This was the week when I started to feel like we were getting into the groove of things. Last weekend we had a three-day weekend. The previous weeks were affected by students being absent because of Jewish Holidays. While this week wasn’t a full week, things felt more settled.
Now is the time when I’m transitioning from beginning of the year activities to working on units that are going to lead towards events and performances. There isn't stressful, but there is a feeling that I need to more carefully plan my lessons and manage my students time directly. This is when lesson planning happens by working backwards from an event as opposed to starting from where we are right now.
As I’ve been planning, I take a look at what I did last year, and I work through the process of figuring out what I’m going to do again, what lessons I’m going to put aside, and what I’m going to add.
One of the things that enjoy about teaching is the opportunity to do lessons that I taught before. When I’m able to try something again, year after year, it allows me to focus more on my pedagogy than on the material. Certain “a-ha” moments happen every year. It never gets old hearing students struggle through a song and then after a couple months of work, the students have mastered these songs.
I don’t do everything the same way, because, well, I simply can’t leave well enough alone. It’s a little bit more complex than that. Sometimes I make changes because my curriculum feels stale, or less relevant. I try not to take songs out of my curriculum based on my negative feelings about a song. Sometimes though my negative feelings are because a song lacks depth and relevance. There are songs I have taught every year for a decade and they still feel fresh and are relevant. Great art can sustain repeated teaching, and keep a teacher interested in the curriculum.
Other times I make changes because of opportunities. My 3rd graders now have iPads that they can use in music class. Even though it took a lot of work and one whole music class was pretty much used up with technology issues, I was able to make iPad use work later in the week and I was happy with how things went.
This year the things I’ve decided not to do have been for a couple reasons. I’ve simply run out of time with some classes because they needed more work at the beginning of the year to establish classrooms norms. Also I’ve dropped some songs that I tried new last year that ended up not working out as well as I thought they would.
Then there’s the new stuff. I taught my students a dance to “September,” because I saw a clip online of another teacher doing it and it looked like fun. The most important addition to my curriculum this fall is a song. It’s one of those special songs that I personally love, works within the music curriculum, and is a wonderful example of social justice. My students have so taken to this song in a way that makes me happy, and almost in disbelief. It’s new part of my curriculum that has taken a lot of work, and I’m taking a chance with this one. I’m more excited than scared, and I’m looking forward to sharing my love of this song with my students and why it’s so important to music, and their future.
More details later…
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