Mistakes and Other Updates

I know I said that I wanted to keep this blog positive because it's so hard to see past what we perceive as "bad" things in our lives, but I've been saving up these things to post.  Below is my list of mistakes I made so I won't do it again and neither will you!


Make sure you check all of your school-owned instruments before letting kids play them. 

I feel dumb even typing this for public consumption.  I stupidly assumed that instruments were left in working order in the summer before I was hired.  False.  I found a bari sax mouthpiece that looked like this...

I also found a baritone whose valves were so stuck that no amount of my work could get them loose and a different bari sax that was missing a spring and a key guard on the low C key.  

Don't assume that your students know anything in your first year.

...especially the older they are when you start.  I know that the elementary band director who has them for two years before they come to the middle school teaches them appropriate terminology but a lot of 8th graders claim that they have never heard of dynamics, articulation, or the difference between B-flat and B-natural.  If I had a nickle for every time I had either of these two conversations in a band lesson - "What do we call louds and softs in music?" silence... "It rhymes with sch-my-namics?" silence... Or "What note does the E-flat scale start on?" with the response "E?", I would have a lot of nickles.  I just have to keep the faith that the 6th graders who will have me for three years will be brilliant!

Remember that the winter concert comes way too soon, especially due to how many days school is not in session in November.

I thought that December was so far away and that as long as I picked easy-ish music we could do 3 pieces for both the 6th Grade Band and 7th & 8th Grade Band. False.  Each band is doing 2 pieces and I'm on edge that it's not going to sound like anything but a hot mess.  I even had to cut out the B section from one of the 6th Grade Band pieces which makes me sad but was a necessary move.  In my district and many in NJ, the kids get off an entire week in the beginning of November - 2 days for the NJ Educators Association convention, in-services for 2 days, and that Wednesday is off as well because it would be dumb to have one day of school.  We also had 4 half days that make our normal 15 minutes of rehearsal time cut down to approximately 2 (aka I attempt to have the kids come early but they all forget and less than half the band is there).  Then there's Thanksgiving and Black Friday...then December 11th happens.  In comparison, the spring concert will be a breeze in terms of prep time.  Also in my defense, I didn't know the kids and that plus the above assumptions put us behind the 8-ball.

So those are my three big oopsies thus far.  In other world news, my musical went really well! There are many things that I will do differently next year, but for my first time doing a musical (I'm totally not counting the 3-5th grade musical I did last year because there were no scene changes, no blocking, and the dances were confined to stepping in place and moving arms) it went well.  My choreography was surprisingly not bad, the staging worked, and the kids had good diction and sang at a healthy volume.  I'm already looking forward to next year and so are the kids, so that's a sign I did something right! For now, I will enjoy being home at a reasonable hour and not being stressed constantly...that is to say I won't be stressed unless I think about my concert. : )

To close, I want to repost a status I wrote about 2 weeks ago.  

I remember junior year when I thought I was on the struggle bus during student teaching. Then senior year was super stressful and my first year of teaching was so busy and I felt unprepared for life. Comparatively those things seem like nothing to how busy and stressed I have been this year. But through everything, I've survived! It puts things in perspective when you think back on what (at the time) were the "hardest" moments of your life and see that now you're doing way more and kicking butt doing it. Exhausted but grateful.

Stress Management

I've always thought of myself as an organized person who can handle stressful and hectic times through the powers of organization.  However in this, my first full year of full-time teaching, I've been having a lot more issues with stress than ever before.   I have so much to do and I feel like no matter how much I get done in one day, there's always more - always another lesson plan to type, always another chair to move, always another scene to block, always a score to study, always grades to input, always another lesson to teach.  In college as a music major, I took pride in the fact that I could run my life ahead of schedule based around my concert and rehearsal obligations.  For some reason I thought I would be prepared for everything that goes along with being the only music teacher in a school and blocking/choreographing/teaching the music for a musical that goes up in November, but alas, that has not been the case no matter how many to-do lists I make.

Last Friday, I literally felt sick during school.  I was cold, I had a headache, and I felt nauseous all day (thank goodness it was sweatshirt/sweatpant day).  I couldn't figure out why, and my occasionally-wise husband said it might have been stress related.  We were supposed to have some close friends over that night and after working choreography at musical rehearsal, I felt no better than I did all day.  As soon as my sister-in-law came over, followed shortly by the rest of our little gathering, I started to feel better.  I knew in the back of my mind that I should be writing plans, choreographing, doing anything but sitting, talking, and eating pizza. I try to relax on the weekends but what usually happens is I kill a whole day with relaxation then get stressed the next day with getting in two days of work into one.  After my Friday night party, I went into the city on Saturday but got my work done in the early afternoon and a little more when I got home.  That mix of work and play didn't make me feel stressed!  The trouble is that it's so hard to rationalize "me time" when the pile of work is over your head.  As I've mentioned before, in college I lived with 5 of my best friends and there was always someone to talk to.  Maybe I was distracted and not quite efficient when writing plans and papers in front of Jeopardy and The Simpsons every night while chatting about nothing with my roomies, but it was that perfect mix of relaxation and work.  

