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.

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". :)