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. 

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.

"Ms. Teacher-lady?" Who? Me?

Tomorrow I have my first concert! It's the district's Night of Jazz.  The jazz band from the 6th and 7th grade school, my jazz band, the auditioned jazz band from my school, and the high school jazz band will all play before a college band plays.  I really should have said "my" jazz band; I saw them twice and pretty much just polished what was already taught.  It's going to be a great night for the kids 6-12 to see not only their peers play, but to see a highly advanced band.  The only downside is that I haven't been able to rehearse with my kids since before spring break...so here's hoping the sound check doesn't spell disaster!

Okay, so now to explain the title of this post. It's been great having my own band classes and not really having to answer to anyone.  I have two veteran teachers that I share the room with so when I have questions, the answers are easily within reach.  Maybe that's why I never feel like I'm clueless like I did when I was doing general music. I love having preps, an office with a desk, a computer that I'm always logged in on.  I feel great.  Somehow, though, all these thinsg don't make me feel like I'm a grown-up.  Yeah, I have authority in the school to call kids out in the hallway when I'm on duty or to discipline kids in my class.  Yes, I'm getting paid to do what I have worked pretty much my whole life to accomplish. But it was a funny moment when my dad told me he'd be coming to my school to visit.  

My dad is the acting supervisor of fine arts in a school district now (he's supposed to be retired!). The high school in his district is creating a band room out of what used to be a big storage room, so my dad and the high school band director are going to visit band rooms that would serve as a good model when they design the space.  The instrumental music room at my school used to be the cafeteria (the lunch service windows are still on one wall to prove it).  Since it's a re-purposed space like what they'll have in my dad's district, he'll be coming to look at it tomorrow. Last night, my dad told me about when he'd be visiting and I said that he should email the other band director and tell him.  My dad goes "Why do I have to email someone else? You're the teacher!" 

Woah.

Yeah, I am the teacher.  I already said I do understand that.  But somehow those things didn't equal me being able to make a decision like approving a visitor to come scope out the room. I guess this whole being an adult thing is an on-going identity growth issue.  

The Score After 2 Innings

I'm a little excited for baseball season - can ya tell?!

So I survived the first 2 days at the new job! I love it! Doing rehearsals, small group lessons, lesson plans, etc. has been so intuitive for me.  Being up on the podium (or down off the podium which I did a lot of today) is so easy and planning time has greatly decreased because this is my comfort zone.  I love having an office all to myself. I don't have to go outside the building all day. People know who I am. It's like a whole new world! I also really like how the instrumental music department is set up in this school. The old cafeteria was turned into the band room (we still have the lunch windows behind cabinets to prove it!) so it's large enough for part of the room to be set up for the orchestra and half for the band day.  There are two overhead projectors, 2 computers, 2 whiteboards. The schedule is such that the orchestra has rehearsals when the two band directors are either on prep or have pullout lessons, which occur in the spacious (not being sarcastic, it's huge) instrument storage room. It's nice to always have kids in the room; there are only 20 minutes in the entire day when none of the 3 teachers are scheduled for anything. While the 9th grade band director teaches his band classes, I pull out his brass and percussion kids from rehearsal to do group lessons/percussion ensemble. He teaches his woodwinds by taking them out of their other classes.  The opposite is true for the 8th graders - he takes my woodwinds and percussion and I pull out my 8th grade brass from their classes.  It works nicely and we're very lucky to be able to have it scheduled that way. 

similarities and differences

I realized that it's almost 1 year to the day since I started student teaching. When you student teach, it's important to establish a good rapport with the kids. You should try to become a part of the program yet still make your own decisions and make your own personal statement.  Because I am coming into this job after the students have already established a routine with their other director, I feel almost like I did when I was student teaching...except now I get the whole 40 minutes to myself and don't have to share with my cooperating teacher! Haha.  I'm still trying to get to know the kids - by name and attitude equally. 8th grade is rough. So far, my take on it is that they act like kingergarteners most of the time but view themselves as hot stuff.  I had a discussion with one of my bands yesterday that ended in me calling them "boys and girls" and saying that I hoped I wouldn't have to treat them like the little kids I used to teach.  That class was great today, but the class that gave me no management issues (well few issues) was super chatty.  I mean it's probably because this is the week before spring break and I'm new and they're moody, but I need to figure out a way to get them to respect me a little more and act a little less like children. An obvious difference between student teaching and real life right now is that it's all me in front of the class. Logistics for the concert, getting info to the kids, making sure that everything is set for my ensemble, parent emails/interaction? Me. Thankfully I can ask lots of questions of my colleagues and the fact we share the room is great.  It's still daunting though that I have to write an email to a parent tomorrow. Also attendance and grading are things that have a new level of protocol that I have never dealt with; kids don't cut kindergarten general music like they might do in band and I only did 1 report card for the little ones. 

checking in on real life

Full-time pay checks are great and my bank account and I are looking forward to the first one. My sleeping, gym-ing, and eating schedules are all wonky now - partially because my job report time is now 7:15 when before it was noon (lol), and partially because I'm just beginning the 4th of 5 musicals I'm playing this musical season and that makes me sleepy. But as I mentioned in a status last week, I really can't complain about being tired when I spend all day doing what I love (aka music and eating). Oh and my wedding is in 4 months and my man and I are looking for places to live starting in June. WOAH. Look forward to more posts more frequently since I'm really into what I'm doing now!

