All-State Chorus. Certainly an honor. Only the elite will make it. Usually about 1 in 5 of those who try out, and the auditionees are only a small percentage of the choral students in the state as well. Students who make all-state are about 1 of 50 over all I'd say. Lots of hard work in preparation for those that make it. And more hard work when they go to Savannah in March for the three day event. It changes them to participate in a good massed choir event though. They meet the best students from around the state and compare themselves. They experience the dynamics of what is possible in choral music. Amazingly about 60 of the 800 or so high schoolers who make it will come from the two high schools in our little city. About the same number will come from Pebblebrook Performing Arts School in Cobb county. There are little pockets of excellence and vast areas of pitiful instruction. It must be that way in every subject area.

If I knew what dynamics created a good teacher, if I could write that down, if I could teach it, I could change the world. Unfortunately when I read books on teaching, they only have gimmicks and platitudes. Good teachers add the gimmicks to their bag of tricks and groan at the platitudes, and bad teachers try to add the gimmicks but their teaching doesn't improve, even with the new rubrics.

I talked with a psychologist years ago (at a football game. We weren't that interested in the game I'm afraid), and he put his finger on the pulse of the problem immediately. He said that leadership is made by two soft skills that basically impossible to teach: judgement and prioritization. These are flying by the seat of the pants skills. Can you feel the wind current and know which way to go? What are the problems? How do you break them down in a logical teachable pattern? What are fun ways to learn problem solving? What should be done next? What should be left for later? I'm starting to get a steady stream of people coming to visit, other conductors, wanting to see what we are doing, but does watching a sailor sail in a certain sea and weather condition teach you to sail back in your own bay? Only a little bit. Knowing what I do is not the thing. Knowing what I'm listening to, and why I do what I'm doing, 1000 decisions an hour, and under what situations I do something, that's the key. Not so much what, as when and why. I don't know how to organize the information to teach it. Yesterday someone asked "What do you do to have 300 students in your choral program." I couldn't answer the question. I don't know.