Category Archives: Teaching

Teaching

Another Monday finished

Well, today wasn’t as bad as I thought!  Last night I was really feeling pretty down.  I’m better now.

What happened today?  Well, most important, and unfortunately, Chris didn’t advance in his audition.  That’s okay.  He worked hard, and there are always more auditions.  I’m also glad he doesn’t seem too upset!  The longer I am in this world, the angrier I get at auditions.  But that’s another story for another day 🙂

Teaching was better than expected!  My large class this morning begged for a game, so we ended up playing “Simon Says” for a bit and that went really well.  We also worked on a fair amount of songs and did pretty well with posture.

The next school was hit and miss.  Some of the students hadn’t practiced all well.  I did a pretty good lecture about that at the end of my class.  Some of the students were GREAT!  My three most advanced students there (all girls) were just fantastic today.  I assigned them various three part Christmas carols to start learning (rotating the melody/harmony parts) and asked them to go in a different room and get started while I worked with the less advanced students.  After about 20 minutes they came back and I asked them to play through a little of what they had done.  They didn’t think they were doing very well but I was pleased!  I reminded them they were just getting started and by December would be great.  One of the girls had been concerned she would just be bored in orchestra all year but by the end of that she was GLOWING.  I’ll have to keep challenging those three this year as I think they can really do well.  The other kids need a bit more guidance, and a couple of them were being very negative (i.e. “I’m bored!  I’m tired!”) today and I did end up giving a bit of a lecture on attitude and practice that I hope will make some impression.

Tomorrow is another day 🙂

Practicing, Running, Teaching

Sunday night blues

Okay, I’m ready for Monday morning now.  I was moping around a few hours ago feeling that “end of weekend” blues, but now I’ve packed my lunch, prepared the coffee maker, reviewed my lesson plans, and decided (mostly) what to wear tomorrow.  I’m ready to face the children!

A few weeks ago I was SO excited to start my new jobs, now I’m working hard to get energized for tomorrow.  I have a list of activities I want to do, and I’m hoping to get through at least some of them…there is one student in particular who tries to derail the class, and I am having difficulty figuring out how to deal with him.

I suppose I’m actually pretty stressed due to my upcoming half marathon (will be walking half or so!)–it’s one week from today.  I’ve never run in a race before, so I’m a bit nervous about all the actual race details in addition to the actual running of the race.  I hope I do okay and make it through!

I’m also stressed because Chris is taking an audition tomorrow.  He’s been working hard for it, but auditions are always such a crapshoot (trying to be in an orchestra is the most difficult thing to do).  I hate that I am really busy all day tomorrow and won’t have a chance to talk to him until evening.  Not that it would be better to sit around stressing and having nothing to do, but I would feel more supportive somehow!  I know I’m being ridiculous.

Usually writing my blog entry makes me feel better and organizes my head, but not tonight.  I guess my brain is just a jumble due to the stress–this is actually my third try tonight.   They say third time’s the charm?

Readers:  I always welcome more ideas on how to encourage/make students practice.  I need to communicate with the parents (these are my class students, not my private) more about the importance of home practice.  I made the mistake of assuming that the returning students had a practice routine, and that was a big mistake on my part.  When will I learn?

Practicing, Teaching

Practicing

Thursday is a long day for me–I have 12 scheduled students in two locations.  Today I finished my second student and I thought I was going to just fall asleep.  I didn’t know HOW I would make it through the rest.   After the next two, things were even worse.  Then I realized why today was so bad (in addition to still being a little sick, and having slept poorly…).  None of my students had done even CLOSE to the practicing I had asked for.  In fact, several had done NO practicing at all.  It’s sad how quickly I can go from being hopeful and excited about new students to being totally depressed because none of my students are practicing and I just don’t know what else to do.  Granted they are new and I haven’t tried much, but if they won’t practice right off the bat with a new teacher, when will they?

However, as the day progressed, a couple of my students really surprised me, and had done MORE than I asked for, and really done a great job.  So at least I’m not failing all of my students!!  I’ll have to figure out how to encourage the non-practicing students to do better.

Teaching

Push-ups?

So I think the rewards day has already come back to bite me, as the kids keep asking what they will get for doing this or that.  “Do we get a candy bar?”  NO.  You get to learn a new song.  Isn’t that enough?  Bonus:  if you don’t get candy for everything, you will have a lower sugar tolerance and might have less problems with your weight as you get older.  Goodness knows our society has enough trouble to that effect!  Maybe I’ll incorporate push-ups as a reward?  You play this song well, you get to do 10 push-ups!  Play it again with a better tone, and you get to run up and down a flight of stairs!  Would this work?  Then again, it’s still a reward for doing something, and would probably backfire.  Life is hard 🙁

Teaching

Morning “commute”

Two things:

1) I really enjoy driving by myself for 30 to 45 minutes for teaching or gigs.  It’s the perfect amount of time for clearing my head, listening to the radio (big npr fan), or catching up with a friend on the phone.

2) I should really decide when I set my alarm if I am going to dry my  hair in the morning or not.  Makes a 5 to 10 minute difference.  Stupid hair.

Teaching

Giving in

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Monday I had a double class at Child of God due to scheduling concerns. In fact, it will be that way every Monday–I’ll have a class of 1st through 4th graders. I probably could have come up with something better to do, but since I was sick over the weekend (and into the week, argghh!) I went the lazy route. I told the kids they had to play Twinkle and French Folk Song for me and if they succeeded they would get a pencil. The class was full of cacophony of the kids frantically practicing! However, I was able to accomplish two goals: hearing each child alone for assessment purposes and making sure each child knew Twinkle and French Folk Song. So it worked pretty well, though I felt guilty and cheap 😉

And here I am going into Wednesday without a super clear idea of what to do in tomorrow’s classes…really I want to play a bunch, play as many pieces together as we can and also work on posture (NO droopy violins, stand up straight.) Hmmm…I suppose that’s as clear of an idea as I need…let’s see how it goes! Perhaps I’ll play piano tomorrow instead of violin to give the kids variety and hold their attention longer.