Reflections from student teaching at FES

Monday,
October 17th, 2011
Today was the first day in my second placement at Fairdale Elementary School. Compared to the
schools near Glenville, this one is huge. We have 4 kindergarten classes, 3 1st grades, 4 2nd grades, 3 3rd grades, 3 4th grades, 3 5th grades, and 2 Pre-K classes. I see half of the school on Monday/Wednesday, and then the other half on Tuesday/Thursday. M/W and T/R groups alternate on Fridays. All together, I have 497 students (or at least that was the last official count). The Raleigh County school system is very large. There are 19 elementary schools, 6 middle/Jr. High schools, 3 AA high schools, and 1 AAA high school. I have a feeling that I will have plenty of subbing opportunities next semester.
Fairdale is now in a new school building that opened in 2010. EVERY classroom has a
SMARTBOARD!!!!!! This is elementary school that I attended (in the old worn down building, of course). I know a few of the teachers. Both of my 1st and 2nd grade teachers still work here. It was nice to be able to re-introduce myself and update them on my life. I thanked my 1st grade teacher for her great job teaching me to read. The look on her face was priceless. My partner teacher, however, has only been at this school for a few years. Her class is probably the most organized that I have ever seen. Everything has a place, and when the students walk into the classroom, they are quiet and go right to their seats. I can tell that she has a very organized routine that she sticks to.
So far, I believe I am going to enjoy my time here. All of the other teachers I have met are very helpful, and the students seem great.

Wednesday,
October 19th, 2011
During my first two days in the elementary setting, I began to realize how much I missed
my band students from my high school placement. I still miss them, but that all changed today because I taught Kindergarten music classes! They were great. I taught them a new song called “Jack-O-Lantern”. I have also been team teaching with Mrs. Furey while the other grades are in the classroom. We decided that I would pick up one new grade each day until I have them all.
Tomorrow I will add 1st grade. While we were teaching the 1st grade class today, one student began tattling on another. Mrs. Furey said that she did not want to hear tattletales in her classroom. After she said that, the entire class said “tattle and tale makes tattletale” (on their own). Then, another little girl added “that’s a compound word!!!!” I can tell that this placement is going to be quite comical. I really like teaching this age group so far. I realize the perks of teaching the high school, and I realize the perks of teaching elementary students. I do know that I now have about 4 extra hours to myself each day, since this elementary school is much closer to where I live, and I do not have after school band practice. At the same time, I liked working with high school students because they are at an age where they really start coming into some interesting personalities. I also really enjoyed working with the band, mostly because I just love band. At the same time, I love how my Kindergarteners sound like Alvin and the Chipmunks when they sing their little songs and how they all wave (as excitedly as possible) when they see me in the hallway. I do, however, plan on visiting my high school students this Friday at their home football game. My HS partner teacher invited me to travel with the band to the Tri-State Marching Festival at Marshall University on Saturday, and I also plan on going to that.

Week 2 Reflections
October 25th, 2011
The students this week seem to be much more talkative. I learned today that if you give elementary school students an inch when it comes to talking out of turn, you run the risk of having the classroom turn into a zoo. I am now teaching Kindergarten, 1st, 2nd, and 3rd
grade by myself, and my partner teacher and I are team-teaching with the 4th and 5th graders because they are preparing for a Christmas variety show. Overall, I really enjoy teaching at the elementary level because of the students’ enthusiasm. They already seem to know a lot about music because my partner teacher is a stickler for covering CSOs. The first graders already
understand ABA form, and everyone in the school knows what “forte” and “piano” mean. The 2nd and 3rd grade will be starting on treble clef lines next week. I applied for the PDS mini-grant, and will be receiving two sets of chromatic hand bells in about a week.

October 27th, 2011
Today the 4th and 5th graders seemed to work much harder on their music than they have since I have been here. My partner teacher and I have been using our planning period to audition soloists for one of the variety show songs. The students seem very enthusiastic about
it, and there were about 30 that tried out. We also received boomwhackers and kazoos yesterday. There will be more students chosen for special boomwhacker parts, and others will play jingle bells for a few songs. The most difficult part about putting together a show is not the music. Planning everything, like keeping up with t-shirt orders, instrument parts, solos, and the little things are the most difficult. The students are well on their way with learning their
songs.

