Happy Thursday!

Had a doctor's appointment this morning, so Lizzy said I should just come in for fifth and sixth hour. Didn't really do much for either, except go over their handouts and the rationale for grading.

Fifth hour was really sluggish at first, but about halfway through the hour they finally kicked into gear and started giving much more energy. Lizzy was pretty picky with the music, but it seemed to sink in more, and they were able to do most of it from memory!

Sixth hour was spent just talking as a group about the hell that was yesterday, and about attitudes in the class in general (from the students and from Lizzy). It was good to get everything out there, and I think most of the students saw where Lizzy was coming from. I think tomorrow will be better than yesterday.

Tomorrow I'm taking over for the last half of first hour, and all of third hour. It all seems like it'll go pretty well.

At 4 pm tomorrow, I'm talking to one of my friends from CMU who has worked with middle school boys, to see if he has some suggestions for me. I'm excited to start talking to people other than Lizzy and my parents about this stuff, just so I'll have more resources to pull from!

Comfort Food

My lesson in first hour went well, though I kind of sputtered towards the end of it. For the last few minutes I let the students see me think instead of just seeing me do. That was the only suggestion Col Fitzwilliam (my coordinator) had after his observation. I came out of that feeling pretty good about everything.

Second hour prep was okay for the first half-hour. I told Lizzy that I needed to refocus and calm down before third hour, because I knew what I needed to do for the rest of the day. So I started doing some sudoku puzzles.

Then the accompanist, Mary Bennett, came in. At this point, Lizzy and Mary began commiserating about some issues they were each having. It was impossible to just tune them out, because I'm used to them talking through their issues with me as a sounding board. However, today I couldn't handle it. I just sat there, getting more and more anxious as I tried to solve a stupid sudoku puzzle that should NOT have been as difficult as it was.

By the time third hour rolled around, I was completely tied up in knots. I wrote down what I was feeling in one of my journals and later, I talked through it with her. But back to third hour.

The point where I started to feel like a functioning human again was when during a transition in her lesson, one of the girls asked Lizzy, "Is Ms. Renas gonna teach today?"

The girl who asked that (who shall be referred to as Anne) is a girl who has usually not participated to her full extent, and while she is a nice girl, she's been making some unwise friendships that have affected her grades.

On the handout that I gave the classes yesterday (which I mentioned in my last post), I told third hour they could draw/write on the back of it if they were done. A group of seventh grade girls? They were elated. Anne looked up at me as I walked past her and whispered, "I'm gonna write you a letter!"

When I graded her quiz, I flipped it over to read what she had written: "You are a really cool teacher, and really nice. I love being in choir with you." I could see she had hastily added "and Mrs. Bennett" to it at the end.

When I got home tonight for dinner, my mom had made carbonara. Carbonara is my absolute favorite comfort food, and after today it was exactly what I needed.

That moment with Anne (coupled with her note yesterday) was my educational comfort food: it was exactly what I needed to keep me going throughout the day. And while I may have forgotten that moment later on (ie, sixth hour), I felt completely at peace when I related it to my parents at dinner tonight.

It was my carbonara for the soul. I really don't much care for chicken soup.

To make up for probably not posting tomorrow...

This morning, I dreaded teaching until I got up in front of first hour and went through the rhythm warm-ups with them. I then continued to dread rehearsing the choirs until I got up in front of third hour and got going.

Lizzy and I talked about it after school, and she told me she still feels the same way on Mondays. It was then that the lady from Office Space popped into my head, and I was begrudgingly forced to admit that she may be right. "Sounds like somebody's got a case of the MONDAYS!"

Somehow, though, I got through the day.

Third hour seems to really respond well to me. They are the class I can be the most free with. Today our goals in Dodi Li were phrasing and words. We started off with phrasing the chorus. I pulled something we did a few times in my secondary methods class, and we all pretended like we were holding orbs around our belly buttons. The orbs could be big or small, but they had to be moving at all times.

"Let's all sing the first chorus together, and when we get to the long notes, do something interesting with your orb. You can stretch it, roll it, make it smaller, whatever. But make it unique to you." The girls really got a kick out of it.

I spotted one motion many girls were doing, which was to roll the orb when they hit a long note. We all did it together, and I asked them if the note grew, or immediately got louder. They replied that it immediately got louder.

"I also saw quite a few of you growing your orb," I then noted, "So let's all try that when we get to a long note." This time there was a definite growth in volume and energy throughout the note, and the girls could hear the difference.

