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30 Day Blog Challenge Day 2

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Day 2: What do you believe is your greatest strength as a teacher?

What’s the saying about “man’s best-laid plans?” One of the best lessons I learned in Student Teaching was that a well-thought out lesson plan will sometimes go south. That half of your students will be on a trip. They aren’t picking up something as quickly as you hoped. You weren’t informed about a fire drill. Someone tries to throw a chair.

I think one of my biggest strengths as a teacher is my ability to adapt to unusual circumstances and be flexible in my teaching and planning. As a student teacher I worked with four very different cooperating teachers, and an ever-changing landscape of student interactions. Many days my plans were fine and I think I taught some great lessons during student teaching. But there were certainly times where things did not go according to plan.

It’s easy to get frustrated. To let the students talk until the bell, to play a simple game. Certainly better planning is needed, but in those moments, when my best-laid plans have been laid waste (even by a Kindergartener!), I find that I figure it out. I don’t know if it’s intuition, training, or sheer luck, but the teacher in me comes out. You find ways to make it work and meet the students where they are.

Is it always perfect? Of course not. During one of my supervisor observations I realized I had not properly pre-assessed the knowledge of a group of late elementary students and had to completely revise my plan, but I saw their frustration and didn’t try to charge forward with my plan. It seems like such a small thing, but I recognize now that it was an important moment in my teaching. I messed up, recognized it in the students, and fixed it on the spot.

So my greatest strength as a teacher right now is flexibility (and content knowledge, and pedagogy, and student relationships, and a bunch of other principle friendly lingo). Maybe one day my planning will catch up to my teaching, but until then, I know I can adapt and adjust to any situation those students can throw at me!

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30 Day Blog Challenge Day 1

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Day 1: How did you decide to become a teacher?

When I started college I was a pre-seminary student pursuing an undergraduate degree in Vocal Performance. During my sophomore year, I decided to drop the seminary certificate and pursue education as a career.

Photograph of The Boxcar Children books on a shelf.

I loved The Boxcar Children books as a kid! Will need to find a set before I have children of my own! Creative Commons License 2011, janielle23, http://www.flickr.com/photos/janellie23/5557021621/

I’ve always loved school. In elementary school I would have my father drive me to school early to get everything ready and make sure I was prepared for the day’s learning. I’ve always loved to read. We joke in my family that my mother once collapsed in the library while pregnant with me, and that I’ve loved to read ever since. I’ve always loved music. I remember standing and singing in my classes at my first elementary school and being told I had one of the best voices in the class.

But I’m not a teacher because I love school, because I love to read, or because I love music. I’m a teacher because I believe education is the place that I can best make a change in this world. Teaching is the most fulfilling work I’ve ever done, and I’ve only been a student teacher! There’s something incredible about making music with students and helping them find their voice and their song.

As a student teacher I worked at two different schools, with four different cooperating teachers, and with close to 700 students from grades K-12. I will never remember all of them. But I will remember that it was there that I discovered my love for teaching. It was not a chore to get up in the morning and drive 30 minutes to school with coffee in hand.

Instead, I greeted my students cheerfully (even at 7am!) and asked how their weekend was, or how the One-Act was coming along. I decided to become a teacher because I think I already was a teacher. When I wanted to be a pastor, I was drawn to the teaching aspects of the office.

Keep Calm and Teach On

Copyright 2012 Ashley Kipp at Simply Designing http://simplydesigning.blogspot.com/

As I wrote in my post, Teacher to Student, I have felt a great loss in my transition back to being a college student. I don’t receive the same fulfillment as I did during student teaching. But a bit of that spark comes back each time I browse the classifieds of districts I’m hoping to apply for, and I look forward to the day when I have students of my own again.

I guess I never did really decide to become a teacher. Instead, I chose a major and teaching found me along the way. I’ll never look back.

 

Happy Graduation, C: My experience with special education in musical ensembles

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While student teaching, I met a wide variety of students from future music educators to students in Special Education. I’ve already written about one of those students in this post, and I’ve been thinking about another student, who I will refer to as C, a lot in the last few weeks.

C was in the Women’s Chorus at my second student teaching placement. She is a high school senior graduating in May. A very kind student who gave every ounce of effort she had in every rehearsal. C is wheel-chair bound and has limited muscle and breathing control. During most rehearsals, her para would write down the words to the piece of music we were working with and sometimes sing along.

C would rarely sing in rehearsal, but would sing out with joy at concert time. My first day of student teaching there was a concert day for the choir, and I noticed C’s voice and effort immediately.

As I worked with C and the other young ladies of the Women’s Chorus, I saw a great deal of progress in all the students. But C began to sing more often, trying her best to initiate each line with the rest of the choir, even if she was not able to sustain singing or match pitch.

On my last day of teaching, I sat with C and her Para, J, for a while and chatted about the time I had spent at the school. C will graduate from high school about when I will graduate from college.

Few students have impacted me and my outlook on teaching like this one girl with a big heart, and few students have convinced me of the vital role of special education in schools.

Not only did C have the awesome experience of learning and performing music with the choir, but the rest of the choir interacted with C on a daily basis. Furthermore, my experience in that classroom changed the way I teach and the way I interact with students at all ability levels.

I have an incredible opportunity as a music teacher to give students opportunities that their status in life, be it economic, academic, or even physical, often limit. All students involved (especially the student teacher) were edified and bettered by her presence in the classroom. Much could be said about inclusion/mainstreaming in our nations classrooms, but I will always strive to welcome students of all kinds into my ensembles and classrooms that they might discover this strange thing called music.

So, happy graduation C! Good luck with your last semester of high school, and I hope that you will find as much joy in life as you did on that stage during the winter concert.

Student Teaching Week 3

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Thursday was the best day of Student Teaching yet! My band CT gave me the go ahead to lead an all-music rehearsal with the marching band! I prepared all week and boy did it pay off. When the students walked in, they got a card and filled out the card with their information and a few fun questions as a get to know you. When that was finished, the next 45 minutes was almost non-stop fun for me.

Next week, I’ll be writing and using my own lesson plans within my CT’s procedures. I’m hoping I’ll get some practice in the classroom by myself. I was able to handle the HS band by myself last week, but I’m not so sure about the first, third, or fifth graders!

This week, I’m hoping to incorporate some more listening, notating, and composing into the rhythm curriculum.

My primary concern with the curriculum structure is the emphasis on performance. It seems like the curriculum is so tied to performance that many of the students are either performing music far too difficult for their musical development, or they are bored by music and musical practices too simple or inappropriate for them. I understand the need for performance, but it really seems like the curriculum is determined by the performance expectations, when I believe it should be the other way around.

Regardless, I’m learning a great deal about the kind of music teacher I want to be, the kind of school environment I want to work in, and how I think music education should be done (for me at least).