Year 13: Week 13 - I Never Did Believe In Miracles…

Sometimes when I play the music that I love for my students, I'm unsure how they will react. I've been listening to Christine McVie's work, ever since she passed away earlier this week. I didn't really have time to teach about her this week, but I wanted my students to have an experience with her beautiful voice, incredible songwriting, and masterful musicianship. So during our opening warm-up activity, I played "You Make Loving Fun."

 

As soon as the keyboard groove hit, I could tell that my students were feeling this song. I wondered how they would react to the dated keyboard sound, but they didn't seem to mind. As I led my class in stretching and some breathing exercises, I smiled and sang along softly to this song. While I did this, I could see in my students' eyes they were enjoying this song too.

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We had a modified schedule on Thursday for a community partnership project. This meant my middle schoolers would have half an hour of band on Thursday afternoon instead of an hour of band class on Thursday morning.

With all that was going on in the next couple of weeks, it was important to go over this change earlier in the week. So I opened band class on Monday and Tuesday, letting them know about the schedule change. I explained this to them as a heads-up more than a big piece of news. I didn't think they would react strongly to this, but they did. My students expressed anger, confusion, and shock. They were not happy about having a shortened band class on Thursday.

My first reaction was to calm them down and ask them to temper their responses, look at the positive and express their opinions more constructively. Then I paused and thought, "Band is going so well this school year that my students are upset that their band class is shortened. This is a great sign." So I sat there for a moment listening to their protests and enjoyed this expression of how much they enjoyed band.

*****

There is a pride I feel when someone I hire finds success. It's one of my favorite things about my job. When I hire someone, my approach is to put faith in them and their abilities. I manage them believing that they will be successful. And I continue to work with people this way until they prove me wrong.

One of the new teachers I hired this past week had their first concert, which was wonderful. His students performed at a high musical level and worked really hard, and there was a great feeling during the whole event.

It's nice to be proven right, but more than that, it's wonderful to be part of someone else's success and know that I did right by this teacher and our students.