Week 11

PART I: Clements & Klinger 4.4

1. Have you ever experienced or witnessed any acts of violence within your classroom or elsewhere within the school building? If so, can you please describe the incident and how you or another teacher reacted in that situation?

I didn’t have a chance this week to discuss this with another teacher, as we only had two days of school, but my understanding is that acts of violence have been rare in our school – perhaps because there is such a free environment with the open floor plans and so much emotional support at the school. When I have heard teachers discussing certain kids who have behavioral issues, the protocol seems to be to immediately contact our head of school and stop whatever the behavior is, and then to contact parents and make a plan with the child and the school counselor.

2. Did this experience affect your classroom management plan, including rules, expectations or consequences?

Our school has relatively few consequences for unwanted behaviors (i.e. we can’t give detention, we don’t give letter grades, there are no suspensions, etc.), so if I ever witnessed any of these acts I would go right to the head of the school and contact the parents if I had concerns.

3. What should I do if I experience or witness an act of violence on school property?

If someone was in immediate danger where someone could get hurt, I would immediately call the head of school (or 911 if appropriate). If it was something more long-term and under the radar, like bullying, I would strategize with our school counselor to make a plan for the students involved – both the bullies and the bullied.

PART II: Reflection

This week we only had school Monday and Tuesday, and half of the day Monday was dedicated to our school’s Harvest Festival. It’s kind of like a pep rally/school spirit day, and the organizers had asked some of the music groups to perform. The choir groups all helped to lead a sing-along at the end of the morning, and I thought it was one of the best parts of the day! The entire school (3rd-12th grade) met in the gym for the closing section of the morning, and it was pretty powerful to all stand in there and sing together as a school. It felt like a good moment for me as a new teacher, to be present in front of the whole school and leading people in a community-oriented activity.

Besides that, I got to see my high school chorus Monday afternoon, and it’s always surprising to me how many of them are still very insecure about their voices. I have one kid who is convinced that she is tone deaf (because she had another teacher tell her that one time!!) and so I’m working to help her see she is not. She can definitely match pitch! I think maybe she’s confusing it with being able to sing harmony. She is singing alto for the song we were working on this week, and at one point she kept saying she couldn’t sing the right notes – so I went down the line of the altos and had them each sing the opening two notes, and she did it perfectly! Hopefully that’s something we can keep doing to help her know she definitely has the ability to match pitch, and then as she gets more comfortable with that she will be able to hold those notes while other people are singing theirs too.

On Tuesday I had 7th grade last period so they were as energetic as they always are at the end of the day, but we actually got a good amount of work done. The low part (6 kids) went to the adjacent room to work with my accompanist on their part, and I stayed to work with the middle and high parts, and I think that tends to be a successful tool. There are some beautiful harmony parts at the end of the song which we got to with the middle/high group, and there were some great moments there with kids saying, “Wow that sounds so good!” That’s nice for me to know that they are listening as they sing and hearing what sounds good or what sounds not so good. But, when they’re all together, they’re all so loud and I think they’re not really listening across the ensemble, but just singing out their part against the others. I think post-Thanksgiving, we’ll really try to do some listening work so they can tell when their individual parts are too loud or too soft, or when we’re way too loud as a group. (But honestly – I like having this problem more than if I had the problem of no one singing out!)