Cassandra Ruiz - West Chicago School District 33
“If we can make it through ... to when we can play together in person again and they still love playing their instruments, I will feel accomplished. ”
What prompted you to pursue a career in music education?
In high school, I thought about the things I enjoyed doing and the top of the list was always playing in orchestra at both my high school (Northside College Prep in Chicago) and at Merit School of Music. However, I knew I did not want to go the music performance route. I eventually decided to apply and audition for music education because I liked the idea of working with kids and teaching them to love music as much as I do. I definitely entered college with the mindset of “I’m not sure about this, but we’ll see how it goes.” Luckily, I fell in love with it!
What is the most satisfying part of your job?
Teaching the first two years of string instruction requires a lot of patience, but it is also extremely rewarding to see so much improvement in just a short amount of time. Most of my students start from scratch and are growing into independent musicians by the time they leave me. It’s also satisfying to watch their love of music grow, as well as their teamwork, collaboration skills and critical and independent thinking.
What makes the music program at your school unique?
I work at several schools, but my district as a whole is an amazing place to learn music. Students can join orchestra in 4th grade, band in 5th grade and choir and mariachi in middle school. The orchestra program particularly is thriving and growing every year. Another thing that makes us unique is the collaboration among all of the performing arts teachers. We are all good friends and are there for each other without hesitation. While my main job is teaching 4th and 5th grade, the other orchestra teachers and I often co-teach or fill in for each other across grades. I believe that modeling that kind of collaboration for our students has made a positive impact on our ensembles.
What have been the biggest challenges teaching early strings players remotely?
The biggest challenge I faced when the year started was making my schedule work. When I teach in person, I usually see students for one small-group pull-out lesson per week and one full-group rehearsal per week. For remote learning, we are alternating between private lesson weeks and group lesson weeks. Coordinating all this with the students, families and classroom teachers at six different schools, along with ensuring that the students knew how to get to class, was a huge process and it took several weeks for attendance to be where it is now.
I have also had to adjust a lot of my teaching techniques for remote learning. In person, I play along with the students most of the time, especially in small group or private lessons. Over Zoom, we cannot play at the same time with our mics on. With only one person being able to play at a time unmuted, we switch off between me being unmuted and the student playing along while muted, or the student being unmuted and me playing along while muted.
What have been some of the positives that have come from teaching your students remotely?
One advantage of teaching remotely is that we are able to use more technology for our classes, especially for fun activities. I have used Kahoot and PearDeck to play orchestra-related games with students. In person, the students come from their elementary school to the middle school for orchestra rehearsal, so they do not have access to their Chromebooks and we usually do not have the opportunity to use this kind of learning technology.
The students also have to tune their instruments by themselves much more often and this has improved their tuning skills and their ear training. I have also found myself relying less on written notation and more on call-and-echo rote learning, which has improved their ear training as well. We still use written notation, but the technological limitations have actually led me to use different techniques that have led to improvement in areas outside of note reading.
Another positive of teaching remotely is that I have been able to co-teach the middle school classes and work with all my former students. Since the middle school classes meet every day for 40 minutes, we have been able to take on some fun composition projects using a DAW. It has been awesome to be able to engage with my former students every day and see their progress, talent and creativity.
Overall, I am just impressed with the dedication of these students and families this year. These students went home in March during their first year of playing an instrument and have not yet returned to school. Nevertheless, they are still committed to coming to lessons and continuing instruction on their instrument, even in less-than-ideal circumstances. I have really appreciated their commitment and drive during such a difficult time.
What factors played a role in the decision to not start fourth graders in the strings program this year, as you have done in the past?
A few factors played into this decision, but the issue that is really important to me is equity. If I had decided to teach beginners this year, only the students with good internet connection, the means to rent an instrument and guardians at home to help them would have been able to learn a new instrument successfully. This year more than any other, the divide between students who have the time and means and students who do not have the time and means would be extreme. I was not willing to compromise my principles in this regard, when I know there will be a day that all students will be able to learn in person again. I do not think that I would be supporting the community if I had made the decision to start beginners this year ignoring the very real financial, temporal and emotional struggles that come with a global pandemic.
I do not feel that our program is in jeopardy due to this decision. The orchestra program is the biggest program in our district and we have the full support of the superintendent and the assistant superintendent.
What are your goals for your music program during this current school year?
My main goal this year is just to keep students playing their instruments. I have certain benchmarks that I would like them to reach, of course, but if we can make it through remote learning, through hybrid learning, all the way to when we can play together in person again and they still love playing their instruments, I will feel accomplished.
I still have benchmarks that I plan for the students to reach, but I have to keep in mind that things can and will change regularly and they may not end up in the exact same place as past classes.
What is one of your most memorable musical moments with your students/in your school program?
Talking about a concert for this question may be cliche, but our concert in May of 2019 was my favorite musical moment so far. It was a district-wide orchestra concert of 4th through 8th grade students. My students did a fantastic job with the pieces they prepared, but my favorite part was at the end of the concert when all 250 orchestra students performed Seven Nation Army together. Everyone had a part, from the beginners all the way through the 8th graders. The pure joy and excitement in the students’ eyes, especially the elementary kids, was incredible. They may be a little older now, but they still talk about it to this day!
What advice would you give to someone just starting out in music education?
As a fourth-year teacher, I still feel like I am “just starting out” in music education myself, but I have learned a lot in just my first few years. My advice would be to get to know your students, cultivate a love of music in your students and create both a safe and brave place for your students to learn. I think that teachers, especially teachers straight out of college, get caught up in making sure their ensemble is the “best of the best” and competing with those around them. Have high expectations for your students, but keep in mind they are not going to want to meet those expectations if they do not love what they are doing. I think about this a lot as an elementary director especially, since I want them to continue into middle school and beyond. Students should know that their teacher cares about them and that the classroom is a place where they can take risks and fail over and over again until they succeed.
Cassandra Ruiz teaches beginning and intermediate orchestra in the West Chicago School District. She is also a violinist in the DuPage Symphony Orchestra and the Chiara Quartet