All About Me

I didn't have a chance to do my 'All About Me' project during my first practicum, since it was a placement in rotary band and my A.T. wanted me to just prepare them for the concert. Fortunately, I did manage to kill two birds with one stone and complete my A.A.M. project and art lesson today.

I used prezi, which I found to be insanely useful and would recommend to everybody. My boyfriend told me to use it, and at first I was hesitant, since it was already 11 at night and I still had to put together the entire presentation. It ended up taking as long to put together (an hour) as it did present.

It also turned out to be one of the more interesting lessons. The students seemed legitimately interested in tree planting and had lots of questions about it. I played a few videos for them as well and ended up going through all the images that I had originally intended to use in the fall.

Instead of creating a soundscape as part of the lesson, I instead had the students complete pastel drawings of their own interpretation of the images. A lot of them just drew what they saw, which was fine, but some incorporated elements of 'The Lorax' and others used text in their own way. They are also expected to write a journal entry as to how they think they'd do on their first day of planting.

I've really given these students a lot of work, and have made a point of meeting with them so they know which assignments they are still missing and how their marks are coming along so far.

Three more days!!!

March Break Blahs

March Break is going by far too fast and of course I have almost nothing done and am already thinking of Monday as it fast approaches. I know this because I had a bizarre teaching dream (the first one!) last night. I'm used to having tree planting dreams, but this was entirely different and bizarre. There were a bunch of kids in my class that I had never seen before and I was handing back assignments that had mostly been done on torn up corners of paper. It was weird.

Anyways, I've been thinking a lot about what I want to teach and am leaning more and more towards a core class at the grade 7 / 8 levels. I love music and have enjoyed my own music education, but honestly believe that these preteens need to be able to formulate proper sentences / paragraphs / papers more then they need to play an instrument. These students need to read more and need to discover their own voice in their writing a lot more then they need to play an instrument or sing. I know I'm betraying four years of my undergraduate in music education, but we seemed to spend so much time convincing ourselves that what we were doing was important and relevant and a priority. It just isn't.

Music has its place, and I support active music programs in schools. They build community, give students a creative outlet and offer an alternative way of learning, but I gotta be honest: reading and writing are more important and more vital to preparing students to the real world. I think I'd rather keep my musical life seperate from my career... thoughts? Am I wrong? Is this just a phase?

Language Arts: Week #1

Language is not music! This week has been exhausting, frustrating, busy, but very rewarding. I finally had a lesson this morning that seemed to be legitimately effective. The students were engaged, they filled in the hand-out and they wrote a response in their journals. And yet, I had to introduce music to create a lesson that really works. I guess this is always going to be the angle that I'll take in my teaching. I don't think this is a bad thing, necessarily.

I miss the comforts of rotary band- every lesson was almost the same. Maybe I'd introduce a new musical concept, maybe a new chart. But it was mostly rehearsal and I could show up and make it work. I always felt like I was performing during the rehearsals, but there was a nice amount of control involved.

This week alone I feel like I've covered more material then my entire time at Runnymede. Day 1: video and print ads, Day 2: newspaper articles, Day 3: editorials, today: tone and voice in music and photography, tomorrow short stories. I'm up late writing lesson plans and in early photocopying. I plan to start to cancel my private lessons. 12-hour days plus creating dynamic lesson plans leaves too little time for cuddling with my boy, or hanging with my friends. Not to mention working out, practicing music or cooking proper food. Those are long gone.

I'm not complaining. It's just a new pace. March Break anyone?