Student Assessment Questionnaire

sidebar to Artists and Teachers Partner for School Reform
This story appeared in High Performance #71, Spring 1996.

Student response is an important part of assessment in all of Celeste Miller's projects, and an integral component of daily life at O'Maley. Below are Miller's questions to the Seventh Grade following Phil Aaberg's portion of "Take a Flying Leap." The Seventh Grade's Essential Question for the year: How is conflict resolved?

Why do you think Phil Aaberg was chosen to work with your class?

• ...because we are more mature than Sixth Graders
• ...because they drew numbers.
• ...because the school board likes him.
• ...because he's a funny, crazy dude.
• He can relate to being a kid. He's fun, and not boring.
• I have no idea why the school picked him. I think it was a waste of the school's money.

Can you think of any way to connect what you did with Phil into what you work on in your classes?

• I don't see how a guy with a piano can make an impression on conflict.
• We have to be an artist in class also.
• His work is kinda like a peace plan, but only with music. That's like Bosnia, in a way.

In what way did what you did with Phil change the way you think about music?

• Well, I never thought of people burping or toilets flushing as music. I used to think that the only hint of music was guitar, bass guitar, drums and lead vocalist.
• Now I think of music as everything around me. I enjoy honking horns and people talking.
• I see music as life now.
• I learned that once you learn how to play the piano, you can play the keyboard.

What challenges did you face during the residency?

• I don't face challenges.
• Having a whole bunch of kids work together as a team.

What did you learn about yourself?

• There's music other than Nirvana.
• If I listen to all the things I say and do, I can make great music.
• That I don't hate half the music around the world.

Of all the things you did with Phil, what was the most interesting?

• When I saw the keyboard with the built-in computer and disk drive.

If more visiting artists (dancers, actors, painters, writers, musicians...) were to come to you school, what kind of experiences would you like?

• I'd like to do a thing where you have to act out what their jobs are like.
• I would like TLC to come to this school. I would like to date them.
• I would like to learn stuff from them, but they should be able to learn stuff from us.

—Linda Frye Burnham

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Original CAN/API publication: December 1999