Alrighty, then! Now that most of October is over and I'm still behind in my blogging, I'll get back to work on something that may or may not be meaningful to anyone else but me. :-)
This week, I've been on a fairly good "emotional high." It's been a good while since I really felt this good inside and out. I'm not sure really what's prompted this good mood this week, but I'm certainly not going to contest it!
I still LOVE working with middle school kids. The earlier posts about working with them (even with 385), yeah, still true. Each day brings something different, and each day, I get to start with brand new things -- even though we are still preparing for a singular concert or performance, the music we are playing never sounds quite the same from one day to the next. Recently, some of the students at the school have been asking how long I'll be a part of the band at the middle school. My answer is the one I give to all of them and to my colleagues and advisors -- November 17th. I'm excited that I'm getting ready to move on to another challenge and a new set of circumstances, but I'm also a little bit sad about leaving. I know these kids now, and I've come to really love working with this group. You know... that whole bitterweet thing about moving on and doing something different.
This week, I did something new! I taught two class periods of general music. Each class has about 25 sixth grade students in it, and they are a completely different breed of animal than the kids in band. While they were still just regular old sixth grade kids, the ones in the band have a different attitude about a lot of things. I guess that's not really tied just to sixth grade -- all music students are different than other students. There's just a kind of attitude linked to the ensemble or class. ANYWAY, we did a composition project. My instructions for covering this class were: "you can teach them whatever you like." Which, obviously, could go a wide number of directions, but this one is one where my mental wheels have been in motion almost constantly since the time the teacher asked me to work with her class.
Ultimately, I took an idea from a presenter at last years' UMEA (Utah Music Educator's Association) conference and used it in the classroom. It worked quite well, actually! We reviewed musical notation using a "Froseth"-like approach. (Play a drum loop, show a card with a rhythm, have them "perform" the rhythm to you) I tricked them a little bit and had them stomp their foot for a quarter note, clap for an eighth note, and snap their fingers for a sixteenth note. I purposely put in some tricky rhythms so they'd be challenged by the end of the class hour. Next, I split them into groups of 3-5 students and gave each group 2 paper cups, 2 rubber bands, and 4 paper clips with the instruction: "Find as many 'new' sounds as you can possibly find using these items." They took that challenge. I gave them about 5 minutes, then asked how many new sounds they'd found. Later, I told them there were about 5,000 different sound combinations using these materials and to keep trying. About another 5 minutes later, I stopped them, had them demonstrate a new sound they'd discovered, and then, still in their groups, come up with a song using their sounds. Actually, some of them might be half-decent composers!
All at once, I want to say that things outside of the school day are just peachy keen, but it's really just the usual: come home, watch a little TV, maybe take the dog for a walk, and spend a little time on Facebook, email, and "Dragonvale" on the iPad before I fall into a nap on the couch or easy chair until mom comes home and it's time to work on dinner or something. Kinda boring? Sometimes. Depending on the day and whether or not school is in session, I have jazz rehearsal on Tuesdays and Thursdays, then Orchestra of Southern Utah on Thursday nights, plus an institute class in the evening on Tuesdays. However, I still get bored from time to time. I should work a little more on my Teacher Work Sample for the education department than I do, but that's going to come with time. I'm only just a couple of days from being done with that nonsense. Oh... did I write that on the internet...?
Finding things to do is easy. There are plenty of things to do around the house, including, but not limited to, cleaning the fish tank and cleaning up in the basement, but finding the motivation and willpower to do them is sometimes difficult. Maybe I should go and visit a doctor? Either way, there are plenty of things I should be doing right now, but I'm just not either physically or mentally able to tackle some of the important things that need doing... Why? I just don't really know.
Anyway, life is good. I just get overwhelmed with some of the things I "have to" do. The "need to do" list keeps growing, and no matter how much pruning you do, it still seems to be too long. Thus, putting it off until tomorrow becomes super easy -- just don't get around to half of it. That's when you know there's something needs to be done!
I think that's it tonight. Adios.