Endings and Beginnings

In my last post, I mentioned that I had some good news to share, so here it is - I will be starting a new job on Monday! My part-time elementary general music job was only a year long leave replacement, so when I saw there was a maternity leave position posted for one of the band directors at the junior high school in my district, I applied. I ran it past my supervisor first, because I knew that it would create a problem if I got the job and he had to hire for my position.  He okayed it, I interviewed and got the job! I'm super excited because band is what I've always wanted to do.  Also, my resume looks sweet because I have K-1 general music experience and 8th grade band experience (not to mention that my position has me teaching brass and percussion lessons and not woodwinds which looks great for me as a flute player).  The other great thing about working in my district is that it has a great reputation in the state for academics, athletics, and the arts so administrators have heard of it when they see it on a resume.  Alsoooooo, the full-time pay for the last few months of the school year makes my bank account smile. 

end

It was bitter-sweet to have my last day at the elementaries today.  I've been prepping my kids for the last day since last week when it was all official that the new job was going through, but I don't think it really hit them that I wasn't coming back until today.  One class gave me an adorable card. 

I hope the kids are good for the new teacher and they don't think I did a bad job with them... Eh, but I know that I taught them well, so it's fine. 

Looking back over my first teaching job (woah), I learned a lot. I thought I'd have more things to post about with more lessons I've learned along the way to document and share.  Clearly that wasn't the case, but nevertheless I learned a lot of tips I want to share, as evidenced by the series of bullet points below:

•  it's okay to feel like you have no idea what's going on because once the kids come in the room, your planning kicks into gear and it works itself out
• you have to stick up for yourself and your classes, especially when you don't have your own teaching space
• be proactive and work to find available spaces in the building where you can teach
• always present a problem and a possible solution at the same time to an administrator
• "I know that it's difficult to find space for all the traveling teachers, but I noticed that this room is open during 2nd period. Can I use it to teach my music class on Mondays?"
• it takes WAY longer to write general music plans (okay maybe this is just me personally) than to plan for a band rehearsal or group lesson
• in the beginning of the year, familiarize yourself with delayed opening, half-day, early dismissal schedules
• aka make sure you have one that matches across multiple schools if you travel
• ask all of the questions, even if you think it's dumb
• ex: How do you draw a quarter rest and time signatures in elementary general?

beginning

I have two concerts coming up shortly after I start my new junior high  job - one the week after spring break and one the week after that. I'm excited to jump right in and go! I spent the day at the school yesterday so I could see the whole day of classes, lessons, duties, and the after school jazz band rehearsal.  I also was able to hear 3 out of the 4 pieces that the 8th grade band will be performing on their concert so I can plan what I'm doing next week.  The schedule is such that I will see the students every day for band - split into 2 sections of 8th grade band - so it will give me a good amount of time to continue to work on the circle of 5ths, rep, technique, etc. 

future

I already got a call for an interview for a permanent position for next September. Things are going well. I foresee having more to blog about from now on! Woo!

Wisdom from a Convention

I've been having trouble picking things to write about. I haven't come up with anything revolutionary for the kindergarten and first grade general music class, I don't have huge issues that I feel like I need to write about. I guess my job isn't all that interesting at the moment.  However, I recently went to the New Jersey Music Educators Association Convention and I jotted down a couple things I thought were worthy of posting.  Conventions are great because you get to do great networking, you can go to sessions that make you realize what you're doing right, and some sessions make you see what you should be doing.  

I want to focus on 3 aspects of my teaching that I found out I'm doing right and how I learned to tweak it a little bit for maximum effect.  

• it's important to have a game (even if it's not really a game but a movement exercise you say is a game)
• Learned to: give kids 5-9 seconds after playing each round of a game to laugh/talk/move before getting their attention back because the behavior problems don't happen in that in between time - they happen if that's your whole class
• I used to: get their attention and keep it quiet between rounds

• use time-saving assessment strategies
• Learned to: use call and response to assess if students are matching pitch, keeping a steady beat, playing instrument properly, etc
• Learned that: using checklists of yes/no options are valid assessments and are very quick
• I used to: overthink my assessments and worry that when I collected data in the above styles that it wasn't a valid method

