The Matrix Music Teacher: New Year's Wishes

The Matrix Music Teacher: New Year's Wishes: Here I am on the 4th Wednesday of the new school year, and it is the first day I feel I have a grip on my schedule. One of my former scho...

New Year's Wishes

Here I am on the 4th Wednesday of the new school year,  and it is the first day I feel I have a grip on my schedule. One of my former schools closed at the end of last year, victim to state and local budgetary woes, and so I took on one new school this year. I have had more or less the same schedule for the last several years, and suddenly I have a new bell schedule to accommodate. It's all worked out now, and I think I will actually sleep tonight, instead of lying awake trying to see into the black hole of instructional minutes, recesses and lunches. The new school just so happens to be a school I spent LOTS of time at up till about 4 years ago. It was my home school, I had my office there and I taught two or three middle school classes plus 3/4/5 instrumental and choral music. We put on huge musicals every spring, and at one time I had fully a third of the middle school population in my classes, and most of the 3rd-5th graders. I had only one other school during those years, and so was heavily invested there.  I have now come back to work with only 4th and 5th graders. It's great to be there. There are many familiar faces, and there are lots of new ones. None of the kids remember me from before, as most of them didn't go to school yet at all last time I was there. That's a good thing, if only because there are no expectations of the former glory of the music program. We can rebuild it from scratch, though I won't ever be able to devote the time there I once did. The new principal had been a music teacher herself once upon a time, so, while respecting the needs of the classroom teachers, is very adamant about getting as many kids playing an instrument as possible. All of this is wonderful. So what else is new? We have a new room at Sierra Madre Middle School, where the AC works ALL the time and there is room to do everything we need to do. I have 45 kids signed up for the orchestra, whose name is now iPAK (instrumental Performing Art Kids) and there is talk of splitting it in two- a real BAND, and ORCHESTRA! They are sounding pretty good at moments, and I only wish there was more good music at their level for this kind of mixed ensemble. I think we have played almost all of it in the last year or two. I have to be careful what I wish for. I might just get it! I wished for 40 kids, I got 45. I wished for the new room and we got it. I have wished to have a band and orchestra, instead of the mash up of strings and winds together that we call a symphony orchestra (heavy on the alto sax); I might just get it. If it happens, it will further complicate an already complicated schedule- I have no two days in the week alike- but I will be thrilled. Check back in October. Meanwhile, the other elementary schools are raring to go. Field Elementary Band blew a few notes today. The 4th graders at Roosevelt are learning Hot Cross Buns on the recorder and the 5th graders are learning how to hold a violin bow.  At San Rafael, we had a few classes on note and rhythm reading in anticipation of passing out instruments. In a week or so, I will jump in and work with some string classes at Marshall Fundamental. This will bring the total of number of campuses I visit each week to 7. I will rub my lamp and wish for enough instruments for everyone who needs one, and off we go! Labels:

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