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.  

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!

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!