Tag: independent school
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Class Activity
I don’t usually past about class activities, however, I am making this exception because I’m enjoying the fruit of the activity. On the first day of school, I asked my students to create a playlist of tune to represent how they would like their school year to go. As I tend to do, I put…
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Music and Words
Last month my school had an assembly celebrating the life of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Every year I think about how my school celebrates MLK. In years past, when I taught at a small independent elementary and middle school, we kept it to many of his highlights and events. Students learned about nonviolent protest,…
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Things Students Say and Drizzical
After watching my colleague work herself silly conducting, planning and teaching the all-school musical, I came to a stark realization. The end of the school year can make us feel crazy like everything is closing up on all of us, students, teachers, and administrators. I’ve been especially loopy lately and so have my advisory students.…
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Interesting Week of Thoughts
When I share something that is linked somehow to popular culture, it’s often because “I am late to the party”, but still want to participate. In this case I may still be late to this party, however, I can’t shake how I felt after watching Black Panther. My insights won’t offer anything new to the…
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The things students do
The past four weeks have been quite difficult for me. I had to take a significant amount of time away from my day job as a middle school music teacher to care for my father. I’m sure I’ll have more to say about that as I continue to cope with losing him. However with all…
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Composition out of imitation
“What gives the artist real prestige is his imitators.” Igor Stravinsky I deal with insomnia often. When this happens I try to do something productive. I’m a teacher, so I try to use this time to think about teaching or projects for my students. But before I was a music teacher I was a freelance…
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Prince and 4 Square
I’m Getting Old and We Lost An Icon This week I spent time stretching before going out to do recess duty with middle school kids. Why do you ask, well that’s simple I tried playing “four square” with my students. Anyhow, it’s clear I don’t move like I used to…I’ve been limping since Tuesday. Today…
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Wynton Marsalis Teaching Teachers
If I ever need reminding about the struggle of being a band director and why it’s important to do what I do, Wynton Marsalis sums it up in this talk. All of it applicable to those who learn and those who teach.
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Messy
I forget sometimes how disorganized learning can be for middle school kids. When I teach I tend to offer more help than seems necessary for some kids. With all the educational plans for individual kids and accommodations that need to be made, I forget that learning is a messy business. Some confusion for kids is…
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