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!

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.

Concerts and Being Let Go

I would like to preface this post by saying that I haven't gotten stress pimples in a long time...until now. But it was worth it. Please do read on, now that the hygiene comments are out of the way.

night of jazz

As I mentioned in my last post, on April 3rd there was a district-wide Night of Jazz which my jazz lab ensemble was part of.  There was very little time for the band on stage, but we were able to run every piece and check balance.  When it was finally time to line up to get on stage for the performance, I had the students in the hallway outside the stage door.  I had never been so frustrated at students ever (until the next Tuesday...more on that in the next section). I calmly asked them to be quiet because there was only a stage door separating them from the audience. Nope. Didn't work.  So then I went to whisper-yelling because it has always been an effective way to strike fear in my heart. I said something along the lines of "I know that your prefrontal cortex is not fully formed yet and it's difficult for you to decide what's right and wrong and what you should or shouldn't do, but right now you should be quiet."  That stifled their conversation for about one minute, then when they stopped concentrating on the fact that they didn't know what a prefrontal cortext was, it was back to normal.  I don't like yelling; I have a really loud voice but I don't like having to use it (remember this for the next paragraph). The overall logistics of the Night of Jazz went smoothly.  5 groups performed and it was only about 2 hours.  All of the kids played really well, especially considering it was the week after spring break!

junior high school spring concert

Our Spring Concert was exactly a week after the jazz concert- April 10th. The two sections of the  8th grade band (and the two sections of 9th grade band but those aren't my students) don't get to meet as a whole until the week of the concert.  My combined rehearsal was scheduled for the day before the concert - Tuesday April 9 - and I was looking forward to hearing the whole 110 piece band together for the first time.  We had 2 periods - about 80 minutes - to work on the pieces, talk logistics for the night of the concert, and to run everything.  I expected to feel uplifted and optimistic after those 80 minutes. Instead, after the kids left I silently stared at my computer screen for a good 5 minutes, contemplating whether or not to cry and just generally thinking "clakdfmspoidfupigjlkj". Three things that didn't help my classroom management efforts were a) it was the first hot day of the year and all the kids were wearing shorts, thus making their brains think "Summer! No more focusing!" b) it was about 90 degrees in the band room c) the kids were excited to see their friends from the other class.  I had to raise my voice and be the "bad guy" way more than I wanted to be. I always like to feel like I'm honest and acting like myself when I'm in front of kids; students of any age can see through you if you're being phony so I strive to have a good relationship with my pupils.  I didn't feel like me when I was yelling and being so stern.  Thank goodness the other band director was in the room to help quiet kids down, get them extra copies of music, and take care of the 3 suddenly broken instruments.  When it was all said and done, I felt bad for treating the kids how I did and felt like I was an ineffective teacher for those 80 minutes.   
On the night of the concert, I had the 8th graders report to the lunch room 45 minutes before the concert started.  It takes waaaay longer to tune 110 kids than one would think, especially when they can't hear you announce that it's time to tune because there are also 90some ninth graders in the same space also playing and talking. My supervisor got me a microphone so the kiddos could hear me a little better, which was really helpful.  The students played very well and I was way more relaxed for this concert than I was for the jazz band concert and way way more relaxed than I was for my one piece when I was student teaching.  The 9th grade percussion ensemble also played really well for me.  I was very happy when it was all over.  

getting my sixty day notice

So going back to how I felt terrible after my rehearsal on Tuesday...I took the time that day to make concert reflection sheets for the kids to do when I would be absent on Thursday for an interview (more on that in a future post).  I left the band room to make photocopies of the reflection sheet and of course half-way through, the photocopier was convinced it was jammed although there was no jam, so I was gone longer than I expected.  That didn't help my daily upset-ed-ness level.  When I got back to the band room, I felt like having no human interaction. However, that plan was thwarted by the fact that the principal was in the room aaaand he was there to see me.  He wanted to go into my office to chat. Great - he must have heard that I yelled at one student in front of everyone and now I'm in trouble. The conversation went something like this. "Am I in trouble?" "No!" "Oh good!" "But I'm here to give you your sixty day notice." "...lolwat?"  

When you're in a leave replacement position, the district has to let you know that you won't be returning with the same contract, so they give you your 60 days.  However, when one has had a trying day and feels that one is an inadequate teacher, one does not want to hear "here's your sixty days!" It's kinda funny in retrospect.  

Overall, I feel good about the concert! I look forward to the rest of the year when we get to work on improvisation, composition, and small ensemble pieces.  

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!