Smart Board!
So my Smart Board classroom management strategy is working really well! Since it aligns with the strategies that the students are used to in their classrooms the kids picked up on it right away. It was nice for me to be able to collaborate with the classroom teachers, steal a few ideas here and there, and come up with something beneficial for all students. Also, anything that's on a Smart Board is fascinating to them! With the compliment jar on the screen for them to see, it keeps them focused on getting that "prize at the end of the tunnel". I like that way more than the constant sticker giving.
I guess my initial excitement and happiness with technology had to wear off eventually and that happened this week. Our district has half-days this week for parent teacher conferences so I wanted to plan a short but rewarding Halloween-ish lesson. I have the "Sorcerer's Apprentice" clip from "Fantasia" on my flash drive as an mp4. In this lesson, we can discuss the job of a conductor in an orchestra, the way the music tells a story, how music can be inspired by stories and art, etc. I got to the first school I was going to teach this lesson at early to test that I would be able to show the video on a school computer. It played perfectly through Quicktime, so then I made the critical error of assuming that if Quicktime was on one school computer, it would be on all of them. Whompwhomp. It was incredibly frustrating to show up in a kindergarten room, tell them that we'd be watching a video clip and then having that clip not play because this particular computer didn't have Quicktime. Luckily, I lesson planned for a Plan B and had a recording of "In the Hall of the Mountain King" ready. We instead did an activity where the students listened to it, drew what story they thought the music told, and then I shared the actual story. It worked well and accomplished similar SWBATs, but still, it stinks when you have a cool lesson planned but there is a problem.
Teacher's First Sick Day
I don't really get sick. I mean a seasonal allergy here, a sniffle there, but on the whole I'm not a sicky person. This weekend I was really busy and on Saturday night I thought I was just cold from being out all night, but ended up having the chills from a fever. I was still feverish on Sunday so my mom wouldn't let me go to school; she has a one day fever free before going back to school rule. That was awesome when I was a kid, but I felt so bad not going to school on Monday. I mean I teach a half-day every day from noon-3:15 which would make me fine to teach with some acetaminophen..but my mom said I shouldn't risk getting the kids sick which is valid...although I blame them for the random fever! Anyway, it was weird worrying about if the sub showed up, if they went to the right school, the right room, if the kids were behaving, if the plans made sense, yaddayaddayadda. But then I started watching a Frasier marathon and took a nap and it was fine.
Control and Scheduling
I've probably mentioned this before but I like to make lists, be organized, and in general be in control of my situations to the best of my abilities. I compulsively check my schedule to make sure I'm in the right building at the right time even though I have my schedule memorized. This week of half-days for the students made for some interesting scheduling conundrums. Every building has different schedules - one of my schools has 40 minute specials and the other three have half hour specials. It was difficult not knowing until a few days beforehand what my schedule would be. One thing I've had to do my best at is remembering to not sweat the small stuff. Okay, so I might not have been 100% sure about which rooms I was teaching in or if my schedule worked quite right, but the important thing was to just go with the flow. It is pretty much opposite of what my normal organized self would have wanted, but in a school setting it's hard to be really in control of anything. I have 4 building principals who made the schedules who gave them to my supervisor and above him there are even more decision-makers. The nice thing about not being in control, however, is it doesn't put a ton of pressure on me as a teacher to do much besides teach.
Life.
We started our wedding registry, I got two credit cards, I'm going shopping for a wedding dress soon, we booked the photographer, and are getting engagement pictures taken sometime next week after this tropical storm passes!
The title of today's post comes from a RX Bandits song. The real lyrics are "Analog boy in a digital world" but I'm not a boy...so sorry Bandits for taking artistic liberty.
