Tell me..

how does a school run out of it's supply of copy paper in November????

Exciting Happenings!

I won't write tonight as it is nearing 11:00, but I'm incorporating some things I learned over the summer in Orff with my 4th & 5th grade orchestra kids that are going really well. So..I'm hopefully going to post more about it tomorrow!

Scales

Each string teacher I know focuses on different things in their teaching. One of the things I concentrate on is teaching my students scales. By the time they get to 5th grade they can play at least 3 scales rock solid. There are so many great reasons to do them and I like to have fun with the kids when we do them. My hope is to help them make connections between the scales we learn and the songs we are playing in lessons and orchestra. And ultimately...show them how to use their knowledge of scales to help them figure out notes and fingerings in a given piece of music.

Last week one of my 5th graders randomly said (very enthusiastically) in the middle of his lesson, "I love doing scales!" It was rather amusing because this is the same student, who, as a 3rd grader in one of my music classes played a harmonic minor scale instead of natural minor because that was what he was taught in recorder. (i.e. when we were playing the a minor scale on the keyboards, he started throwing in the G# because that's what his ear was used to hearing). So...I explained to him the difference between natural and harmonic minor as a third grader. The "scary" part is that he understood it.

Also last week, one of my more advanced 4th grade viola groups came in and started bugging me to learn how to do the A scale. I usually don't teach the violas this scale until later in the year because the finger pattern is different from our normal finger pattern. But they were not liking the fact that they had to sit out during that scale in orchestra. So we changed the lesson plan a bit and I showed them. After that one of the kids goes, "That's it?" "Yes," I replied. "Well, we thought it would be really hard." Go figure!

Playing the A scale on the cello is a whole different story, and I don't even broach the subject unless I've got an advanced player. So it's the one time in orchestra where they get to just sit. For the most part they find it quite humorous. Many days I'll have a cellist say they want to do the A scale just because they find it so funny.

Ok, that's enough technicality for one evening!

I Survived a Full Day!

Well Praise the Lord! I made it through a full day and got home in one piece! Tuesdays are a great day for me--only one beginner group and most of my fifth graders. I was able to to keep my foot up for all of the lessons except the beginner one, so that really helped. The funniest one was at the end of the day...a string quartet of 5th graders, but I am the cellist. So here I was trying to play cello with my leg up and direct a lesson at the same time. Needless to say, it was quite difficult because my bow kept hitting the leg that was up, and if I took my foot down, it hurt right away. Fun times....

Just Some Thoughts on Union Publications

I was reading through an article in one of the union publications about the importance of family involvement when the kids are in middle and high school. Most of what was in the article seemed like common sense. There was a very interesting statement however. The article talks about a "new brief from the Harvard Family Research Project" and its recommendations for "policymakers, practitioners and researchers." One recommendation is to "facilitate parents' ability to monitor their adolescents' growth and progress." This seems to be a suggestion that says a lot in a few words. It sends the idea that parents are not capable of knowing what is best for their children and that as public school teachers/administrators, we need to tell them. How backwards! But this is the attitude I find in general after teaching for five years. And it is easy when you, as the teacher, spends more time with a child than his or her parents do. It is easy for the role of teacher to supersede that of parent. And perhaps that is why the Bible says that parents are supposed to raise, teach, and have authority over their children's development; because it sure is easy for a society with mass public schooling to think that it is the school's job to completely raise their children, instead of focusing on academics.

I Survived!

Yes, I did survive, but was very glad to leave after a half day as my foot was killing me. So far it has been happening that the first kid to arrive in the room has been setting up the music stands. Well today the first kid to walk in was the smallest kid in orchestra. As he walked in I was thinking, "oh dear, is he going to be able to do it?" This thought went through my mind because he is usually the first one to ask if we can sit down during a lesson (the kids normally stand). So I asked him if he wanted to help and he said yes. So he proceeded to move a cello rack and music cart that were both bigger than he was and then proceeded to set up all the music stands for me. Go figure!

Getting Ready....

Well, tomorrow is my first day of teaching my string kids with a cast on. I'm sure it will be an interesting experience if nothing else. I found out Friday that because I'm so short I can sit on a piano bench and put my leg up at the same time--not too much hangs over the edge. Where I will have to get really creative is teaching the beginners. This will be their second lesson and there is usually a lot of physical demonstrating and moving about on my end...so...we'll see how it goes! No matter what, I'm sure I'll have some good stories to share by the end of this whole thing.

Orchestra

Last Tuesday I had a wonderful first rehearsal with my orchestra kids. I was blown away how good they sounded as we did our first scales. It was a blessing to see that my work with last year's 3rd grade orchestra had indeed prepared them for this year. Of course, after that I went home and sprained my ankle, so I missed the rest of the week. But tomorrow we'll be back at it again, the only difference being I'll have a pair of crutches with me.

