What do you think? Will it take off? I like it but I am a music teacher :)
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
Monday, May 18, 2009
End Of The Year Reflections
Well I fell off the end of the earth well at least the blogging world. For most experienced music teachers I am sure they are well accustomed to the end of the year hecticness. This being only my second year I am still figuring out how much stuff I can and should plan. Is it easier to plan more because there are more opportunities or because you are more willing to show off a more experienced group.
In my first year I did a musical review with my choirs and a movie review with my bands. These were both fairly easy endeavors to tackle. Basically we prepared for them like we would any concert and then a couple days before we did a couple of dress rehearsals and the show was a success. Then we h
This year feeling more brave after gaining you know "so much" experience I decided I should try a few more things in the spring semester. I think at first I felt like my kids needed to be challenged more and that they were getting bored with such a light load and thus I was loosing students and discipline was even slipping. Then it became a learning experience for me where I wanted to see what exactly I could do.
My plan for this years Spring Semester was to do a musical and a music tour. Too much? Go big or go home right?
Well lucky for me I believe I have some of the very best students to work with. The problem with deciding to do both of these things in one semester was that I decided late. In fact I don't think I officially committed myself until right before Christmas.
We decided on Seven Brides for Seven Brothers and I found a script to do auditions with before
When we got back from break we started rehearsals. I had many great people from the community pull through and help me out in amazing ways. Being the only music teacher in my district there is no way I could have pulled this off without a ton of community support which we had.
While all of these preparations were going on we had to start fund raising for our MusicTtour that was happening 3 weeks after our production closed. Luckily AZ has tax Credits which helped us a lot and great principal who paid for all of our Musical including costumes so that everything we profited at the door we could turn around and use on our trip. This proved to be essential. We also hosted a Jon Schmidt concert to help raise money and sold Discount Cards. In the end about 2 days before we left we were able to scrounge up the final money we needed for our tour.
When I say tour I don't mean anything extravagant just a trip to Mesa, AZ where we watched Singing In The Rain at the Broadway Palms Dinner Theater, worked with Dr. Glenn Bennett at Mesa Community College, performed at an assisted living center and a mall, went to Golfland where we played minature golf, go carts, and laser tag, and swam in the pool at the resort we stayed in. Overall a great experience and one that I think will do wonders for recruitment.
By the time we were done with these two major events my kids were exhausted and uplifted. I had many great and encouraging talks witht the students about how they realized how hard they worked to get ready for these things and how they also realised that this kind of hard work and preperation was neccessary for a successful event and most importantly how much fun it was when we could be proud of what we were doing.
Is this not one of the most important aspects of Music Education. If all kids and even adults could learn that one lesson do you think we would have such a sense of entitlement today. Personally I don't.
Well this last week we finally had our last concert of the year and I have to say in my to two years it was hands down our best concert performance wise. Every group showed remarkable and even noticable improvment from my fist year and the beginning of this year. The kids all had a great time and were proud of what they accomplished.
While I will admit that it is laughable to think that after two years we have made it, I know we still have a long way to go but I am glad to see that in my opinion we are headed in the right direction.
Now to make year three as memorable as years one and two. I have ideas on how I need to start now to assure that this happens but I will save this for a later post.
Congrats Graduating Class of 2009 you will be missed!
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In my first year I did a musical review with my choirs and a movie review with my bands. These were both fairly easy endeavors to tackle. Basically we prepared for them like we would any concert and then a couple days before we did a couple of dress rehearsals and the show was a success. Then we h
Image via Wikipedia
This year feeling more brave after gaining you know "so much" experience I decided I should try a few more things in the spring semester. I think at first I felt like my kids needed to be challenged more and that they were getting bored with such a light load and thus I was loosing students and discipline was even slipping. Then it became a learning experience for me where I wanted to see what exactly I could do.
My plan for this years Spring Semester was to do a musical and a music tour. Too much? Go big or go home right?
Well lucky for me I believe I have some of the very best students to work with. The problem with deciding to do both of these things in one semester was that I decided late. In fact I don't think I officially committed myself until right before Christmas.
We decided on Seven Brides for Seven Brothers and I found a script to do auditions with before
Image via Wikipedia
When we got back from break we started rehearsals. I had many great people from the community pull through and help me out in amazing ways. Being the only music teacher in my district there is no way I could have pulled this off without a ton of community support which we had.
While all of these preparations were going on we had to start fund raising for our MusicTtour that was happening 3 weeks after our production closed. Luckily AZ has tax Credits which helped us a lot and great principal who paid for all of our Musical including costumes so that everything we profited at the door we could turn around and use on our trip. This proved to be essential. We also hosted a Jon Schmidt concert to help raise money and sold Discount Cards. In the end about 2 days before we left we were able to scrounge up the final money we needed for our tour.
Jon Schmidt via last.fm
When I say tour I don't mean anything extravagant just a trip to Mesa, AZ where we watched Singing In The Rain at the Broadway Palms Dinner Theater, worked with Dr. Glenn Bennett at Mesa Community College, performed at an assisted living center and a mall, went to Golfland where we played minature golf, go carts, and laser tag, and swam in the pool at the resort we stayed in. Overall a great experience and one that I think will do wonders for recruitment.
By the time we were done with these two major events my kids were exhausted and uplifted. I had many great and encouraging talks witht the students about how they realized how hard they worked to get ready for these things and how they also realised that this kind of hard work and preperation was neccessary for a successful event and most importantly how much fun it was when we could be proud of what we were doing.
Is this not one of the most important aspects of Music Education. If all kids and even adults could learn that one lesson do you think we would have such a sense of entitlement today. Personally I don't.
Well this last week we finally had our last concert of the year and I have to say in my to two years it was hands down our best concert performance wise. Every group showed remarkable and even noticable improvment from my fist year and the beginning of this year. The kids all had a great time and were proud of what they accomplished.
While I will admit that it is laughable to think that after two years we have made it, I know we still have a long way to go but I am glad to see that in my opinion we are headed in the right direction.
Now to make year three as memorable as years one and two. I have ideas on how I need to start now to assure that this happens but I will save this for a later post.
Congrats Graduating Class of 2009 you will be missed!
Sunday, May 3, 2009
Playing For Change: Song Around the World "Stand By Me"
Most youtube videos are funny but occasionally you come across a great inspiring video. This is one of those must see videos! And what better promotion for music education.
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