For the rest of my life I will remember the face of one of my girls this afternoon:
This little girl (literally little) in 5th grade is one of 52 amazing students I met as 4th graders. They are with no exaggeration nothing short of amazing! So happy to learn, so eager to learn, and so incredibly talented. As they hit that love time called adolescence, their are some more imperfections coming to the surface, but their intelligence is not dwindling.
Reading music comes naturally to many of them and when they took their benchmark last week I was expecting them to do incredibly well on it. Minus some students who did not show up for their performance, and some who are still lost in the notation, all of them scored "Proficient" or "Advanced" and I was so happy with the results: confirmations that Orff can work for these kids when they are willing to let go of themselves and have fun.
We all, including their classmates, have expectations of some of the more advanced students: that they will always get everything right. Well today that did not happen. A lot of them missed one or two questions that I anticipated them getting wrong, but I did not anticipate this little girl to blow even the advanced students out of the water. With her ELL struggles and general quiet nature, she was learning her music at a slower pace and was always nervous to answer questions or seek me out for help. As I tallied scores, she did not miss a single question. The only student in her class of 52 to do this.
I sang praises of so many of them to their teachers and I waited at lunch to tell my little girl the news. When I told her she didn't miss any questions, there were no words coming from her mouth, only the largest smile that I've ever seen from her that radiated from her eyes and her entire face. Her breathing picked up and her smile grew. I actually made a student speechless in a good way! I was almost in tears of happiness and had to hug her to keep myself from crying and also worried that she might hyperventilate.
Just thinking about that moment day after day gives me chills, and those are the moments that keep me teaching.
Friday, April 12, 2013
Monday, April 8, 2013
Snow Day in April
My school district never has snow days, we easily could but the big reason is because it would leave many kids in the district without a meal. But this storm is looking to be a big one although at the moment it hasn't done a whole lot.
I will happily take the snow day, since it will be my 4th official snow day in the 6 years I have been teaching. Most likely I will be getting my grading and planning done, but my nerves move to my amazing 5th graders who have a performance on Wednesday and have lost a day of practice. I know they will be ok, but that still does not help the nerves :/
I will happily take the snow day, since it will be my 4th official snow day in the 6 years I have been teaching. Most likely I will be getting my grading and planning done, but my nerves move to my amazing 5th graders who have a performance on Wednesday and have lost a day of practice. I know they will be ok, but that still does not help the nerves :/
Wednesday, April 3, 2013
Kid Quote #1
If only they realized how funny and clever they are!
The set up to this one, is that I have a 7th grader who no matter where I seat him finds a way to drum away on anything around him. I finally reached my last bit of tolerance and this was the exchange.
Me: ok, no more chances, if you don't show me you can control yourself you don't get to play the drums
Student M: what! That's not fair!
Me: oh, it's completely fair
I continued teaching for another 10 minutes when he began drumming again
Me: yep, no drum for M
Student M: that's mean Ms.
Me: it's not mean, I'm just following the rules
Student A: wait, there's a rule?
Me: I'm breaking a rule by telling you this but, basically you NEVER give the kids who can't be quiet or still the instruments that make loud sounds; you give them the smallest quietest instrument you have
Student A: for real?
Me: for real
Student A: so that's why I always had to play the tiny triangle in 4th grade! It all makes so much sense now!
The set up to this one, is that I have a 7th grader who no matter where I seat him finds a way to drum away on anything around him. I finally reached my last bit of tolerance and this was the exchange.
Me: ok, no more chances, if you don't show me you can control yourself you don't get to play the drums
Student M: what! That's not fair!
Me: oh, it's completely fair
I continued teaching for another 10 minutes when he began drumming again
Me: yep, no drum for M
Student M: that's mean Ms.
Me: it's not mean, I'm just following the rules
Student A: wait, there's a rule?
Me: I'm breaking a rule by telling you this but, basically you NEVER give the kids who can't be quiet or still the instruments that make loud sounds; you give them the smallest quietest instrument you have
Student A: for real?