Stringfever Bolero

Recorder Music!

I've ordered some recorder music to use with my kids at church and it has come in! It's just the spark I need to motivate me to do some planning. Unfortunately, I think I'll have to wait until Monday, as I need to get to Eastman to work on my project today and tomorrow I have a family party to go to. So..am praying that my motivation will stick around until Monday. :-)

Things That Just Brighten Up My Day

It's always fun when kids complement you on something, because they are so earnest in giving the complement. The other day I was sitting at my laptop in school and two girls walked in and were surprised to see me sitting at my desk with my hair pulled up. (Usually I just leave it down..like 99.9% of the time, but it's been getting awfully hot in my classroom lately.) They both immediately exclaimed how pretty I looked with my hair up.

Tuesday night was our parent's night at school and the next morning I found a note from a former student who is now in middle school. She wrote that she was doing both orchestra and chorus this year, and that she missed me a lot. It was very sweet. And as a friend said--a good thing to have hanging up for all of the times when kids decide that they are not going to continue playing.

Week #1

It is has been a long and hard week. There have been some really good points to it, but overall it has been discouraging. Year #6 of teaching has begun, and in some ways I am restless. When I graduated and first started teaching, I never saw myself lasting more than five years. Well, here I am--I love the work with the kids, but all of the peripheral junk that one has to deal with in the course of the teaching profession has left me discouraged. While this was only the first full week, it feels like it has been a month. For the first time since I started teaching, I find myself randomly having fleeting visions of other things I could be doing with my life. At this point in time, the thought of staying in the profession until I have to retire seems like a life sentence. It is truly my hope that the Lord will remove me at some point from the whole teaching thing. I need a break. But until then I must wait.

"But they that wait up the Lord shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings as eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint." Isaiah 40:31

Beginning of the Year

I think the beginning of the school year is probably crazy for every teacher, no matter what subject or grade level one teaches. Just a small example of what life is like: As I was driving home today I was thinking, "oh great, I'll have time tonight to go through my bag and get dates put into my calendar as well as weed through all of the catalogs I've gotten. Wait a minute, I have no food in the house."

So, the demands of basic, everyday life are calling my name and I music now go out to the grocery store if I want lunch tomorrow.

New Year

Well, I bit the bullet and went into school yesterday. I had been dreading it, not ready at all to start the new year, but once I got there things went ok. I won't have 3rd graders this year (sniff, sniff), and as it stands right now, if every kid from last year were to continue (which probably won't happen), I would start with 59 kids. In the works this year is a Chamber Orchestra, for my kids who need a severe challenge--I actually have quite a few who will probably jump at the chance--so that is exciting. Because I won't have 3rd grade, I will have very few beginners, which will make next year very strange. But I can only take one year at a time right now. For now I am just hoping they don't cut the music program further.

Orff and String Teaching?

So here I am in the Eastman library with my favorite Java's drink in hand (iced chai) and supposed to be reading music history, reflecting for J, and creating a lesson for MH--and the library closes in two hours. Yeah, I got a late start, sleeping in to nearly 11:00. I don't think I've done that in ages, but lydee was kind enough not to shower and as a result I got much needed sleep this morning. (The shower is right next to my room and makes this horrible screaming sound.)

Anyways, it occurred to me yesterday that there are many things I learned in Orff that I automatically incorporate into my string teaching. On a very basic level, the level of interaction I have with my kids during our orchestra rehearsal is reminiscent of Orff. My kids are very involved and have a sense of ownership in the rehearsals as they choose our rhythms to use for scales, experiment with different ways we can play in rounds and make suggestions for improving our performances. I take the first 10 minutes of our rehearsal to do scales and sightreading. I've done scales with my kids since I started teaching, but this was the first year I've incorporated sightreading. And it happened at the suggestion of a student. I had ordered some easy duet books; a whole set that I could use during orchestra and was playing some with my fifth grade cellists. I briefly mentioned that I wasn't sure how I was going to use them with the rest of the kids, and one of the girls promptly said that we should use them for sight reading in orchestra. Our chorus teacher did something similar with her kids this year, and this is where she got the idea. It worked like a charm and was wonderful because my kids needed something more than scales to do for warmups. My kids could probably play scales in rounds in their sleep.

When we do scales, I have the kids choose the rhythms--slightly reminiscent of the building blocks we use in Orff--the kids choose different pizzas if we are in duple and pies if we are in triple. In Orff the idea is to stick to nature related things for the building blocks, but I have found that these two work great. What I have thought of doing is using the building blocks as the beginning for improvisation and composition in an ensemble. We've been doing a lot of that in Orff this week and it would be fun to use with my string kids, especially right at the beginning of the year when we don't have to prepare for a concert right away.

