Year 13: Week 18 - Back To Normal-ish

This week we came back from winter break. It felt like a return to “normal.” For my 4th and 5th graders, we were returning to lessons and curricula that weren’t as focused on preparing for a performance. 

The classes in the last couple weeks before winter break culminated in our Winter Program. These lessons had a singular focus on performance preparation. While I enjoy the focus of this work and building up to a performance, the skill-building and variety of activities we usually do get put aside.

Returning to the same class routines with my 4th and 5th graders felt nice. We had some fun doing drum circle activities and composition work for both of these classes. These activities are ones that I’ve done before, almost every year for the past thirteen years. Returning to lessons and projects I’ve done before can sometimes feel mundane, but this week was fun.

Teaching is the practice of doing something over and over, year after year. Yes, there is a percentage of what we teach every new year. However, a lot of what we do, even in the best and most progressive situations, is the same yearly.

What makes things exciting and interesting are the students. The audience, the collaborators are new. Even when teaching the same lesson to different classes on the same day, the experience varies. This is what makes teaching challenging, but it’s also what makes teaching so much fun.

Some of this has to do with your approach to the craft of teaching. It is often said that you don’t teach a subject. You teach children. Great math teachers don’t teach math. They teach the subject of math to children. I genuinely see myself as a teacher over a music teacher. My role in their lives is as a teacher first. The priorities of safety, SEL, and DEIB work are the foundation of my work, not music. Music is the path forward to teaching my students, but it is not my priority as a teacher.

The thing about teaching lessons that you have taught many times before is that the familiarity with them, which one might think would make them boring, is actually an opportunity to engage more proudly with students. When teaching a song or an activity I don’t know very well, I’m more focused on myself and my knowledge of the materials. When I’m teaching something I’ve done before and know well, I can focus more on my students, their reactions, their thoughts, and their work. I’m free from my concerns and insecurities and I can be more in the moment, with and for my students. This past week, this felt great.

Other things about this week felt difficult. There was a lot of catching up to do and taking care of tasks that were put aside because of the performance. My middle school bands have a performance in early February, so they are starting to transition into performance preparation mode. I’m concerned about helping my students make the best of this performance opportunity, as it is their first performance, but I’m optimistic and ready for that challenge.