Next, Part 1 pretended like they had taffy connecting their hands at the fingertips, and all they could do was stretch that taffy apart and back together. This really helped them connect their measures and keep their words from getting choppy. All the girls commented on how cool it sounded, and when we put the two parts together, some of the singers got chills.

For all but ten minutes of the rest of class (since Lizzy had an emergency phone call), we went through the words and phrasing for the words for each verse in Dodi Li. When we only had two four-measure verses left, the girls got really amped to learn the rest of the words by the end of class. Tomorrow we'll review and see how well they remembered them!

Sixth hour was flipping amazing. There were few side conversations, and none that stopped the entire class. They were also the only class all day where every single person was using hand signs and really visibly putting forth effort during sight-reading. Every other class, Lizzy had me mark down students who weren't using hand signs or weren't participating. I was so proud of sixth hour.

They also read through Festival Sanctus much quicker and more accurately than fifth hour. Seriously, they were just on today. Unfortunately, this makes it more upsetting when they're off, which is almost half the time. Hopefully they will be considerate tomorrow when Lizzy is getting evaluated during their class. Apparently they do well on those days so they aren't embarrassed in front of the Assistant Principal.

Tomorrow Lizzy and I are conducting a minor experiment with third and fifth hour. As Lizzy was doing sight-reading with fourth hour, I remembered the think-aloud we did in my Content Area Literacy class last semester. I thought, "Hmm, maybe the students could benefit from writing out their process of what they look for before they sing."

In a happy turn of fate, it turns out that Lizzy was thinking the exact same thing. When I breached the topic of think-alouds with her, she immediately responded with "I LOVE THINK-ALOUDS." And yes, it did sound like it was all in bold caps.

After throwing around dozens of ideas, we finally came to a solution for what to do. I wrote up a handout for the students to fill in with their thoughts after I go through my process when I sight-read. There are two sections on the "quiz": "Before I sing, here are two things I can look for in the RHYTHM so I can sing more successfully," and the same statement with MELODY. Their responses must be legible and a complete idea ("I'm looking for ___"), though since this was unannounced, spelling will not count (unless the answer is unintelligible: if I can't read it, I'm not grading it).

I will then take home the quizzes and grade them (only for very few points, and not weighted much), with the purpose of establishing a standard: if you are given work by me, it is just as important as work from Mrs. Micik, and it will absolutely be graded.

I won't tell them that next time this happens (because it will happen again) I won't give them points, but will merely check during class to see that they're all at least thinking about something they can be looking for, and are at least trying to get something on paper.

Why was this such a long post? Because I have a very, very long day ahead of me tomorrow. School, then I'm busy until probably around 6:30, then grading until my head falls off. I'm gonna have to try and get some of that grading done during the school day, though. Here's hoping this all works out tomorrow!

Spite Singing

It's been an interesting week. Yesterday was a good end to that week.

Did some rhythm and movement warm-ups with the sixth graders during first hour, and for the last half of class Lizzy had them watch Pulse: A Stomp Odyssey. She interjected every few minutes to draw their attention to different aspects of the world music being performed.

One of the observers from last Friday came in again yesterday. Let's call her Maria Lucas. Maria and I had a wonderful conversation about student teaching, teacher ed programs, and Harry Potter. I'd like to keep in touch with her and see how her experience goes!

I only stayed through fourth hour yesterday so I could have time to come up to Mount Pleasant, but all the seventh graders were just dragging yesterday. Fourth hour in particular was just going slower than molasses. There was a great moment in third hour, though.

The girls just weren't giving me the tone I knew they could, and they were just sort of giving up. Lizzy said something about not worrying about getting a good tone since they obviously didn't want to give it today, and just moving on and learning notes. She then announced that she had to get some paperwork redone at the office, and ran out.

We all watched her leave. As soon as she was gone, I turned to the choir, leaned in, and quietly asked, "Do you want to prove her wrong?"

"YES!"

"Then show me."

From that point on in the rehearsal, those girls gave me everything they had. Their tone was free and soaring, and their pitches were ten times more accurate. When Lizzy came back, they eyed her to see if she would notice. I didn't look over, because it didn't matter. The point was that they were trying.

Now, I wouldn't make that a regular practice, but it worked for the time being. Unfortunately, fourth hour didn't step up as much, and even though I tried to keep the pace going, they dragged me into the ground. Oh well, Monday is another day.

