Revelations

It has certainly not been an easy week but when do those ever happen? I had my first teaching experience and it well so I guess I cannot complain. I was allowed to warm up the groups for the teachers before they got into the pieces. This was great experience and eye opening for my idea of what teaching should look and be like. An old problem resurfaced that has continued to haunt me since Methods when I discovered it. I suck energy out of a room. I do not know how and I certainly do not try to but I am deathly afraid of becoming one of those monotone teachers that every student dreads getting because all they want to do is fall asleep when they talk. I am sure it is not that bad but it is clear that the young, female, third year director of the women's choirs has 100 times the energy I do and her teaching style is more energetic as well. I am working on finding a way to engage the students with my teaching without changing my style to someone else's. My warm ups were observed by my supervisor on Thursday and things were interesting. I realized for the first just how personal criticism can feel. Everything is about what I did wrong and how I did not effectively teach the students. That starts to get to you and I was not as prepared for it as I thought. I usually take criticism well and simply adjust what I was doing wrong but it felt so different to hear it about my teaching. I had to give myself a few days to think things over before I could radiate my possibility. I realized that I do not explain what I do. I spent a good amount of time thinking about what I wanted to have the warm ups do for the students. However, it never occurred to me that the students should hear what I am trying to do as well. I now view warm ups as much more of a teachable moment because the students begin to know why we do them and can begin to understand what they need to work on to get better. This also applies to songs. I presented a piece this week to a group and I worked a bit more to tell them why I was doing certain parts. Doing this helped them remember things about the music they normally wouldn't have and brought them further along faster. The final thought this week was that I need to be able to adjust to the program I am working in because they most likely won't do the same for me. This program uses a style of teaching that I am not used to called Solfege. Although I have used it throughout my life and in college I have never used it for teaching and it is the whole basis for their program. I tried to teach a piece without using it and I found that the students could not understand it as well because they were so used to this other way. I believe I may have to subscribe to their process at least for now in order to find out if it is my teaching or the fact that they are only used to one method that makes my teaching less effective than my CTs.

There was not a song that fit my theme but this one fit the emotions of life pretty well.