I got a cold from my youngest son earlier in the week. I took a day off when it first hit me. I’m glad I did. My symptoms weren’t debilitating, but they were significant. I was better the next day, so I did go to school.
I was feeling a lot better, but I was tired, and I didn’t have much of a speaking voice. I considered doing a less active lesson with my 3rd graders that day. They have independent work they can do, which I don’t have to teach as actively.
Part of growing as a teacher is how I create more space for my students to explore independently. More traditional music teaching has the teacher actively leading the students for the entire class. On the other hand, more progressive and innovative teaching has the students do more projects. In the early parts of the pandemic, this teaching became necessary as we weren’t allowed to have students sing or play instruments. I found that aspects of this type of instruction and curriculum were rewarding for the students and me.
As my 3rd graders came into my classroom, they were so excited about music, and I figured I’d lean in and do more active teaching. I figured I could always pull back and switch gears if I wasn’t feeling it.
So I taught a recorder lesson. It was only our second or third week on the recorder, and it was going well. Teaching the recorder is tricky. It can be a lot of fun, but the classroom management piece of it is really hard. Students want to explore the instrument, which is great; however, they can’t effectively do this when other students are playing because it can be really hard to hear themselves. So students will try to play in quieter moments, like during instruction, which leads to me constantly feeling like I’m playing “whack-a-mole,” telling students to stop playing.
I haven’t been mean in the last few classes, but I’ve been very direct and quick about giving students feedback so they understand how to work when doing a recorder lesson. At times this may have come off as a little harsh, but I did remind my students that I was doing that to help them by being very clear about my expectations.
I didn’t have that energy today, but I decided to go for it. I passed out the recorders, I gave them some reminders, and we got to work. I sat back in my chair and looked at them playing, and then I put my hand up, they stopped playing, and we got to work. All I felt I could be was calm. I smiled softly at them while we worked; they matched my mood and energy. I was surprised at how well things worked with me being so chill. For some reason, I expected them to need me to be louder and more energetic, but they were fine. So I did the same thing for the following two classes and had a great morning teaching.
Sometimes things click with a group of children. It’s not always clear why, but when it does, teaching is a lot of fun. Being more calm invites students to do the same, think carefully, and create a moment with me where we can all learn in peace.
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