Me: for real
Student A: so that's why I always had to play the tiny triangle in 4th grade! It all makes so much sense now!
Tuesday, March 19, 2013
State Testing and 3 Days to Spring Break
I lose time with my students this week and also last week due to TCAP. I'm thankful for the extra time I have this week to get my room cleaned and get going on planning.
But I am also a mere 7 minutes away from my 7th and 8th graders coming to me for an hour...at the end of the day...after 4 hours of testing....
So I am content to sit and glue elastic to multi-colored pom-poms with eyes until they arrive at my door
But I am also a mere 7 minutes away from my 7th and 8th graders coming to me for an hour...at the end of the day...after 4 hours of testing....
So I am content to sit and glue elastic to multi-colored pom-poms with eyes until they arrive at my door
Sunday, March 17, 2013
Handing Out Tough Love
Given the space of time between beginning this and now should be a testament to how much I have going on. From returning from an inspirational conference, restructuring my elementary classroom in the midst of a unit, changing over to my middle school students, and literally pushing them through my classes amidst state testing ...yeah, it's been a bit chaotic.
Oh yeah, and away from work I'm getting married in 4 months. So I take that back, it's gone beyond chaotic.
Sundays are my day to get all my plans ready for the next week. Luckily I finally have some direction for my middle school students that I'm at the point where I look at the objective and know what they need to do for the day. But given it's middle school, and they have been dragging their feet, we'll see how productive they will be.
It's hard to let them fail (which about 80% of them will given their work effort), but they need to experience it. Working in an urban setting however, I find my students more than ready to admit defeat. I've known since I began teaching that urban students put a lot of pressure on themselves to be perfect good at it, so I'm not going to try to be better" mentality is so frustrating to me and I don't know how to get them going. Giving them repertoire that is too easy might help, but then the minute I raise the bar and they make a mistake they shut down. I offer time to work one-on-one, some take it, some do not, but whatever the choice they make, that defeatist mentality comes back.
There is also the kids' notion that appearing intelligent is not a good thing, or that their classmates will give them a hard time. Happily some of them are realizing that their intelligence gained them admission into private high schools and it is trickling down to the rest of the middle schoolers. But for a larger number of them, I'm having to revert back to the "oh, well" mindset.
Over my six years of teaching I've found a balance between work and life. I have deadlines to make for my last set of units, and it's going to take a long time. So I'm choosing for my own sanity to not revise their benchmarks to ensure that a majority of them will pass. Too many of them just sit there and don't try. I'm going back into "drill sargenat" mode; and some of them will get a big dose of reality when they get their progress reports.
It's hard to do when you see so much talent in your students and you have the opportunity for them to explore all aspects of music and some of them could care less. It's not just in my class but in all other contents. Tough love...that's all I can give. I won't lower my expectations just because they want to be lazy. Hard to do when you care so much, but it's the right thing to do.
Oh yeah, and away from work I'm getting married in 4 months. So I take that back, it's gone beyond chaotic.
Sundays are my day to get all my plans ready for the next week. Luckily I finally have some direction for my middle school students that I'm at the point where I look at the objective and know what they need to do for the day. But given it's middle school, and they have been dragging their feet, we'll see how productive they will be.
It's hard to let them fail (which about 80% of them will given their work effort), but they need to experience it. Working in an urban setting however, I find my students more than ready to admit defeat. I've known since I began teaching that urban students put a lot of pressure on themselves to be perfect good at it, so I'm not going to try to be better" mentality is so frustrating to me and I don't know how to get them going. Giving them repertoire that is too easy might help, but then the minute I raise the bar and they make a mistake they shut down. I offer time to work one-on-one, some take it, some do not, but whatever the choice they make, that defeatist mentality comes back.
There is also the kids' notion that appearing intelligent is not a good thing, or that their classmates will give them a hard time. Happily some of them are realizing that their intelligence gained them admission into private high schools and it is trickling down to the rest of the middle schoolers. But for a larger number of them, I'm having to revert back to the "oh, well" mindset.
