and fourth graders. And if you know anything about our campus, first and second grader are on one side of the campus and third and fourth are on the other side. So a fourth grader really may not know a second grader at all.
Sure.
And I think the kids are slowly starting to just get used to the fact of oh, we are all doing this thing together and maybe this is a way for them to have an opportunity to make friends with and understand that you can collaborate with someone that isn't in your grade or the one above or below. And I think that that's something that's really important because in life, like age and status don't really have anything to do with how you collaborate with each other. We are all human and creating that community and being able to show children that it doesn't matter what grade you're in or where you come from, that we are all able to make music together as a community.
And I also wonder kind of maybe a segue here in terms of that mentality, because we had the same mentality with 7th and Eigth grade choir where there was a brief discussion that we would separate the grades in electives. And I said no choir really needs to be together seven and eight. And the kids are like you see it, they come together and they become like best friends with someone not in their grade. And there's learning. That happens when you are friends with someone who isn't learning the same classwork that you're learning, and there's other types of learning that occur. And then it makes me wonder what's the ripple effect of this sort of thing? Like if we have 70, 80 kids in the school that are involved in 100 kids, when you include rock band that are involved in ensembles, then when you add to it something we're not even touching on today, which is 65 kids that signed up for the spring musical. When you start to have all these teams that are cross grade, what's the ripple effect to the rest of the school? The rest of the curriculum that happens. I'm curious what everyone feels about that ripple effect and how it transcends just the ensemble itself.
I would hope we have a beneficial effect. I know I talk about respect a lot in rehearsal, about respecting the people around you, and that doing your part is not just focusing on yourself, but being aware of the people around you. And that's a really tough subject, especially in the middle school. Everything is so self focused. And so this building, this concept that we need to be respectful of the tools that we're afforded and of the people around us is such an important aspect of it. We can't make any improvement if we don't have respect.
Yeah, well, and that's right in line with what Heather, our lower school head, talks about again and again in these lower school assemblies, is how we're a good audience member. So middle school starts to be kind of that inward facing me developmentally. And then lower school is just like, how do I sit for 15 minutes? What does active listening look like? And she really goes explicitly of what it looks like, what it sounds like, what it feels like.
Yeah. And also, I love that because it also leads to that aspect of, like, it's not just about the performer. In fact, in many ways, what I try to try to impress upon the singers is that it isn't really actually in a performance about us at all. It is actually about what we want the audience to take away. So when we are also simultaneously teaching students how to be audience members, we're creating this amazing dynamic of two energies bouncing off of each other. The idea that applause means thank you and bow means you're welcome is such an exchange.
It's such an important lesson that so many people miss.
Well, that's so much of why I hear people talk about live theater, is that, sure, you can listen to the cast recording or know, watch Hamilton on Disney Plus. But being in the room where it happens is different because it's different every night.
I like that little it's an experience.
That you create together, that you co create. And I see that through our all school Friday assembly at Flag. Through the lower school assembly. It happens again and again and again. And I think that's one thing that I hear named from a lot of parents as they're having 8th graders being promoted into 9th is telling jokes at flag, knowing how to stand. You talked about this with the CEO. There's Junior kindergartners telling a joke. There's 8th graders telling a joke. They know how to use a microphone, which is a skill, crucial skill that so many humans do not know. They know how to, I guess, perform, how to play to an audience, knowing what jokes work and don't. But just being able to have a microphone. And I think holding space as a school to tell jokes every Friday morning, I think, says so, so much. And I see so many of the things we've talked about in this podcast episode connecting back to that kind of bigger theme.
Yeah. I think a lot of it is just literacy. As a modern human, we have to be able to interact with microphones because we all have to do remote learning, remote meetings. There's no way to be a functional person in the work world where we don't have to interact with cameras and microphones. Now. That's just part of our society. And if we don't teach people how to use them in an appropriate way in their youth, it's just like all other manners and etiquette in society. It will not turn out well if we don't teach kids how to use it.
Yeah, absolutely. Jamie's heading off. She has a class walking by right now. It's from the outdoor stage thank you, Jamie. As she waves goodbye to us.