So what else was it that made my college stress so different than this real world stress? My now-two-times-wise husband asked me how I used to blow off steam in college and I said practicing and hanging out with friends.  I took 20 minutes during my precious prep time on Monday to practice in my office and I felt much better for the rest of the day! I started thinking about what made me de-stress last year (not necessarily in college) when I wasn't as frazzled and consistent gym time was a huge part of my life.  I haven't made time for myself to practice, let alone work out for more than maybe a mile run here or there, so I re-joined the gym.  It's great to sit on a stationary bike and let the mind wander.  Again, it is always hard for me to turn off the "I could totally be grading general music projects right now!" alerts in my brain but focusing on my breathing and reading the closed captions on the TV for that half hour is amazing.  

I really hate not feeling in control of aspects of my life. As much as I've always wanted a job where it's me doing band, chorus, general music, and the musical after school and a private studio, having all the control in that sense isn't all it's cracked up to be. I thought that after 2 months, I'd have my act together but I've been swimming up stream all year.  It's really only going to get easier after Thanksgiving but until then, I have to keep finding little moments of "me time" whether it be mindlessly riding a bike at the gym or focusing on an etude.  Even finding time to do a post like this is hard but therapeutic.  

My work will get done and it will be fine...repeat until Thanksgiving. 

My Many Hats

Howdy! Sorry - I'm watching The Voice and a country singer just performed. So things have been crazy since day one! I'm working on the musical (Wizard of Oz, Young Performers' Edition) and band and chorus rehearsals started this week.  I'm excited to be out of the logistics phase and into the actually doing phase.  Speaking of logistics, I'm so very thankful for my parents being music teachers because they were able to help me with my rotating lesson schedule.  As I consistently ask my parents and colleagues for advice and help, I'm always thinking back to what my dad told me once - that he probably shouldn't have been paid for his first year of teaching (okay make that first year of full-time, permanent job teaching). I feel like I'm depending on others a lot, but when it really comes down to it, I am the one doing the teaching.  All the good advice in the world might not make an okay teacher a great teacher so it really is up to me, but it's hard to feel like I know what's going on when...well when I don't.  I had my first informal observation yesterday and the post-observation meeting today.  My supervisor only had 2 main critiques for me and neither had to do with my content and rapport so I'm happy! I guess I'm doing okay, but I'll keep worrying anyway. : )

I've been thinking about the roles that a music teacher plays in a school and in my school, I'm the music teacher.  I wear many hats just like the President does (which I learned in 8th grade history). 

I've been working as a salesman trying to sell kids on staying in band which is difficult in middle school for a bunch of reasons.  Based on what my kids have been telling me, issues rise from the fact that they have their first opportunity to do sports, they feel more academic pressure, and they have more freedom to make their own decision (in cases where their parents were encouraging/forcing them to be in band).  Luckily, almost all of the 6th graders have decided to continue so I'll have a core group of kids that will be "mine" for three years.  

As for chorus, I have a lot of recruiting to do; chorus doesn't always have the same loyalty year to year as a band does, so I have to make sure that I am that thing that kids want to come back to year after year.  I've been going into the lunch periods and talking to the kids every few days.  My numbers from the interest meeting for chorus were small but the kids were all excited.  I'm trying a recruiting strategy that I'll report back on next week.  Rather than having a sign up day and capping the roster at whoever came on that one day, I decided to use those interested students as salesmen (peer pressure FTW). At the interest meeting and pitched how chorus would feature a pop song each concert. I announced that the 6th graders are doing "Count on Me" by Bruno Mars and the 7th and 8th graders are doing "Firework" by Katy Perry which went over really well.  We discussed how even though our rehearsals are short (only about 15 minutes once they all come down to the room) we'll be able to have a big reward with the small time commitment. A big selling point is that I have band and chorus rehearsals during the 20 minute homeroom once a week which allows my sports kids and students with PM commitments outside of school to not be conflicted. From my point of view, it's not a selling point but a drawback to have that little time, but to the kids it's great.  So after I hyped up the program, I asked the students that were there to talk about chorus to their friends and classmates. The deal is that the first rehearsal is open to anyone who wants to come. After 10 minutes working with me and playing singing games, I'll ask the students to decide to sign up or not. Not every kid might be sold on doing chorus especially if they were strong-armed into doing it by a friend, but I'm hedging my bet that they'll have fun with me and want to see me again. Cocky? Maybe. But I think I'm fun so hopefully kids who are on the fence about chorus will think so too and stick around! I'm also going to let kids sign up after the Christmas concert once they have a chance to hear the chorus in action. 