• it's okay to use the same song/game/listening example week after week and year after year
• Learned to: introduce a song/game/listening example briefly one class and continue to expand upon it in the next few classes
• have students dance around the room to a piece one week, sit and listen while answering 2 questions the next, follow and active listening chart the next
• I used to: teach a game/concept/song in the same class then return to the game for fun over the next few classes or later in the year as an extra treat instead of continuing to teach using that song
• Learned to: teach aspects of a song in lower grades then expand on that from year to year because students don't get bored of things each year - they actually enjoy the familiarity of the songs and can reminisce year to year
• K) pat steady beat while listening 1) come up with a dance in small groups 2)  compose and write out a rhythmic ostinato to go with the song 3) write a story about/discuss mood 4) read and count rhythm of the melody 
• I used to: avoid using songs/listening examples in lower grades that are traditionally used in higher grades because I didn't want to step on the toes of the other teachers and so they wouldn't be bored of the songs

I hope that these main three things can help you think about your teaching as much as they did mine. Look forward to another post with some exciting news later this week!!

This and That

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!

Ta Ta Ti Ti Ta

Hello again, world! So. A lot has happened since my last post.  I'll try to break it down.

You Bettah Werk.

I've always been goal-oriented and have accomplished almost everything I've set my mind to.  I worked incredibly hard during my undergrad to prepare myself to be the best music teacher I could be when I was let into the real world.  Also, in general, I like to be in control (or at least feel like I'm in control) of my situations.  So I thought that I was setting myself up for success and putting myself somewhat in control of my job search with my hard work. Nope.  By the time September rolled around, I still had no job.  I kept not getting jobs for reasons I never really considered - I wasn't a percussionist, I wasn't a vocalist, I wasn't a brass player, I didn't have experience.  I have always considered myself a well-rounded musician - I have decent piano chops (although I'm not as good as I was when I was 14...), I have a pretty extensive choral music performance background having sung in choirs since I was in 4th grade, I have solo singing experience as a cantor, I'm a good doubler, and I'm really modest.  I'm a good young teacher and, minus the phase in my life when I wanted to be a comedian, teaching is all I've wanted to do.  So when I had no job for legitimate but hard to swallow reasons, it was crushing and made me question pretty much all of my musical life.  It was horrible and I felt really down and out. I know I know, I've heard it a million times and I really do believe it, but when you're in a bad place, it's hard to keep your mind on the idea that everything happens for a reason. 

A New Job (or is it pronounced yob...maybe it's a soft J), A New Identity.

One of the districts where I interviewed had a maternity leave position and since the supervisor was impressed with my teaching and interview the first time, he interviewed me for this position.  It's a part-time (noon - 3:15 every day!) kindergarten and first grade general music job across 4 elementary schools.  I was hired on Tuesday, went to a department-wide in-service day on Wednesday, and taught on Thursday.  It was a really fast turn-around which meant I missed the new teacher orientation day. I didn't know in which rooms I was teaching until I got to each school the day of my classes because I didn't have time in the preceding days to visit each building. I still don't have access to my school email, the online district resources, the class lists, the grading system, haven't signed my contract, or been board approved.

All things considered, the first two days are all I've done so far and I think I'm doing okay! I like the little ones, but I've never taught them music, having not student taught with that age group.  You can't bargain with them; saying "Boys and girls, we have to be able to accomplish this task and listen to our directions or else we can't have fun with the next music game" doesn't go over as well with them as it does with middle/high school kids.  But laying down the rules - using ta ta ti ti ta to get attention, being quiet before entering the room, using a quiet raised hand, etc. seems to have worked so far.  Things that are making me feel better when I start to worry that college has not prepared me for this? Remembering that this is the first year this district is having full day kindergarten means that NONE of my students (K or 1st) have had any in-school music class.  It makes for easier lesson planning thus far because the K and 1st have the same objectives.  One thing that is less in my control is my teaching space.  I was unaware, because of the aforementioned reasons, that I was teaching some kindergartens in their rooms, some in the instrumental music room, some in the general music room. However, I made sure to cover my bases and I planned for the whole first lesson to be a cappella so that I could accomplish my objectives regardless of a CD player, piano, board, or Orff instruments.  I'm looking forward to collaborating more with my mentor teacher and the other K and 1 teachers in the schools I'm at.  I know that even though I only had my one general music methods course, my musical sense will guide me through this phase of my teaching life.  I feel like I'm going to learn more about general music and teaching in general from doing it even part-time then I would have from student teaching for 7 weeks.  I'll check back in with you, my adoring public, after my first full week.  

As for my identity, a funny anecdote.  My fiance and I joined the church choir at the parish we now belong to and Thursday was our first rehearsal.  I asked the choir director what he wanted me to sing because I could do church soprano (aka not super high) or alto (or honestly church tenor because it's not super low and practically alto II range but I didn't mention that because this choir actually has men).  He said soprano because this group has a lot of altos. Thursday was also the first day of school, so in one day, I became 2 things that I pretty much didn't think I'd be at this point in my life - a general music teacher and a soprano.