musiced

30 Day Blogging Challenge Day 3

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Day 3: In which area do you think you can improve the most?

There’s an ease to master teachers when they are in the classroom that I

David Newell’s new book Classroom Management in the Music Room: “Pin-Drop Quiet” Classes and Rehearsals

sincerely admire. When I think of the best elementary music educator that I’ve observed, I think of someone with an intense mastery of the craft, a curriculum design that gets results, and an infectious personality. (I should go visit her at school sometime soon!)

One thing that I recognize in master teachers that I haven’t managed to pin-point and define. I’ve written about David Newell’s seminar on classroom management for the music classroom before here, but until I have my own classroom, I won’t be able to fully implement his strategies in a meaningful way with my own students.

While I was implementing his strategies I wasn’t fully confident with them. They weren’t my own. I was borrowing from an expert. And that’s okay. I often told my choir students at my second placement school that I didn’t much care if they really believed the words they were singing, but they needed to convince me that they did. “Fake it ’till you make it” may sound like a disingenuous practice, but I think it’s a valid way to come into new teaching strategies and find success outside of my comfort zone.

Some things will come with time. I’d love to be the best teacher ever right away,

Photo Manip by karl683 2012

but I realize that so much of what a great teacher great is experience working with students and learning from mistakes.

So here’s to some new mistakes and new lessons!

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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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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 Weeks 4, 5, and 6: Improvising, Dynamics, and the Joy of Teaching

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I’ve tried to write this blog post for the last three weekends, but have failed to complete it each time. With a week and half left in my first student teaching placement, my time at this school is close to expiring. And with that prospect is the anticipation of saying goodbye to my 400+ students, some of whom I’ve built a relationship.

One of my new students friends, is a second grader, J. J is anything but a teacher’s ideal student. Not once, in the 6 weeks I have been there has J participated in music class. Every day he would ask to do something else: play the piano, play the drums, sing a different song, use a microphone. Not a single note sung, not single action, not one note.

Not until Friday.

Whenever J was not participating in music class, it was never because he did not want to make music. He was constantly asking to sing me a song, or play the drums, but we needed him to participate in music class! So, on Tuesday, I asked him to meet with me after class and sat down and made a deal. If he participated in music, he’d get to come in during recess and we’d do whatever music activity he wanted.

Later that day, at recess, he pulled me aside and told me something that I’ll never forget: “Mr. Jensen, I don’t have any friends. No one will play with me.”

I was heartbroken. I said, “I’m your friend, J.” And the smile that filled his face will forever define my best moment in Student Teaching 1.

Friday morning, I reminded him of our agreement, and he smiled and gave me thumbs up. I was prepared to give him the recess if he participated at least a little bit! But he stood in his place, sang every song, and performed every action. After each song he’d turn around to me and say, “How’d I do, Mr. Jensen?” I smiled and said, “You did great, J.”

And at lunch, we played instruments and sang a few songs. (Turns out, he knows quite a bit about music and matches pitch very well!)

In a week and a half, I move on to my next placement, and J will be back in the same music class with the same teacher. I don’t know if he’ll continue to participate in music class or not, but I know that for that half an hour, the music teacher was his friend. And that’s a teaching moment.