More thoughts on this later....

Blogging

I am thinking about setting up a blog to use with my string students. I am considering using Blogger, but am also looking for other suggestions. Got one? I would love to hear about it!

One-arm Fiddle Player

Check it out! This guy has one arm and plays by moving the violin up and down while the bow stays still.

School's Out!

Woohoo! Friday was the last day with kids; Monday is my last day. Once again, a bittersweet ending to the year. It is hard to say goodbye to the 5th graders I have worked with for 2 or 3 years, but at the same time I am looking forward to working with next year's 4th and 5th graders. It will be so good to have a change of pace and (hopefully) a break this summer. With teaching you go crazy for 10 months and then have two months to recover. Today was the first Saturday in a while where I could get caught up on normal people things like balancing my checkbook and cleaning my desk. Good times!

Jeans....

For the first time in 5 years of teaching I wore jeans to school. (I've worn them on Fridays to church, but never to my other school.) The event would not be noteworthy except for the fact that 3 people commented on how I great I looked in them! Who would've thought that something like that would be noticed?

End of the Year

Things are winding down...it is a bittersweet time, more so this year than others. I am done teaching at church for the year. The Lord really blessed our concert and my ministry there as a whole this year. While I am excited and looking forward to next year, I am ready for a break.

My two string concerts are over as well, and the Lord blessed them as well. Right now I am in the midst of report cards, inventory, and other misc. things. There is a chance that I could be teaching general music there next year. I'm not sure that I'm ready for it, I've thoroughly enjoy my break from it this year, and having my Monday's off have been wonderful. But I guess I have to trust the Lord to work that out.

The bad news is that they are cutting the 3rd grade string program (district wide) for next year--a sad event for everyone involved. Many of the current 2nd graders think that they are going to take a string instrument next year, but they will have a rude awakening when they get to CH next year.

This morning was our year end party for the 4th and 5th graders. As I was creating my awards to hand out, I was struck by how many of my kids have just been awesome this year in helping me set up and tear down for each rehearsal. I even had kids come in and help with the 3rd grade orchestra. Overall, my kids have been wonderful to work with this year. If I had to make a choice, I would much rather work with kids who have great attitudes than kids who can play well. A child's attitude and willingness to help out are more important to me than his or her ability to play an instrument well. If only I had learned this lesson when I was young!

Before I head off to shower and work on report cards, I have to say that it feels good to update and write on this blog. My life has been so hectic lately that I haven't been able to think about writing. The Bible says that He won't give us more than we can bear, so I must trust that He knows what He is doing in this regard. Have a good night!

Concert Time!

And thus begins the end of the year concert season. My concert at church is this Friday night. I am very thankful to finish up most of my "getting ready" tonight, as the rest of the week is very busy. It should be an exciting concert, the 4th graders are playing When I Survey the Wondrous Cross on recorder, as well as Do Lord. I wasn't sure if it would come together or not, but I guess the Lord is going to be merciful as it sounded great last week.

What a Week....

Two things this week have caused me to be very thankful for what I have. The first is my classroom. Because the NYS Education department sees it necessary to test fourth graders in English, math, and science, the rest of us in the building have to suffer for three weeks out of the year. This week's science testing is the worst because I am actually kicked out of my classroom. As a result, I am having orchestra rehearsals in the gym and teaching lessons in the auditeria (cafeteria/auditorium). So I am shuffling things between four rooms in order to teach this week.

Teaching lessons in the auditeria--here's an example: I was working with a group of 3rd graders yesterday afternoon. The kids are up on the stage playing, I am down on the floor (because that's where the piano is) trying to keep the kids focused and actually accomplish something. As I'm trying to focus them, the custodian walks in and starts folding tables. Lunch ladies are cleaning up around us, and I'm trying to get the kids prepared for an upcoming concert. We are about to start a song and one of the kids turns to a friend and (completely out of the blue) says, "I have a game at home with recipes where you can make cookies." At this point I truly wanted to throw in the towel and go home for the day.

Today a couple of other teachers and myself took a group of kids over to a nursing home to perform and play bingo with the residents. I found out this morning that I was in charge of a whole busload of kids, some were my kids, some were chorus and band kids. It absolutely amazed me that the 3rd graders were quite well behaved and the 5th graders were out of control. Go figure.

We also found out today that one of our student's father passed away last night. When you stop to think about it, that really puts things into perspective. I worked with this student for two years and had many pleasant interactions with this man. I pray that his family would come to know the love of Christ in the midst of this--that He would be their strength during this time.

