{"id":2759,"date":"2019-01-21T09:43:36","date_gmt":"2019-01-21T14:43:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.musictravel.com\/blog\/?p=2759"},"modified":"2019-01-23T08:53:37","modified_gmt":"2019-01-23T13:53:37","slug":"achieving-good-vibrations-with-josh-ellis-a-method-book-with-results","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.musictravel.com\/blog\/2019\/01\/21\/achieving-good-vibrations-with-josh-ellis-a-method-book-with-results\/","title":{"rendered":"Achieving Good Vibrations with Josh Ellis"},"content":{"rendered":"

Josh Ellis has been an educator for 15 years. He has taught all grades, K-12, in various Music, Humanities and Language Arts environments. A requested judge and clinician throughout the Midwest, Mr. Ellis is currently band director at Avon Intermediate School East, a feeder to the storied Avon High School band program in Avon, IN. Josh Ellis’s students regularly receive “Gold, with Distinction” ratings at Indiana State School Music Association (ISSMA) contests, and he was 2013 Teacher of the Year at Avon East.<\/p>\n

Achieving Good Vibrations with a Challenging Set-up.<\/p>\n

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Picture this – you arrive at a new job as a feeder to one of the most highly recognized and successful programs in the country.\u00a0It’s\u00a0Avon School Corporation in Avon, IN, and you are met with a less than ideal set up: \u201cHeterogeneous Band Classes that meet for 30 minutes every day.\u201d<\/p>\n

Then, the economic downturn hits education and it becomes: \u201cHeterogeneous Band Classes that meet 45 minutes every-other-day.\u201d<\/p>\n

This was a reality for Josh Ellis eight years ago and it happened with a beginning 6th-grade band of over 200 kids. Additionally, the job required that he teach all the 5th graders, another 375 kids, in a \u201cgeneral music\u201d class. These challenges are becoming more common every year, with each new music teacher\u2019s mantra becoming, \u201cDO MORE\u2026BUT WITH MUCH LESS!\u201d<\/p>\n

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It sounds more inspiring in Latin: \u201cMagis autem et minus fac\u201d (scream it from the mountaintops with 30-year-old instruments waving above your head, and you\u2019ve got it!)<\/p>\n

More often than not, most music teachers are facing this daily reality. Which begs the question, \u201cHow do we do more with less?\u201d<\/p>\n

The easy answer is to give more of yourself and after school\/personal time to your students to fill in the blanks. The problem with this is easy to spot: Burnout and personal lives that suffer. The hard answer is to look for a new way. For Mr. Ellis, this new way has come in the form of a new way of approaching beginning band.<\/p>\n

Nearly every beginning band tends to base their curriculum out of a method book. These methods allow for little flexibility for the teacher or students, and in general, they do not fit the pacing that each teacher\u2019s instruction demands. Having worked out of five major method books, Josh found himself fed up. With 200 beginners for one teacher and an every-other-day heterogeneous environment, \u2018How can I make that work to suit every students\u2019 needs?\u2019, he thought.<\/p>\n

To answer that question, he separated ideas of what students need and what teachers need. Students need development in the basic areas of music:<\/p>\n