Every year ITE hosts something called Achievement Days. Essential, Achievement Days are an opportunity for our students to perform for other faculty members and receive.

This year the event was held over the course of a week– taking the place of standard lessons. There are three teachers in each room and each students has 10 minutes. Teachers are paid as if it is a standard week. Students have a supercharged lesson experience.

My perspective on Achievement Days is that it is beneficial for students, but it is profoundly healthy for teachers.

The work of teaching can be so isolating and can flow past as in a constant deluge. The sands are always shifting and we feel like we must deal with that constant shifting alone.

Achievement days allows teachers to put a stake in the ground, to see their students from a 10,000 foot perspective, to see their students through their colleagues eyes, and benefit from the comments of those teachers. After the event they can leverage those comments in the lesson.

This reminds me of one of Cal Newport’s concepts, “Writing for editing.”
“In order to get the deliberate practice of skill aquisition in writing you have to be writing for editing. You have to be writing in the context of acceptance and rejections.”

Because the sands are always shifting, it becomes easy to justify every issue that arises with your students. You begin to lose perspective. By watching your student play in front of your colleagues you are letting other teachers see your teaching at face value. At ITE we do very little explanation before, or even after, the student comes in. Occasionally we will mention if the child has recently moved to a larger violin, has an injury, or is struggling with something in particular. This allows a clean take. To be in the context of acceptance or rejection. To get crisp feedback on the work you’ve been doing.

There are other ways to practice this.

Apparently Mr. Beast, the industrious YouTube creator, is in the habit of ‘roasting’ his fellow YouTube creator community. His aim is to provide value and teach other YouTubers through critique, in the hope that they will provide the same challenges and critical feedback to him.

If one can build a resilient, forthright community like this, they will be on a growth curve that few other teachers are on.

One of my favorite types of videos that Elizabeth Faidley releases on her Patreon are simple ones where she talks over a performance from one of her students. She reviews the footage and simply says what she sees. I love this style of video because I get to get in her headspace (understanding what she sees and what her priorities are) but also that we are getting her pure thoughts. Rather than seeing her one point, or her addressing things she actually has time to address, or changing her language for the students, which just hear the whole picture straight from her.

I imagine that creating a video like this could perform some of the 10,000 foot perspective benefits that Achievement Days do for ITE. It is also a super simple format remote teachers can use to give feedback to each other about what they see in a student’s performance. Roasting or otherwise.

Hope our ideas bring you some value.