Stress

So it's been quite awhile since I've updated my blog. Middle of May=most stressful time of the year. Both my school calendar and my personal calendar are bursting at the seams. If I can make it until next week, it may be a miracle. Today's problem: kids missing lessons. We are not only into field trip season, but the time of the year when gym classes go outside and recess is outside. While its great for the kids, it's a nightmare for your local instrumental teacher. Even after a reminder this morning to check the lesson schedule, I had many repeat offenders today. But finally I've gotten a bit smarter. Instead of fretting over it, I simply e-mailed the parents and left a note for each child that they will receive tomorrow. Why I didn't think of this earlier in the year is a mystery. Oh well. Live and learn.

Today's Stress Meter:
One cup of coffee
One Mt. Dew
Too many pieces of chocolate to count

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....

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.

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.