Post-Concert Therapy

My students and I put on our annual Christmas concerts this week. I had the kindergarten-grade 2 students perform at 1 in the afternoon, and then the grades 3-6 students performed at 7pm. Both concerts were packed with parents, grandparents, siblings, and friends. It was amazing! I was so proud of my students!! They put on an amazing performance. Afterward, I was so relieved, but I was exhausted, and my voice was barely there. I’ve been fighting a sinus thing for over a month now, and it still hasn’t completely left me. I’ve been gargling gross concoctions, steaming, and trying to rest my voice as much as possible, but when you have 38 selections to teach and prepare, that’s pretty much an impossibility. On top of that, I had a final paper due for one of my master’s courses, and I’m playing in the orchestra for “A Christmas Carol” – the musical – that opens tonight. Needless to say, lesson planning has not been my top priority this week. I would normally spend lots of time carefully planning my lessons, but this week it just wasn’t going to happen. Over the last two days I’ve been playing “Rhythm Bingo” with my students. I barely have to talk, the students practice reading, playing, and writing their rhythms, and they have a great time.

 

Perfecting the “Teacher Look”

Over the last three years, I think the greatest challenge that I have overcome (or at least that I’ve made significant progress with) is the issue of behaviour management. I have a very soft nature, which, in my first year of teaching, made it easy for my students to walk all over me. I was far too permissive, and I learned very quickly that I needed to make some changes. I did a lot of research – I bought books (“Setting Limits in the Classroom” by Robert J. MacKenzie was one of my favourites), and read countless articles and blogs online. I wanted to find my own style of keeping control – something that fit for me, and that would work. I found out what it was, and like magic, things began to improve.

There were three things that made my second year of teaching far better than my first (not to say that my first was bad – it wasn’t! But there were significant improvements in my second year).

1. I had a year of teaching experience. When I went back into my second year, it was at the same school AND I already knew and had taught 90% of the students.

2. Routines, routines, and more routines. Something that I learned in one of my student teaching placements was the powerful nature of routines. What I didn’t do in my first year was teach them thoroughly enough, and I didn’t have strong expectations attached to them. I went into my second year of teaching armed with lists of routines and expectations and we practiced, practiced, and practiced some more.

3. I began to be more proactive about behaviour management with my classes. With only 30-minute periods (and zero transition time between classes to even have a conversation with the homeroom teacher when she or he came to pick up the students), I had to come up with systems that were quick, easy, and effective. I will go into more detail about my management system in a future post.

I wanted to leave you with one video with a technique that I have been practicing lots this year, and I’ve found it to be very effective! Like I said, I only have 30-minute periods with my students, and so time is very precious. I want every minute to count – I don’t want to be dealing with behaviour and having a conversation every time someone presents behaviour that I do not want. I’m learning to perfect my self-interrupting and the “Teacher Look.”

Welcome!

Hello! Thank you for visiting my brand-new blog. I am an elementary school general music teacher, and have been for three years now. This blog will focus mainly on teaching tips, strategies, and anything that has to do with teaching elementary school general music. Ok, there might be a few odds and ends thrown in there as well! I look forward to sharing my ideas with you – just as much as I look forward to learning many things from you, dear readers!