We'll see if I'm any good at selling my program and revving up passion for music! As I said, I'll report back about my end chorus numbers, but for now cross your fingers for me!

Adapting the Learnings from Year One: Assessing My Knowledge

One of my college roommates wrote a lot of academic papers during undergrad and grad school and it seemed like his profound and insightful writing always had a title with a colon in it.  I figured it might add credibility to my blog if I tried it too.

anyway...

My district has a comprehensive induction (new teacher) program that takes us through our first 4 years in the district - aka until we get tenure.  We attend monthly meetings about best practices, technology, the new evaluation model, etc.  The program started with 2 days of meetings for the 25 newly hired teachers - a lot for a little district! During these meetings, I went between feeling lucky that I knew a lot of the information already and feeling lost and overwhelmed.  I've been reflecting on that as I prepare for the students to come to school tomorrow and I think it's revealed interesting things worth sharing.  Hopefully you, my loyal readers, can get something from this post as well.  

While we were hearing an overview of the new observation and evaluation model (which hasn't been used in the district yet so the administrators have questions about it too), I felt like I had a pretty good grasp on it and wasn't stressed out like some of my colleagues.  Maybe it's because I already heard all of the freaking out in my last district? But when it was time to discuss curriculum, that's when my anxiety started to come into play.  I have no set curriculum for any of my classes which is definitely a blessing and a curse.  Blessing - I get to pick what I do every step of the way in my general music class and in ensembles.  Curse - I have to figure out everything for my general music class soon! This mixture of questioning and confidence (actually "Questioning and Confidence" would have made a good blog title...) kind of makes me feel good.  As a musician, I am inherently critical of myself because I've had to be for my entire musical life - always pushing myself to be better.  That striving for excellence can sometimes make me feel like I'm not succeeding as a teacher/performer...but that feeling lets me know in my heart that I am working and I do care, regardless of how my head perceives it.  When you worry about something it shows you care, so always worry about teaching.

In my first year I learned practical things, like how to use Genesis (an online database where we submit grades, attendance, and starting in January will also host our lesson plans), but I still need to work on figuring out grading schemes.  Being that I don't know exactly what my general music class will look like until I do a start of year assessment with the kids, I can't tell what the grading breakdown will be.  Grading is something that is always challenging, from what I'm gathering.  There are always rubrics to be written (which I actually think is fun) and always new methods of assessment to try out that will shape how grading is done and calculated. I only had to figure out a couple of my own assignments in my last position, but that was basically deciding what category of the already-in-place grading scheme to put them.  So I guess nothing in undergrad can really fully prepare you for the first year of having to hash that all out yourself from stratch.  

And now I will shortly sum up some of the other things I learned versus what still has a floating question mark above my head.

:) - confidence with kids

:/ - confindence when presenting and defending my pullout lesson schedule (more on this later, as it will be a pervasive issue in my first month)

:) - confidence planning

:/ - what am I teaching them?!

:) - picking pieces for band

:/ - picking pieces for a band I know nothing about

:) - teaching chorus

:/ - the changing male voice!!

:) - I know I have resources in my parents, friends, and colleagues

:/ - There's nothing that will make me question that fact - I just have to swallow my pride and not be afraid to ask!

I've been "inside my head" about these things so much lately that I'm excited to jump in with kids.  Soon I won't be able to stress about finding out what the kids know and I'll get into the real nitty gritty planning stages.  I'm excited to meet my students and work on a relationship with the staff because I'm not sure I got off on a good foot with my colleagues today. Let me just say as a cautionary phrase to anyone in any job - be cognizant of being "that guy" who is super resistant to change. In schools, we collaborate for greater student learning and with collaboration comes compromise.  Keep your mind open when someone pitches an idea and remember that not every new thing is scary, not every new thing is permanent, and not every new thing is going to mess up your good old thing. 

Here's to a new school year with new students and new problems (but good problems!) Keep on worrying, teacher friends.  

First Date...

with my room!

Today I went in to the district offices to learn about the employee handbook, health benefit options, sign my temporary contract (till I get board approved in 2 weeks), blahblahblah. I was chatting with the other newly hired teachers and they were all talking about how happy they were to be able to get into their rooms to unload their homes of school things.  One of the teachers who is working at my school asked if I had been to the school or able to get into my room yet.  I said no, but I was so excited to even have a room, which confused my new colleagues because they didn't realize how much of a treat it is for a music teacher to have their own space.