Reflections, Week 3
Tuesday, November 1st, 2011
About a month ago, I had the idea stuck in my head that high school music teachers put in many more hours than elementary school music teachers, and that if I ever want a family, or time for a family, I should probably teach at the elementary school level. That opinion is gone. This
elementary placement is taking nearly just as much time preparing for performances as my high school placement. My partner teacher puts in so many extra hours---much more than I ever thought an elementary music teacher would. I like to think that this is because she seriously cares about her own quality of teaching. Since I attended the elementary school I am at, I began thinking about the music teacher that was at the school before my partner teacher was
hired. Ironically, that teacher was probably the worst teacher I ever had. I hate to talk negatively about anyone, but I realized this week that I was deprived of a quality music education program in terms of public school. I am not sure why she was ever hired and never fired. My memories of that teacher’s class only involve the song “Elvira”, Scooby Doo movies, an old record player
with some sort of listening activity that did not involve music and was probably intended for a reading class, and a very intimidating classroom environment. I remember more yelling than anything. Looking back, that teacher had NO sense of classroom management. If she did get out the tambourines, cymbals, and rhythm sticks, there were no rules and the room was just a loud mess. The only “discipline problems” I had while I was in elementary school occurred in the
music classroom. It wasn’t that I misbehaved purposely; I just did not want to participate because the class was complete chaos and I did not want to add to it. Her idea of behavior management involved threatening to cut students’ tongues off with a paper cutter if they talked, or threatening to cut off fingers if the students fidgeted around too much. I was shut down from fear. I am so thankful that my parents realized what was going on and enrolled me in private piano lessons. Had it not been for that, I would have never had the notion to major in Music Education. Although I feel an extreme sense of distaste for that teacher, I can at least thank her for teaching me what a bad teacher is, and being so worthless that my parents thought private lessons were
a better option. In the end, it worked out well for me. This led me to think further about the students at my placement. I have a kindergartener that already says that she wants to be a
music teacher. She definitely shows potential. She comes to school showing off her 8th note earrings, and always has a big grin on her face when she is in the music room. She jumps around and dances and sings with more enthusiasm than her peers. Seeing that makes my day because I know the music program has made a complete turn-around. My partner teacher has a great
classroom routine. She expects the students to walk in quietly to their seats. If they fail to do so, she makes them go back into the hallway and re-enter the classroom like they are expected to. When we use rhythm sticks, the rule is that they do not play at random. If they tap their sticks when they are not supposed to, their sticks are confiscated. “Elvira” has been banned, and the
song list contains well over 100 songs from an actual music textbook. I am happy to know now that if a student from that school wants to take private lessons, it is because they already have a firm foundation in music and they are excited about it.

Wednesday, November 2nd, 2011
Today the handbells that we ordered from the GSC PDS Mini-Grant arrived. I believe that the 5 days of waiting for them to arrive were the slowest I have had in my entire student teaching. I plan on starting the 1st graders next week with them. This process makes me a little nervous because I have never introduced handbells to elementary students before and neither has my partner teacher. I am thinking that just showing how they work, where the note names are, rules for taking care of them, etc. will be the first lesson with them. My next lesson will involve the color coded cards. The set of flash cards have 12 copies of each bell color. Instead of handing out
the bells, I am going to hand out the cards for 3 different colors. On average, 8 students will have yellow, 8 will have orange, and 8 will have red. If they can hold up their card at my command, we can move on to bells. I was only able to get two chromatic sets of bells, so the students will have to take turns playing the bells. I believe this will be OK, since we have already played some
songs that involve cymbals, and have had to take turns playing those. Our first song will be “Mary had a Little Lamb”, which involves only Yellow, Orange, and Red. We will practice with the cards first, then the students will get the chance to play them by rotation while the other students use the cards. I hope my plan works….

Reflection, Week 5
Monday, November 14th
Few things went smoothly today. I suppose the first step in fixing a problem is admitting that I have one. I am addicted to classroom technology! I realized this at lunch today, after spending the morning without a properly functioning Smart Board. I sat there, eating my ravioli, looking
around the room at everything I use every day. If it all quit working, I would have to revert back to a marker board and acoustic instruments. We use the iPod every day, and if that were to fail, we would use the piano, which is electronic as well. This placement has spoiled me. After the Smart board went nuts, I had to use some sort of writing utensil from the dark ages called a
“marker”. Then, to my astonishment when I circled what I wrote on the board and tapped it, nothing erased! 3 more days until our “tech lady” comes to visit… OH, the
agony!!!
Thankfully, the hand bells will always work. I introduced them to the 2nd grade. I am amazed with the difference between grade levels in getting the hang of playing them. 2nd grade is ready to
move on to another song. We had a spider incident in the classroom today. A student
pointed it out to me while they were singing a song. It was under the speaker table and more towards the corner, so since it did not pose any imminent threat to anyone in the room, I just figured I would keep an eye on it and wait until the students left before I killed it. Actually, this creature was a beast of a spider, and I did nothing because it was out of reach and my typical reaction to spiders is nothing short of embarrassing. It was actually quite frightening, because it was nearly the diameter of an oreo cookie. I just kept an occasional eye on it. After a little while, I forgot about it, but the student didn’t. He quietly pointed it out to my partner teacher, and she ran straight to the storage closet. I wasn’t sure what she was doing, and she came out with a
broom. She went after it with no reserve. It took about 7 whacks before it finally died. The students and I thought it was pretty hilarious, and my partner teacher told me that she was worn out after it!

Friday, November 18th
This placement is nearing an end. Today was “Thank a TeacherDay”. I can tell that I am going to miss these students when I leave. I received a lot of pictures and letters that the students made for me. It also turns out that I may already have a lead on a half-time job at a different
elementary school in Raleigh County. Even though it is only a half-time position, and not where I would prefer to stay for my entire career, it would be a great way to get my foot in the door. It is in a location that is a little “out” in the country, and the county has not been able to find anyone to take the position because it is only half-time. The good news is that when I talked to the RCBOE member about it, she said that one of the middle school music teachers is planning on retiring, which would open up another half-time job. I hope this is not too good to be true.