Just when you think you’ve gotten over your cold, you have a ridiculous sneezing attack. At least I wasn’t driving!
Unrelated: Today is the first day back for the SLSO. Looking forward to seeing the Joshua Bell concert (playing Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto).
Easy day today: Run, errands, paperwork, one student. Here we go!
I do prefer that spelling, don’t you?
I’m finally starting to feel better! Today I ran in the park for a bit–first time since I got sick. Good for me 🙂 We are heading to a friend’s for a BBQ later today–I’ve prepared peanut coleslaw and peach crisp (my grandmother’s recipe).
My Tuesday schedule is looking to be really light–tomorrow I have only one student. Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday will be busy though. Wednesday my classes at Child of God Lutheran School start. I will have three classes of students (at least that’s the starting plan) arranged by grade/level. Some are new, some are returning. My plan for the returning students is to get an idea of what they know/where they are now before I can go forward. The new students will be easier in a way, since I know they are all starting at the same place. The first day will be just setting the stage for expectations and getting to know one another I think. That’s probably all we’ll have time for!
Thursday I start at Good Shepherd School–I have nine (I think?) private students that day. Monday at that school I’ll have the remaining students privately and then orchestra after school–I’ll need to assess where they are level wise to figure out what to do in orchestra the first day. Something easy and fun I think. The good thing is that I will already have spent 30 minutes one on one with each student so it won’t be my first interaction with any of them (hopefully!). I’m guessing that it won’t be long until we need to start playing Christmas music, but it’ll probably be some Essential Elements review the first day, I bet. Maybe some scales too. And making sure everybody knows each other’s names and stuff like that.
The thing that will be potentially exhausting is that on Monday and Thursday after Good Shepherd School I’ll come home and teach a few private students. Hopefully I haven’t overscheduled myself! I think even if two days of the week are super busy I’ll be able to manage since other days aren’t so busy. And I used to do this sort of crazy schedule in Cleveland all the time…but I don’t think I want to get back to where I was there.
Okay, got all that silly vacation stuff out of the way. Back to the real world here. So, now I’ve come down with a nasty cold, I’m on day 4 of it and it is really annoying me! I am now able to function well enough to work, but I missed two whole days earlier this week. Just when I was ready to get back into the swing of things…
We played for two weddings today. The first one we almost missed due to horrendous traffic. It was at the World’s Fair Pavilion, which is about ten to fifteen minutes from my house. I allowed 40 minutes…and it took over an hour to get there. Luckily the photographer was running even later than the musicians (and the bride had only just arrived) and it just started late. I felt bad, but I don’t know WHY the traffic was so awful. Labor Day Weekend, I suppose. Wedding number two was very nice and uneventful. The bride’s mother was very sweet and came over to hug us afterwards. (I wanted to warn her away due to my cold but didn’t have a chance!)
Tomorrow I am ATTENDING a wedding. A good friend of Chris’s is getting married tomorrow. I hope I feel better! I haven’t been to the gym in five days (not being able to breathe properly/at all really messes that up 🙁 ) and I really don’t feel great moving around at all. Gah. Perhaps by tomorrow evening this will all be behind me.
My new school classes start on Wednesday. I am nervous but excited. I have met some of the students but not all, and I look forward to getting to know them better. I have a little preparation to do beforehand that I’ve been putting off until I feel better…I might just need to forge ahead and do some things today.
Happy Labor Day to everyone!
It seems that the question of rewarding children can be a good debate. I finally finished the Alfie Kohn book, “Punished by Rewards” and brought up some of the points tonight at a friend’s house. Most of my friends (many are teachers) swear by stickers and the like for their students (younger). I loved stickers as a child as well!
It seems that it boils down to external motivation versus internal motivation, and how the child needs to move towards being internally motivated in order to learn and grow.
Of course, I am not really internally motivating to practice the violin…though I love the violin, I am still externally motivated to practice. I don’t practice for fun or love of playing, I practice FOR things like a gig, an audition, a recital, or because I am afraid of sounding bad in front of people. I suppose if I’m not internally motivated now to play, I never will be. Then again, I do practice quite a bit…maybe it’s just that I was always shown that practicing was a means to an end? Or perhaps I just don’t love the violin as much as I love other things?
The author used the example of the “Book It” program as a bad program for getting children to read. This was a program from Pizza Hut where children got free pizzas for reading books. I loved reading books as a child, and also loved pizza–this program combined the two! Mr. Kohn suggested that the program didn’t make children want to read, and at most would make children eat too much pizza. I do recall that I always read plenty of books, regardless of the pizza, and hated when I was required to write a summary or something like that. I am definitely internally motivated to read–I read for fun, I read when I am bored, I read to entertain myself, I get lost in books and the time flies by. I don’t need a reason to read, and would probably list it as one of my favorite activities. Then again, I was brought up seeing my parents read all the time and learned from a young age how great reading could be. The pizza was just a bonus!
In any case, the book was thought-provoking, and evidently quite controversial. I will have to try out some of the ideas with my upcoming classes.
Random thought: I am writing a book report of sorts for fun here, and I’m not getting pizza for it (in fact, my trainer would definitely 🙁 upon the idea of pizza). I’m just doing it because I like to blog. Hmmmmm…also no one made me read the book…I read it because it was recommended by a teacher I respect and wanted to learn more about it.
(I guess it boils down to this: no one can motivate you to do something, you have to choose to do it. I think that is true.)
Today is another excessive heat warning day here. I’m just thankful I haven’t had to play outdoors in awhile! August is usually a slow month for weddings, and this August is no exception–in fact I have only played one wedding so far this month, and will only play two or three more. September and October really explode though.
I spent Thursday evening at Good Shepherd Lutheran School’s Registration. I’m the new violin/strings teacher there (part time) so I spent several hours hoping to meet parents/students and answer questions. We have another open house before lessons start up there. It looks like about 10 to 12 had signed up, and hopefully a few more will yet. I’ll be teaching private lessons during school and having a small orchestra program also.
This week I’ll have open house at Child of God Lutheran School (my other new job this year!). The program is only one year old, and the previous teacher did group classes. I plan to continue that, and hope to get last year’s kids back in addition to adding a few new ones (or more than a few, I’m not picky 😉 ).
I also will be continuing at the Ballet School and (I presume) at St. Margaret of Scotland. (And continuing my home studio). Basically I will likely be teaching somewhere four to five days a week, and I can’t wait! After a few years of barely working, it will be really interesting to be at so many different places and meeting so many new students and, of course, teaching them to play the violin.
It looks like this year should be full of teaching! I will be doing several new things, and I look forward to the challenge.
I was talking with someone today regarding the merits of rewards versus the no rewards school of thought. As a child, I actually worked really well towards rewards. I haven’t finished the no rewards book yet…(got caught up with some Sookie Stackhouse and other things 😉 ) but I am reserving judgment on the matter. I was realizing how many concepts, ideas, details, thoughts on teaching, etc, that I have been exposed to this past year and a few months, and how I have barely had any time to utilize those ideas or let them sink in. Hopefully this year I will be able to do that! Then by summer, I will be ready to attend either another Suzuki Institute or maybe Mimi Zwieg’s Institute, or perhaps something else. Though I have no intention (at this time…) of continuing formal schooling, I want to continue to learn. There are so many things in the world I don’t know…