I had about twenty minutes, and of course that amount of time gradually increased throughout the rest of the day. But for third hour I stayed pretty much at twenty minutes! Phew! Goal for tomorrow: 15-20 minutes (NO MORE!!) on warm-ups and sight-reading. I picked out a few melodies for the classes that I think can be accomplished in the 10-12 minute slot I have for sight-reading, and Lizzy and I will be figuring out warm-ups tomorrow before school.
Back to today. We did some warm-ups, and the girls had really great energy in their tone, so I let them know! Of course no matter how many times I went through it on my own and wrote it down, I forgot one of the warm-ups and had to go back and fix it. Oh well, it happens.
Something Lizzy emphasizes is forward placement, and she's had to really refocus the choir on that lately. While they sang the warm-ups, the choir tapped their teeth in time to make sure they weren't smothering their sound with their lips pulled over their teeth.
It sounds weird, but it makes sense, I promise. And it got a really clear sound out of them.
I ran through the sight-reading melodies with the choir, and divided them into groups of three to see how they worked together figuring out the solfege. Fitz really liked that I made time for group work. It wouldn't have really worked for the other three classes, so I didn't use it for them. But it worked okay with third hour!
After I finished sight-reading, Lizzy took over the class to rehearse music and I went into the side office with Fitz to go over his comments on the lesson. First he asked me how I thought it went. I rattled off a list of things I would change in my approach for the next lesson, and he simply said, "You're being awfully self-critical. That's not necessarily bad," he added, seeing that I was slightly embarrassed, "It shows that you're being reflective and that you're aware of what you're doing."
He went through his comments sheet, and only had positive things to say about how I worked with the students. "You made one mistake," he said after he'd finished reading his comments out loud, "You did so well this time that now I'm going to expect all of your lessons I observe to be fantastic from now on."
I very audibly heaved a sigh of relief. "No pressure," said I. We laughed briefly.
It was really encouraging to hear from a teacher other than Lizzy that I'm doing things well. I do value both Lizzy's criticism and praise, but it is always nice to get a second opinion. I said as much to Lizzy at lunch, adding that I really felt like I didn't know what on earth I was doing.
"You gotta get over that," she declared, "You know what you're doing, but if you don't show it, the kids will destroy you." And she's right. I long ago passed the point of being clueless, but have lacked real confidence for so long. I am now willing to claim that I know what I'm doing.
That doesn't mean in any way that I'm perfect, because even people who know what they're doing make mistakes. If Lizzy didn't make mistakes in her classes, I would be both bored by her and intimidated by the prospect of teaching. If actors didn't make mistakes, we wouldn't have any funny bloopers to watch on the dvd. I know that if I keep teaching, I will look back and laugh at things I did while student teaching.
I'm excited for tomorrow's challenges, which I will meet head-on in front of a few university students coming in for observations for class. I know that they will be very critical of me in their reflections and in class, because that's how it happens. But I'm going to try not to care, because what's my mantra for tomorrow?
I know what I'm doing!
Bring it.
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