This week is the last week of placement. I'm glad that it will soon be over, and I can concentrate on finishing the semester at uni. I'm looking forward to all the german classes.
I'm getting assessed on my teaching tomorrow, and I am confident that it should all go well. I have a lot of activities planned, and should only have to use some of them, but if things don't go well, then I have some backups. I'm going to do some conducting with them, which should be interesting considering that I don't think even half of them have any idea what one is much less what one does. But I'll show them.
Monday, February 26, 2007
Wednesday, February 14, 2007
Week Two Placement
Now that I am more into the placement and getting an idea of what goes on in the school, I am feeling better about the whole experience. I think a lot about last week and my impression of the music department comes from classes and teacher settling in to the first week. I played today with the year 7 band kids, ones that kinda know how to play, (the first real contact I've had with real playing so far however) and I'll play again with them next week, on monday. I'm really looking forward to it.
My year 7 class yesterday was good, but not good. I have a ways to go with classes; keeping them in line. But he said that it will take time to sort out my teaching style and how to talk to the class like a teacher instead of an adult who knows stuff. Or as a student teacher. I would love to come and see some of my teachers at my high school and how they run their classes, in particular the music schools to see how they present the music information to the kids. Musically this school doesn't equal how my high school is, and if I am going to be teaching there it would give me a better insight into what I will need to be thinking about this year to be able to teach classes by myself and meet the right goals. To teach them what they need to know to be able to pass at the end of the year, when the other teacher comes back and takes over again.
My year 7 class yesterday was good, but not good. I have a ways to go with classes; keeping them in line. But he said that it will take time to sort out my teaching style and how to talk to the class like a teacher instead of an adult who knows stuff. Or as a student teacher. I would love to come and see some of my teachers at my high school and how they run their classes, in particular the music schools to see how they present the music information to the kids. Musically this school doesn't equal how my high school is, and if I am going to be teaching there it would give me a better insight into what I will need to be thinking about this year to be able to teach classes by myself and meet the right goals. To teach them what they need to know to be able to pass at the end of the year, when the other teacher comes back and takes over again.
Saturday, February 10, 2007
Placement week one
I have finished the first week of music placement. I am so glad that the first week is out of the way. I taught one class this week, and I was standing in the office ready to go out, thinking to myself "I really don't want to do this..."
The music department is really old, and the instruments they have are older. They have class sets of books on a shelf at the back of the room from 1960, crappy old songs and hopelessly outdated information. They are all covered in dust, which makes me ask why are they still there?
The classes have been getting gradually better, but the teacher I am with is so depressed with the department and the state of the music in the school he has almost given up on being able to teach them anything useful about something he obviously knows a lot about. Though I don't know if he seems to know a lot because he always teaches the same thing...
The thing that I am hating the most about rounds is that even though I am at the front of the class talking, it is not my class. After they class I taught on wednesday, I sat and listened to the things he had to say to me about how to run the class and I agreed to roughly half of what he said. I suppose that is a good sign becuase it shows me that I do have definate ideas about what to teach them and how to keep them listening and how to show them things about music. I think they don't care much about it because in their experience music is pretty crap, if all they have to go by is the shite on the radio. Music is exciting and dynamic and easy and difficult at the same time, and a lot more interesting than just clapping out rhythms on drums. The way he has been teaching them stuff so far bores me to tears.
I sat in on a trumpet lesson, and that bored me to tears too. They got out their instruments and the only thing they did was play scales. I wanted to teach them about breathing together to come in without having to count, and show them how your posture changes your sound, and use a piece of music to expand their vocab, and play with the piano to fill in the spaces between their dodgy notes, and play long notes, and play loud notes to see if we could annoy the other teachers in the rooms nearby so they would buy me some practice rooms. And play something bloody INTERESTING! The state of music in this school is honestly pissing me off, and I can see soooooo many things I would do immediately to make a big difference.
Such as tidy things up. There are the old books on the side of the room, someones jumper on the floor, a broken chord lying on the ground, guitars just lying against each other, tables crooked, chairs all over the place, precussion instruments spread out so that you have to step over them, etc etc etc. He's using a green bag to store all the leads in.
Part of the problem lies in the rooms that they have been allocated, or lack thereof. There are no practice rooms what so ever. No place for a band to play where stands and chairs could be set up. No where for the music to be stored so that it can be easily accessed, the instruments are stored in the library on the other side of the school. The brass teacher told me that the instruments were the same ones when he was there, and they were crappy then. A few hundred a year to get some basic yamahas for the students to play is all it would take. If you don't have decent equipment you have nothing. Music I could get by without having to buy, but if there isn't something reliable and decent sounding for the students to play for the year and be happy to pay the band fees to rent out, then no wonder there is no band program at the school and everyone can't stand to be studying music!!
I guess I do have a lot of ideas about how to run a music program. And if you don't get what you want the first time, then bug the hell out of the office until you get it. Make no excuses.
It should be an interesting second week.
The music department is really old, and the instruments they have are older. They have class sets of books on a shelf at the back of the room from 1960, crappy old songs and hopelessly outdated information. They are all covered in dust, which makes me ask why are they still there?
