Week 1

“First impressions – what are you expecting? What worries you? What excites you?”

Having finished my fifth day of teaching so far at Calhoun, I feel like I have a much better sense of what to expect from each of my classes than I did before I started. From my high school courses, I expect a bit of push and pull from the students simply because I am replacing a teacher who has been there for a long time. She had ways of doing things, and I have some different ideas than she did, so I expect that there will be an adjustment period as the kids get to know me and get to understand why I would like to structure things the way I do, and I adjust to some of the things they would like to keep as part of the class. My 6^th and 8^th grade chorus classes I expect to feel easy! They are attentive, engaged small classes (8 kids in 6^th grade and 5 kids in 8^th grade), and they have done a great job even in these first few days of providing thoughtful reflections on the music they hear and sing. My 7^th grade class feels huge relatively (25 kids!) and I expect that this is the class where I will have to create the most structure to keep everyone engaged and singing, since there are a lot of students squeezed into a pretty small room.

I have a lot of general little worries about the various parts of teaching – whether I will be able to develop trust with the kids, whether they will enjoy the class and come back next year, how to balance process and product in the ways that all music teachers must, and how to be authentic and be myself in my work. I also know that I am incredibly critical of myself especially because I care so much about this work, so I am actively working on being gentle with myself and welcoming this year (and every year of teaching!) as one of growth.

I am really excited about singing! It has been great so far to hear everyone’s voices, and also to hear about my students’ musical backgrounds (I had them fill out a “musical autobiography” to share some of that with me). These kids love so many different kinds of music for so many different reasons, and I am excited for them to be able to explore new kinds of music with me too. I am especially excited to help them build confidence in their skills; there are a lot of students who love music but are scared of performing, and so I am looking forward to coming alongside them and making some steps toward healthy attitudes in performing. And finally, I am just excited for relationship-building. I feel like that is the cornerstone of teaching for me – building and developing relationships and empathy for the people around us – and so I look forward to getting to know each of the students in my classes.