smart boards
I teach in a well-funded district that is lucky enough to have Smart Boards in almost every (if not all) classrooms. Some rooms have Promethean Boards, but regardless, every room in which I teach has a Smart Board. My wonderful alma mater JUST got Smart Boards and students there are now learning how to use them. A lot of good that does me now, amIright?! Most of the other teachers in the district have embraced their Smart Boards and do super cool stuff with them. This is where the title of this blog comes in - I felt kind of out of the loop technology wise, which is weird because as a "digital native" this should be second nature to me. Luckily I attended one session at New York's music teacher convention where the presenter showed a lot of really cool activities to promote note reading, recognition of musical symbols, and even how to do a full-class dictation using this fun bit of technology. I remembered key phrases (because I have a memory that likes to retain useless tidbits like what I did at my kindergarten placement test) such as the "move to back" function, how to lock things in place, and that there is a way to make an endlessly replicating object (which is called infinite cloning). Those few things plus the fact that the Smart Board interface is very user friendly made it possible for me to make a classroom management tool on the Smart Board. I'll post a picture of it in my next blog. I was, as my colleagues can attest, a little too excited about what I made considering it's not fancy, but I hope it does the trick.
It was important to me to tailor my classroom management to align with what my students have in their classrooms. There isn't much of a difference between what the kindergarten and first grade teachers do in their rooms which was great for me. Almost all of the teachers have some sort of system where the students get downgraded on a chart - such as moving from the green section of the chart to the yellow if they are on a first warning. I decided to adopt this idea into my Smart management thing. Fundamentally, I have an issue with the growing trend that we positively reinforce everything that a child does: "Great job, Jimmy! Thanks for blowing your nose in a tissue and not into Jane's hair! Here's a sticker." I'm sorry, but I don't think that kids should get in the habit of expecting a reward for everything he/she does. Rewarding good behavior for a full class period is great because especially with the little ones to teach them that they need to sit and listen. But, when I have a kid come up to me and say - and this has happened - "I just helped John tie his shoe! Can I have a sticker now?", well that's where I draw the line. Helping someone tie a shoe is something that a nice human does. While it is a wonderful thing to show kindness, kids shouldn't expect a reward each time they do anything. So, that's why I don't have a prize box (also because I'm not lugging a box of chotchkies between 4 schools) and instead have a compliment jar on my Smart Board. I used the infinite clone feature to make a star that can be moved from the treasure box into the jar. It works similarly to House Points in Harry Potter - if a student earns a compliment from me, like "Jenny, thank you so much for sitting with good posture during class today and singing more confidently than ever before", Jenny gets to add a compliment star to the compliment jar. Or, if the whole class is improving their steady beat keeping, I can compliment them as a whole and add a compliment star on behalf of all of the students. When the class reaches the magic number (TBD) of compliments, they get a round of a game (probably Freeze Dance, because who doesn't love that?!) Like I said, I haven't implemented this yet, but I have explained that it will be happening to the kids and they seem down with it.
r-e-s-p-e-c-t
Your welcome for giving you an excuse to belt some Aretha Franklin.
As basic as this might sound, respect is something that we as teachers have to be cognizant of. Teachers are usually pretty decent at being respectful and empathetic toward each other but we all, myself definitely included, need to remember that we have to respect our students and remember that they are still growing and learning. When a kindergartener is being a pain, it's easy to think "what's wrong with this kid?!" (I know I do that about 10 times every class) but this student may have a rough time at home or something. I have been constantly reminding myself that we need to respect our students and keep in mind that we need to guide them in the right direction. Especially with the little ones, treating them kindly even when they're being irrational and "annoying" sets a good example that they should do the same when encountered with a similar situation.
Just think - with every student you encounter you're looking into the face of a person who is just learning what it is to be a person, to be in school, to be a kindergartener, or even to be an 11th grader. I hope that when people look at me, they respect my situation and realize that they're looking into the face of a girl who is still trying to figure out this adult world, and who has no more of an idea of what it means to be an adult than a 5 year old knows what it means to be a kindergartener. We're all just passengers on this crazy ride called life and every single soul, young or old, is trying to discover themselves.