After that meeting and grabbing a slice of pizza I went over to my school and got into my room! It's a beaut, if I do say so myself. I have an office with windows that look into the room, there's a practice room that is currently used as a storage room, a sink, an instrument storage room with lockers, a door to the outside world, and the usual chairs, stands, cabinets, bookshelves. There were so many drawers and cabinets to go through that I spent about a half an hour just looking opening and closing things and looking in folders and binders.  It was like Christmas! One thing that was peculiar was the lack of school flutes, clarinets, alto saxes, and trumpets.  I'll have to ask for loaners from the rental stores so I have extras to demo with and for when (not if) a student's instrument breaks. I also wish there was an overhead projector so I could show things on the screen from my computer, but I'll ask for that later. Everything else was well organized but I'm excited to have time to put things where I want them. It'll be fun to organize my own space! Yay!

I had a productive day by meeting with the teacher I'll be working with for the musical. Thank heavens for this woman! She's going to take care of all the fundraising, logistics, paperwork, stage crew, lighting, sets, costumes - literally everything except the music, blocking, and dancing.  She's been doing this part of the production for 6 years and can "do it asleep and with my eyes closed".  I also met with the elementary band director. We looked through what was left by the last teacher and discussed pretty much everything I had questions about...which was pretty much everything. Now I'm really excited to get cracking with reading and playing through the show materials, putting together my syllabus for the general music class, compiling my lists of band and chorus students, and signing my name 500 times on those forms I got today.  Exciteddddd!

PS: I'm noticing that in my tags, I never used positive things. I have "frustration," "difficult students"...all negative things.  I will now tag good things as "happy". :)

A New Chapter

Hello again, world!

Much has happened since my last post. I'm now a Mrs. (still getting used to that!) and more pertinent to this blog, yesterday morning I accepted a full-time non-maternity leave job!! I just got an email about signing paperwork on Wednesday and coming in for the new teacher meetings at the end of August so I'm not afraid about jinxing it as much as I was yesterday. 

So a little about the job. It's at the middle school in the district where I went to high school. I never attended this middle school because my hometown has a Pre-K - 8 school district then we get bussed to this district for high school. Anyway, I will be teaching the 6th grade general music cycle during which I will get to teach every 6th grader for one marking period (quarter) and be the 6-8th grade band and chorus teacher.  I'm also directing the school musical that goes up in the end of November (aka super soon in terms of production/rehearsal time).  

I have always had my eye on this position and used to describe it to people when they asked about what my "perfect job" situation would be because of the blend of band and vocal music. The 6th grade general music component is awesome and I'm excited to be able to reach all of those students. Another cool thing about the band part of this  my job is that I get to work with my high school band director and the elementary band director who I knew from high school pep band and from playing shows/gigs with him.  I have so much respect for the work that the two of them do and I'm honored to be able to be a part of the system. Now time to make lesson groups, schedule band and those lessons, plan rep for all ensembles, pick a musical, and much much much more. 

Just on a side note, I believe that everthing happens for a reason but it was so bleeping hard to do that when I was taking interviews and hearing nothing. But given what you just read above about my history with and passion for this position, I think it's pretty hard to not think that in some way, shape, or form I was supposed to end up in this job at some point. Thank God I have a job - especially this one!

End.

Hello from the same place where I was when I started this blog - the lovely world of unemployment. Well, that was a moderately pessimistic way to start this post. Anyway here's the scoop. 

Monday was the last day with the kids.  I went to school for just a few hours on Tuesday to sign out and then I went back to my old home school (from when I was doing the part-time gig) to return a book and say hi to my old friends. After student teaching was over, I was really emotional - maybe because it was the end of my first time really teaching in a school and maybe because I had just conducted my first concert which made me realize that teaching was what I was meant to do and I was good at it... Regardless, I knew that there was a chance I'd be emotional on Monday saying bye to the kids but I really wasn't; I was more sad about leaving the colleagues I had grown so close to and about the fact that I don't know where I'm teaching next year. 

I have a few leads about what jobs will be open in the future but only have 1 active application out at the moment. I've had 3 interviews so far and from what I've heard, most districts won't start interviewing again until the middle/end of July. Guess what else is happening in the middle/end of July? My wedding and honeymoon! Sigh/yay. I've had to put in the final paragraph of my cover letter that I'm unavailable for contact between July 20 and 29th and I really hope that it doesn't deter employers from calling me. If not, maybe I can sue for discrimination? I'll work on it. 

I guess I should have some kind of summary of how I felt this year of teaching and what I've learned. Well I already did that kind of thing for my general music gig and I feel like I've already been keeping up with what I've learned in the band gig, but here goes. Alls I really knows is I'm a good teacher and I want nothing else in the world than to teach. I also stand by the fact that if you have good rapport with the kids and stay true to your personality at any age level they will work with you.  Being real with kids helps them achieve more so why not be yourself? Yeah I guess those are my nuggets of wisdom from junior high band. 

Here's hoping I'll report back soon with a job.