It was wonderful to be able to sing in my friend's graduate conducting recital on Friday night. The repertoire was beautiful, and I could just relax and enjoy singing. I miss singing in a choir under someone else's direction, so it was nice to go back to that for a short while.

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Now it is Sunday, and while I do have lesson plans to get in order, the main project today is to write up a classroom management plan for seminar. Thankfully I have some wonderful resources, and it shouldn't be too painful. Lizzy has loaned me a few books on the subject, and while I panicked at first, she reassured me that they are mainly for browsing; she doesn't expect me to read them cover-to-cover.

I'm feeling much better about today's work for school than I did last week. I have everything written out in a checklist, and when it's all finished I will write it in a journal, shove it in a drawer, and watch last week's episode of Downton Abbey before bed.

I'm convinced it will be a good day.

Groundhog Day

Yesterday I literally worried myself sick. I was physically ill, on the verge of throwing up and passing out all morning, so Lizzy sent me home. She ordered me to go right to bed and not do anything school-related all day.

I went home and talked to my mom for an hour. We figured out that even though I've been doing things to take my mind off of teaching, I don't really immerse myself in them. I'm either thinking about teaching or feeling guilty for not thinking about teaching.

It's also hard to break out of the mindset that "teaching is stressful, so if I'm not stressed I'm not doing it right," or that "if the solution is easy, it's probably wrong." Both of those are fallacies that I have to get over if I'm going to survive. Most of the time the simplest answer is the best one, and it's staring you right in the face.

Even when I'm prepared for the next day, I worry about it. Mom suggested that I write down my thoughts and worries, put them in a box, and then put that box away at the end of the day. I decided to alter that a little bit and just find a journal I'm not currently using, write down what's been accomplished, write a note saying that I'm done for the day, and then stick it in the drawer in my bedside table.

The rest of the day was spent watching Mean Girls, napping, and watching 30 Rock. It was spectacularly relaxing, and exactly what I needed. I didn't feel guilty in the slightest, because Lizzy expressly told me to take a personal day and not even think about school.

Today started much better, but Lizzy was in a foul mood going into all the choir classes--especially fifth and sixth hour. All of the classes were wiped out and didn't want to do anything. Perhaps it's just that they're getting back into the swing of being in school every day. Maybe it's something in the water.

Or the food. Not sure if I mentioned this before, but the entire lunch staff was replaced about a month ago, and when I found that out I had just seen the "School Reunion" episode of Doctor Who. I was kinda weirded out the rest of the week.

Anyway, Lizzy had to do a ton of pulling and pulling just to get the students to even try to read through their music. I took the fifth hour boys into the side office five and six at a time, to see how well they knew their parts for Now is the Month of Maying. Most of them did okay in that room, they just didn't want to sing out during class. Which is beyond frustrating.

Denny, a new student I've mentioned working with before, actually was matching pitch on almost all the notes today! His range on Friday was about an F#3-A3, and today he was doing quite well with E3-C4 in Maying.

HALLELUJAH.

I told him I was really excited for him and pleased with his progress. "Just keep doing what you're doing!" He seemed to cheer up a bit then.

Granted, when the guys had to put their parts together with the girls, he didn't do so hot, but he was consistently trying. We also sang it a lot slower in the office than we did with the whole choir. Baby steps.

And Lizzy finally discovered the secret to getting a semi-decent tone out of fourth hour: warming up the girls and boys separately. Normally her classes don't have a problem warming up together, but this class does. Both genders back off and are distracted by the other's tone. Today they sang out a bit more.

Fourth hour is still stuck on the first page of Dodi Li. Part of it is that there are both girls and boys, and they're not all completely comfortable with their voices yet. Most of it is that most of the students in fourth hour process information slower than the students in third hour, so they are consistently a day or so behind third hour. At least I know what I'm working with so I can adjust!

Finally got them to give the energy the piece requires by threatening to go back to the beginning if they let up the energy at all. They let up a tiny bit towards the middle of the first page, and I didn't start over. Tomorrow I may actually follow through if it gets them to give more and consistently.

Had a brief conversation with a student today before fourth hour after noticing his shirt.

"Is that a Kingdom Hearts shirt?"

He looked down at his shirt. "Yes."

I gave a brief, curt nod. "Good."

We then shared our hatred for the Wonderland music and how it gets stuck in your head for weeks on end. It was a happy moment, even if it reminded me that the game came out when he was a toddler, and when I was his age.

I know I'm only 22, but there are some days when I just feel old.