Think about it next time you want to snap at a kid. I know I will.
long time no blog
I've been trying to think of what profound pieces of information to impart upon the world of the interwebs over the last two-ish weeks. All I keep thinking is that I am just pushing forward and that I haven't really had time to process what is important to take note of. Despite this, I'm going to put some of my thoughts down on paper laptop.
opinions of the faculty room
I'm sure we all, as current/potential music educators have heard to stay away from the faculty room! All those teachers do is complain about their kids, about administration, it's crowded, you don't know anyone, yadda yadda yadda. During student teaching, I never set foot in the faculty room (mostly because we ate pie during lunch in the middle school band room and I'm not one to miss out on a baked good) but I did when I substitute taught during semester breaks. That was a little bit of a different experience because almost everyone in the faculty room was a parent of a friend or was my teacher when I was in school, so it was more of a "How are you?!" type situation than a listening to complaining situation. I don't have a classroom or space to call my own in any of my four schools and since I travel so often and that means I spend a lot of my prep times in the faculty room. I have found that it is very important for me to have face time in the faculty room because no one really knows me anywhere. I think that for any new teacher, especially music teachers who touch so many students, it is important for you to get a sense of the school community, chat with other teachers, and let them know that you exist when you're in the faculty room. Yes, sometimes I do overhear a lot of jibberjabbercomplaincomplain, but also sometimes there are cookies and bread with spinach artichoke dip. You take the bad with the good.
observation
I was observed for the first time. It was fine. Real people observations are different than student teaching observations. When we got observed for student teaching during undergrad, we got instant feedback; our junior year student teaching supervisors gave us written sheets along with the discussions we had in the car on the way to/from the school and senior year, our supervisors met with us as soon as we were done teaching to give feedback. With this observation of a kindergarten class, my supervisor left as soon as I was done teaching and that was it! I know that I will have a post-observation meeting with him, but hey, I think it went well!
based on our old data...
Okay, that was a very brainy heading. I'll explain. When my two research buddies and I coded our data from our junior student teaching, one thing we discovered was that at one point or another we all felt like we had no idea what we were doing. To some extent, I still feel like I don't know what I'm doing. The one thing that I have to keep reminding myself of is that my kindergarteners and first graders have never had music in the public schools before, so sticking with the basics for a while is just fine for them...and me! Some of the other teachers in my district are very well versed in Kodály and that's how they work their lesson plans. I, on the other hand, had an overview of different methods that included Kodály but that wasn't the main focus. I'm very happy that I've had a big overview of methods because it's helped my bag of tricks, but I still feel a little like my skill set isn't up to par. One other thing that has made me feel a little like I don't know what I'm doing is the fact that there are a lot of general music teachers in the 8 district elementary schools, but we aren't covering concepts at the same times. For example, I've already started with rhythm sticks, jingle bells, and tambourines with all of my students but other teachers save that for later. I talked to my mentor teacher about this and she said to just try it and if it fails, then I know for next time. It's nice to hear that there is some leniency and that me wanting to try things is okay. I like that I still feel a little like student teaching, that I can learn about what works as I go and I don't need all the answers.
My dad once told me that he feels like he shouldn't have gotten paid for his first few years of teaching because he didn't know what he was doing. I thought he was joking, but now I know it's not an exaggeration because I feel the same way! For some reason, I thought that having a job would mean that I felt super confident about everything I was doing - like a job gave me this treasure chest of knowledge that I was unaware of until then. Nope.
last but certainly not least, lesson planning
Writing plans for general music is way different than lesson planning for beginning band lessons or high school band. I can very easily open up Essential Elements 2000, turn to the next page, know what will be difficult, and say SWBAT within two seconds, or even open up a score and know what passages you'll have to work. While the general music teacher editions are full of tons of information and well laid out ideas to teach the kiddies, I don't want to do everything in the same order as the textbook editors want to. I mean, yeah, we all start with steady beat and high and low, but I've been taking time to get songs from different kindergarten and first grade books across publishers. It also takes a lot of time to tailor the lessons to the short attention span of 5-7 year olds. The lessons are so full of different activities that it inherently takes longer. In any lesson planning situation, it behooves you to plan extra just in case but with the little ones, it's especially true. I'm starting to get more in the flow as get to I know my students, their interests and abilities, but lesson planning for general music is a different beast.
Now it's time for one more small tidbit of information. If you don't have time to work out in the morning before school, do an activity with your students that incorporates a workout. For example, the song "I'm Tall, I'm Small", I had students squat down when they sing about being small and then jump up when they're tall. After doing that approximately 50 times on Monday and 50 times on Tuesday, my legs were KILLING me yesterday. Win.