Over my six years of teaching I've found a balance between work and life. I have deadlines to make for my last set of units, and it's going to take a long time. So I'm choosing for my own sanity to not revise their benchmarks to ensure that a majority of them will pass. Too many of them just sit there and don't try. I'm going back into "drill sargenat" mode; and some of them will get a big dose of reality when they get their progress reports.
It's hard to do when you see so much talent in your students and you have the opportunity for them to explore all aspects of music and some of them could care less. It's not just in my class but in all other contents. Tough love...that's all I can give. I won't lower my expectations just because they want to be lazy. Hard to do when you care so much, but it's the right thing to do.
Friday, January 25, 2013
The Very Beginning
This may turn into another blog that I end up neglecting simply because I have so much going on. But I want to make a better effort this time, because I feel like someone needs to be saying something. If there are others writing about similar situations, I am happy to join those voices.
Beginning this all cam about because of where I am right at this moment. Sitting at a desk in possibly the most expensive and elite hotel in the state of Colorado where every year a three-day clinic and conference takes place for music educators in the state.
Wonderful people, wonderful workshops, but horribly biased.
Much has changed for me in my view of music education. As I went through my courses last year for my endorsement in LDE (linguistically diverse education), I discovered that my music curriculum didn't have much give in terms of differentiation and modifications for ELLs (English Language Learners). I was feeling stifled by the resources I had and coming up short on ideas for how to keep my students engaged while still teaching them what they needed to know and improving their skills.
After not attending this conference for 4 years I was excited to see what new ideas and methods were out there. Now more of a general music teacher, going to the Orff workshops were incredible and gave me more ways to support my students than I ever imagined. But I also have middle school students who have the potential to be spectacular singers, so I decided to go to as many singing readings as I could.
The result aside from a tired voice was 37 vocal scores from an elementary level to high school. Some I loved, some I wasn't thrilled with, some were too hard for my kids at the moment, and some were perfect. But I was left questioning the choice in picking these particular pieces. Yes they are very diverse, but culturally biased. Nursery rhymes, Lewis Carroll, 50s pop...subjects my students have trouble understanding because of their culture. Everything super melodic, moderately fast, nothing I knew that if I played for my kids they would like.
If I were in the 'burbs all of these would be "very nice" but in the 'hood of north Denver, the beat needs to be big, the accompaniment interesting, and most of all, they need to connect with the music. Wrapping my head around how to make some of these really exciting songs fun is going to take a while. We have not found our voice as a school in what we want in the arts.
Beginning this all cam about because of where I am right at this moment. Sitting at a desk in possibly the most expensive and elite hotel in the state of Colorado where every year a three-day clinic and conference takes place for music educators in the state.
Wonderful people, wonderful workshops, but horribly biased.
Much has changed for me in my view of music education. As I went through my courses last year for my endorsement in LDE (linguistically diverse education), I discovered that my music curriculum didn't have much give in terms of differentiation and modifications for ELLs (English Language Learners). I was feeling stifled by the resources I had and coming up short on ideas for how to keep my students engaged while still teaching them what they needed to know and improving their skills.
After not attending this conference for 4 years I was excited to see what new ideas and methods were out there. Now more of a general music teacher, going to the Orff workshops were incredible and gave me more ways to support my students than I ever imagined. But I also have middle school students who have the potential to be spectacular singers, so I decided to go to as many singing readings as I could.
The result aside from a tired voice was 37 vocal scores from an elementary level to high school. Some I loved, some I wasn't thrilled with, some were too hard for my kids at the moment, and some were perfect. But I was left questioning the choice in picking these particular pieces. Yes they are very diverse, but culturally biased. Nursery rhymes, Lewis Carroll, 50s pop...subjects my students have trouble understanding because of their culture. Everything super melodic, moderately fast, nothing I knew that if I played for my kids they would like.
If I were in the 'burbs all of these would be "very nice" but in the 'hood of north Denver, the beat needs to be big, the accompaniment interesting, and most of all, they need to connect with the music. Wrapping my head around how to make some of these really exciting songs fun is going to take a while. We have not found our voice as a school in what we want in the arts.
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