The classes have been getting gradually better, but the teacher I am with is so depressed with the department and the state of the music in the school he has almost given up on being able to teach them anything useful about something he obviously knows a lot about. Though I don't know if he seems to know a lot because he always teaches the same thing...
The thing that I am hating the most about rounds is that even though I am at the front of the class talking, it is not my class. After they class I taught on wednesday, I sat and listened to the things he had to say to me about how to run the class and I agreed to roughly half of what he said. I suppose that is a good sign becuase it shows me that I do have definate ideas about what to teach them and how to keep them listening and how to show them things about music. I think they don't care much about it because in their experience music is pretty crap, if all they have to go by is the shite on the radio. Music is exciting and dynamic and easy and difficult at the same time, and a lot more interesting than just clapping out rhythms on drums. The way he has been teaching them stuff so far bores me to tears.
I sat in on a trumpet lesson, and that bored me to tears too. They got out their instruments and the only thing they did was play scales. I wanted to teach them about breathing together to come in without having to count, and show them how your posture changes your sound, and use a piece of music to expand their vocab, and play with the piano to fill in the spaces between their dodgy notes, and play long notes, and play loud notes to see if we could annoy the other teachers in the rooms nearby so they would buy me some practice rooms. And play something bloody INTERESTING! The state of music in this school is honestly pissing me off, and I can see soooooo many things I would do immediately to make a big difference.
Such as tidy things up. There are the old books on the side of the room, someones jumper on the floor, a broken chord lying on the ground, guitars just lying against each other, tables crooked, chairs all over the place, precussion instruments spread out so that you have to step over them, etc etc etc. He's using a green bag to store all the leads in.
Part of the problem lies in the rooms that they have been allocated, or lack thereof. There are no practice rooms what so ever. No place for a band to play where stands and chairs could be set up. No where for the music to be stored so that it can be easily accessed, the instruments are stored in the library on the other side of the school. The brass teacher told me that the instruments were the same ones when he was there, and they were crappy then. A few hundred a year to get some basic yamahas for the students to play is all it would take. If you don't have decent equipment you have nothing. Music I could get by without having to buy, but if there isn't something reliable and decent sounding for the students to play for the year and be happy to pay the band fees to rent out, then no wonder there is no band program at the school and everyone can't stand to be studying music!!
I guess I do have a lot of ideas about how to run a music program. And if you don't get what you want the first time, then bug the hell out of the office until you get it. Make no excuses.
It should be an interesting second week.
Sunday, February 04, 2007
Placement
I got my school placement, I'll be teaching classes next week! I am nervous but also excited. I have no idea about the music department, I have nothing planned for them yet, but I am sure that when I am organised I will be good at this. I am staying optimistic about it.
I got all the dates sorted out for uni, and I'll be going on honeymoon straight after the wedding. I got one of my timetables online for a class in the second half of the year, that had a list of classes in the week after the 20th. When I talked to the lady running the class she said that if I sign up early I can organise it so that I have all the requirements out of the way in time. I'll have to be super organised before then because it will be hard work finalising the details for the wedding in the week before if I'm attending seminars from 9 - 5. Everything should be organised by then.
I still don't have a photographer, it's the last 'early' detail. It's just that I don't know anything about it, or who to ask about it, to know who will do a good job with such an important detail. Anyway, I am sure that the right thing will happen when it is supposed to. Or I'll make a ton of phone calls this week to get it sorted out.
I wont be able to do much work over the next three weeks. That's the worst thing about this course, they say that you have to go do this placement and you have to be at the school from 8am to 4 30pm, and you have to prepare for classes and be involved in extracurricular stuff, but they don't have any provision for students who need to pay for petrol or buy food or pay rent and bills. At least I was able to put a few dollars away for then, but saving money is so hard when you have the same living requirements as everyone else, and half the wage. Being a student sucks. Can't wait till it's over.
I got all the dates sorted out for uni, and I'll be going on honeymoon straight after the wedding. I got one of my timetables online for a class in the second half of the year, that had a list of classes in the week after the 20th. When I talked to the lady running the class she said that if I sign up early I can organise it so that I have all the requirements out of the way in time. I'll have to be super organised before then because it will be hard work finalising the details for the wedding in the week before if I'm attending seminars from 9 - 5. Everything should be organised by then.
I still don't have a photographer, it's the last 'early' detail. It's just that I don't know anything about it, or who to ask about it, to know who will do a good job with such an important detail. Anyway, I am sure that the right thing will happen when it is supposed to. Or I'll make a ton of phone calls this week to get it sorted out.
I wont be able to do much work over the next three weeks. That's the worst thing about this course, they say that you have to go do this placement and you have to be at the school from 8am to 4 30pm, and you have to prepare for classes and be involved in extracurricular stuff, but they don't have any provision for students who need to pay for petrol or buy food or pay rent and bills. At least I was able to put a few dollars away for then, but saving money is so hard when you have the same living requirements as everyone else, and half the wage. Being a student sucks. Can't wait till it's over.
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