Hi, Jamie. I just love that we can all sit around here. Bill, this is a little off the subject, but thank you for making this possible. It's helpful to us as educators to be able to talk about our craft together. I love the fact that this podcast is covering all of the arts and design subjects and giving equal time and equal understanding to what we're all trying to do, because it is bigger than our subject. And I think every single one of us feels that it's bigger than our subject. If we look at the imprint that it leaves on the school, it feels really powerful, what we are empowering the kids to achieve.
We have a lot of pride when a teacher comes in and says, oh, man, those choir kids, they're so on top of every and I know I've heard comments like that where they go. Yeah. The choir kids actually pay attention when I ask them, be quiet, like we've taught them something. And these are the skills that they don't apply to just choir. We need to know how to sit quietly. Whether we're sitting in the DMV or jury duty, there's things that everybody just has to be able to do well.
Yeah. And what's coming to mind right now is actually the 9th grade Immersive showcase on that third week of school where we rented out Create TV in downtown San Jose, students were presenting, some in smaller rooms, some in really big space, and hearing again that feedback from community members coming in to see from parents, from board members. And it was just, wow, like, these students know how to be in front of a crowd, how to present. And we talked about that again and again here, and it keeps showing up and it keeps being one of those touchstones, I think, when people talk about what does a Hillbrook student look like? As we talk about big, big picture curriculum, strategic planning, often the idea of the portrait of Hillbrook graduate, what does that look like? And I think we went into some of the details of what that actually looks like and how that shows up in these ways that we tend to point to with a kid one year later, five years later, ten years later as a student.
And it's always the shocking ones, too, right? The ones who are so quiet in class then get up in front of an audience and suddenly come alive, and the teachers go, wow, I had no idea that they had those skills. And that's the beauty of it. When we offer such a vast array of opportunities, we get to see a lot of different skills surface in students that you wouldn't see if you didn't have the vast array well, and that.
Vast array of skills, they're the thing where I think we were just having a conversation about this, that when you're an employer looking to hire somebody, you don't necessarily want somebody who only has one skill, even if they're really good at that one skill. If you can't communicate, but you're an amazing computer programmer, it's very difficult to be a part of a team. And we all know that programming happens in teams. All of these situations are going to need these different skills that are kind of the glue that holds all the different subjects together, of being a good team member, being a communicator, being a leader when you need to be, and being a follower when you need to be, those are not always skills that we all possess. Being able to keep a calendar that is your own calendar, not just one dictated by the rest of the world, all these things come into play. And I am just always, like I said, so happy when members of our ensemble are reported to us from another teacher peer saying, oh, those kids, even though they had to miss class for their rehearsal, they all caught up on all their work. And that's what we want, functional people who are contributing members of society in strong ways.
Well, yeah. And even if you have a discipline to be able to have those other skills, so if you do important science research, that's great and that's important, but you need to have impact. And so being able to communicate it in a way that non scientists can understand and can really internalize and then do something with is so important.
I remember once in a 6th grade class, I had a student that wasn't quite on board with performing arts and he kept sort of like fighting being a part of what we were doing. And then one day I said to the class, if you want to be a philanthropist and a wealthy person that gives money to good causes, you have to be able to stand up in front and sell what it is that you want your money to do. And this is where you learn how to do that. And all of a sudden the kids were like you mean if I want to be a lawyer? You mean if I want to be a CEO? You mean if I want to be a doctor? And I was like yes, we're well rounding here.
I love all of that so much and we have so many examples that we have shouted out. So if you're listening to this and want to know more, check out some of these examples. I think our YouTube channel might actually be the best place to go to see our weekly Friday morning assemblies called Flag because there's a know look at 8th grade promotion and hear those students speak various performances that we've been able to upload to the also, you know, all the social media. I heard the kids call them your name now. I'm going to never say that word again. I'm kidding.
We're at that age now where we don't need to use the lingua but.
On the Instagram, check that out, you'll be able to see all of this stuff show up. So Vanessa, Derek, thank you so much for joining us. I'm waving at Jamie's classroom from afar who had to go run and take her class and thank you all for listening.