This is truly a time of new beginnings for me! I’ll be starting at a new school this year
which means a new classroom, all new students, new colleagues, a new
administration, and new parents! I also
recently moved and got married this summer, and after thinking about it for
quite a long time, I have finally started this blog!
I am excited for so many new beginnings, but I have found myself lately
thinking a lot about my past teaching experiences and what affect they will
have on my new teaching experience.
Having taught in several different buildings, I can truly attest that
there are no two schools that are alike.
I have been busy the last few weeks preparing plans for my new classes,
but without ever meeting my students or even seeing my classroom, I was only
able to get as far as writing my Kindergarten curriculum and song lists for
each grade. I have been itching for our
school’s master schedule to be finished so I can start planning some lessons!
While I have not been able to finish writing any of my yearly plans, I
have been thinking a lot about my goals for myself professionally. Here are my goals for myself for this school
year:
1. Collaborate more with general classroom
teachers.
For the past two years that I have
taught in my district, I have always had at least one other general music
teacher at my school along with a band and a strings teacher. Collaborating with the other music teachers
has actually gone quite well, however I feel like I have fallen really short
when it comes to working with non-music teachers. I’d really like to find ways to work with my
general classroom colleagues to make connections between what the students are
doing in the classroom and what I’m teaching in the music classroom. As a Kodály teacher, I’ve become a little
snobby about the songs that I choose to teach (for authenticity’s sake as well
as musical value) so songs that are composed so that they can be “cross-curricular”
do not appeal to me. However, I think I
can definitely work hard to find ways to make the songs and units that I teach
relate to what students learn in their general education classrooms. Since I will be in a new school this year,
this may be a little tricky at first since I’ll still be learning who people
are, but I’m really hoping this works out J.
2. Find consistent ways to get to know
students outside of my music classroom.
At my previous school, my scheduled was
PACKED. I’m talking, 10 music classes a
day (yes, I said 10!). So naturally, I
didn’t have a lot of free time. I did,
however, have a few students that really needed to make a personal connection
with me before they were able to engage in music class. It took me most of the year to realize this
fact, but when I did I began using the twenty minutes I had at the end of the
day to invite students to spend some one on one time with me a couple days a
week. For most students, I gave them
mini-piano lessons or let them try out my guitar with the point being that we
would have time to really get to know each other (I knew this, they just knew I
was spending extra time with them). For
these kids it made all the difference in the world. While I was glad that this extra time worked
so well with the kids I implemented it with, I was also disappointed that I
could not make time to do this for more of my students. While the master schedule is not yet complete
for this year, from what I have heard I’ll have a little more flexibility
(definitely not 10 music classes a day, yay!) and I definitely plan on using
that time to get to know my students outside of my classroom. I’ll definitely write more on how I hope to
make that work when I figure it out!
3. Engage parents and keep them connected with
the learning that is taking place in music class.
I hope I’m not alone in this, but most
of my parent communication happens when something is needed or something is
wrong. If I need students to be at
school for a certain time for a chorus rehearsal, I send letters home. If I’m having discipline issues with a
student, I make a phone call home. I
haven’t really engaged parents in what happens in my classroom on a day to day
basis or attempted to give them information on what learning is happening. A colleague of mine from another school I
taught at a couple years ago would periodically send out “Ask Me” sheets that
basically had suggestions to parents of what to ask their children about what
they were learning in music. For
instance, in a first grade class an Ask Me sheet might say “Ask me to tell you
about what rhythm is and ask me to perform the rhythm while singing Engine,
Engine.” I remember thinking that this
was such a great idea, and now I’m ready to try it out for myself!
4. Seek out information on other methodologies
and how they can enhance my Kodály curriculum.
I just finished Kodály Level III this
summer! And I have to admit, for the
past few years I’ve kind of been living in a “Kodály box”. My entire teaching style has been motivated
by my Kodály background the past few years, but I think that has caused me to
turn a blind eye to everything else.
When I was growing up, I attended several music camps in the
summer. While I did not know it then, I
often took Dalcroze Eurhythmics classes through these camps. Those classes with their expressive movement
and rhythmic exercises were always my favorite!
When I was considering pursuing higher education, I actually seriously
considered becoming certified in the Dalcroze philosophy and have since
attended a few workshops, but nothing beyond that. I have also attended some great workshops on
how the Kodály and Orff methodologies can work together, but I feel like I need
to know more about how Orff works before I could successfully do this
myself. I really hope to push myself
outside the “box” this year and bring my curriculum to the next level.
My first official day back to work is tomorrow and I am so excited to
get started! I can’t wait to get to meet
the rest of my colleagues (I did have orientation at my new school last Friday
so I met the other new teachers and saw my room) and learn more about the
culture of my new school.
On another note, I’ve been thinking about starting this blog for a long
time and I really hope that it can be a place to share teaching and learning
experiences with other teachers and open up dialogue on various topics. I can’t wait to hear about others’ starts to
the new school year and the various plans other people have for themselves and
their students!
So, do you have professional goals you’ve made for yourself for this
school year? What are they? Leave me a comment, I can’t wait to hear all about them!
Musically Yours,
Ashley
P.S. I started a Teachers Pay Teachers store! Check it out and follow me if you like it: http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Store/Ashley-Cuthbertson