Colleagues

For the most part I thoroughly enjoy the people I work with, but there are a few people who truly get under my skin. One of them has the gift of writing incredibly rude e-mails that you wonder if they are written just for the sole purpose of being condescending towards others. As you might guess I have just read one of those e-mails and am now feeling better after venting. Have a good night!

Back to School

After a relaxing week off, it was back to school today. So at eight o'clock this morning my fourth and fifth graders started coming in for orchestra. One of the first things I got asked was, "so did you hear about the shooting at Virginia Tech?" Boy was I completely unprepared for that! Not only that, but what do I say in response? So I replied that yes I had heard about what happened, and that was practically the end of the conversation. But five minutes later when we were all settled and ready to start playing, one of my kids blurts out from the back of the cello section, "and in the orchestra news for today, the shooting at Virginia Tech." Great. Think about it, how are you supposed to respond to that? Here I am teaching in a public school, and I am restricted by a law that says I can't talk to the children about the hope and peace that we can have through belief in Jesus Christ. That we can trust Him when horrible situations take place. And let's not forget that what took place there could potentially happen at any school. But I can't offer my students any hope because the public decided that God should not be present in the public school system. Then we wonder why horrible things happen like this.

Budget Update

This Tuesday is the final budget meeting where residents can voice opinions relating to the budget. I have a couple of parents lined up to speak, so I am thankful for that. Because I am there three days a week, my hands are slightly tied as to how much I can do (talking with parents and spreading the word). My hope is that the few parents that I was able to talk with Thursday are spreading the word and making it known about the possible cuts to the music program. The Lord was gracious Thursday in the parent contact that I was able to make, so that was encouraging. So Tuesday is the night. Since I have parents going, I'm planning on going to the meeting as well, so it will be yet another late work day. I do pray that the Lord would give me grace and bring me through this season soon. It is wearing me out!

For an update with more depth, see my other blog: Musings of One Servant

Budget

As I am sitting here writing, the board of education is having a meeting relating to next year's budget. Big cuts are being talked about, cuts that will directly effect classrooms, including my own. Unfortunately the cuts that are being proposed were not all well thought through, so it looks like waiting is the name of the game. Please be in prayer for this situation. Thanks!

Hooray for Friday!

I am so blessed not to have any commitments tonight. I have been able to do some cleaning, organize last year's lesson plans (from church) and get caught up on typing up this years plans. Our K-4th concert is towards the end of May and I only have 7 classes left, so concert planning has been also added to the list. While planning the concert at church is a lot of work (in many ways more work than planning my concerts for my string kids), it is relatively low stress because I program things we have been working on over the course of the year. The challenge is planning material that the parents haven't heard before. I have been teaching some of the 4th graders since they were in kindergarten!

Since the kindergarten and 1st grade will perform together for the concert, I started having them come together last week. It is nice because instead of teaching five classes each week, now I am only teaching four. The downside is that now 20 kids are trying to have a music class in a room that is too small for us. And yes, we do folk dancing--which to the passerby looks like controlled chaos. Today's challenge: multitasking. Two of the girls in the class are sisters. While they are a year apart they are so similar that it is easy to mistake them for twins. This proved to be a problem for me as I had a hard time remembering who was who while I was trying to teach them how to do-si-do, keep the chaos under control, and be some child's partner. It really is a riot. But thankfully each week gets a little better as they (slowly) learn to discipline/control their dancing. At least the small room keeps them confined as we are working on it!

Here we go

Today was the second week of 3rd grade orchestra, aka 45 kids trying to play together at 8:05 on Wednesday mornings. I was trying to finish tuning the last few kids when it was brought to my attention that there was a kid who was about to cry. Thankfully 5th grade helper #1 took the child out of the room and successfully avoided a complete meltdown. A few minutes later that child came back and we finally started playing. As the last note of the first song was dying, someone called out my name, bringing my attention over to the violin section where a child held an instrument that had literally exploded in his arms. This time, 5th grade helper #2 was called on to take the child down to the string and assist him in finding a different violin to play. So in the first 15 minutes of the rehearsal we had two near catastrophes. I can't tell you how thankful I was to have those 5th graders to help out. There is no way I could've left 45 kids alone in the school gym to deal with the things at hand.

As I was driving home and rethinking through this event, I couldn't help but laugh. Last week a teacher in the faculty room said to me that she doesn't know how I do what I do, listening to violins all day. I told her that I could never do what she does--be a classroom teacher, I would go crazy. I would take broken instruments and crying kids over a classroom job any day.

(If you're interested in what how the violin exploded--the tailgut on the bottom of the tailpiece broke. This part literally holds together the whole instrument (strings, bridge, tailpiece). See below for a diagram.)