Holy Jeebers...
This is real.
After two weeks of goal setting, vision realizing, "lesson planning" ( a lot of which has resulted in blank stares at a computer screen), not knowing what's going on, kinda knowing what's going on, setting up a classroom, finally getting the network set-up. Having only part of my schedule with the rest promised to me tomorrow...I realized that it's almost go time.
Tonight was "meet-and-greet," where I met and gret (er...greeted) parents and students. I think for the most part, I was able to be articulate and confident about what sort of music education I would be offering their children, and only a couple of times did I feel like the stupid new guy who knows nothing. The 6th grade is unique since they come from everywhere...the 55 students hail from 30-some different elementary schools, ranging from regular-ol' public school, spanish immersion schools, fine arts schools. I've met two kids who sing in the Twin Cities Boy Choir (one who's sang with the MN Opera). I've met several string players (and two dissapointed who heard that we were going to have an orchestra...don't know where they heard that!). Overall, things were quite positive, and I'm really excited, but still anxious for good reason.
My one high school class is with 8 kids, consisting of 3 flutes, a clarinet, a saxophone, a trumpet, a keyboard player and a guitar player. I see this class every day. So...given this, how do you come up with 250 minutes of instruction a week? Well, here's what I've come up with: An every-other-day format, with the first being a small performing ensemble. I'll probably end up getting some Woodwind Choir music, giving the keyboardist a flute part (or other concert-pitch part), transpose the horn part for trumpet (or teach the trumpet player how to transpose), and hope like hell that the guitar player can read music. The other days will be a music appreciation/history course. With this small of a class, there can be a lot of student-led exploration, so I've had the idea of doing a backwards music history, starting with modern music that they know, and seeing how far back we can go. It'll be a grand experiment.
So yeah, there's a bunch of nerdy music teacher stuff here, but ya gotta let me vent. I could talk nerdy music teacher stuff with my co-workers, but they know very little about teaching music. I know of several teacher types who read this, so there ya go. If any of you have any suggestions, send them my way.
On a final and more personal note, living by myself is getting kinda tiring. I'm excited for Alison to come out of the woods, even though I know she probably doesn't want to!
5 comments:
I know how tiring and BORING living alone was last summer. At least you're a) not in River Falls and b) doing a job that you were trained to do, as apposed to, like working at a bank or some BS like that.
Good luck with school!
You should have a string program. They're not that hard. Or, you make those string players play horn. I got you Mary Heimerman as an example.
I like the reverse-history idea. Is that yours?
As far as the instrumentation, you could make a mean tango group outta that.
There really needs to be an edit button for comments. :)
Sounds like it will be an interesting year. Not knowing the specifics (i.e. can these kids read music, what was their program like last year) I am not comfortable giving you any specific suggestions although it sounds like you could do a jazz combo one day a week (you'd have to play the drums :) ). One general thing I learned last year is that any duty you can assign to a student is one less thing for you to handle. Good luck on your first day.`
Sounds like you've got some good things planned out. Keep charging ahead with things - it sounds like a great year.
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