Going to Hell in a handbasket

Remember when I said that after a long day of work, I enjoy plopping down and doing something mindless? Well, this summer my pursuit of mindless activity led me to the series Supernatural. And oh how I have binged!

The show follows two brothers who travel around the country fighting and destroying the evil things that go bump in the night. Werewolves, vampires, spirits, possessed objects, ancient gods, demons, and even angels (who, according to the show, have really horrible people skills). Every episode follows essentially the same pattern: some random person dies in a bizarre and inexplicable way, the brothers read about it in a newspaper or online, they travel to the scene disguised as FBI agents or insurance adjusters, then they spend the rest of the episode figuring out what they're up against and how to kill it, then doing so. Each episode features at least one grotesque and totally inaccurate blood spatter, lots of punching sounds (still trying to figure out how Sam and Dean have retained their beautiful faces and haven't died of excessive concussions), some broken furniture or walls, and ends with someone getting stabbed in the heart, decapitated, or burned alive (though, really, that last one is for ghosts and their remains have to get burned to destroy them so really they're...burned dead?). Occasionally one or the other of the brothers dies and is inevitably resurrected to keep fighting the good fight, and if I've learned anything from the show it's that whenever a person is stabbed to death, they will definitely bleed out of their mouth. Always.

Man, I love this show.

I wouldn't say I'm obsessed with Supernatural, but I am using it as a way to pass time. Lots of time. The supremely sad moments, while touching, have yet to make me cry, and my favorite episode is still the one anomaly that featured slapstick comedy. I am not a squealing fangirl who posts and reposts Supernatural pictures and GIFs on Facebook, nor do I peruse Tumblr in search of every Supernatural tag I can find.  I enjoy the show, I enjoy the references, and I want to see where it goes while I have the time to waste.  

And frankly, it's better than reality sometimes.

I have started to wonder if I should limit my time on Facebook, not because I'm wasting so much of it but because most of the time I spend on the site leaves me depressed and concerned for the future of our world. For months on end it's been nothing but

                                                                                                                                             Word cloud made at Tagxedo.com

At first, I tried to keep up with the news articles, blog posts, op-eds, and reports on the issues. It didn't take long to realize, though, that the vast majority of what I was reading was highly biased, poorly informed, inflammatory, judgmental, or just plain wrong. I started having to weed through my news feed based on who was posting and the source which they were sharing. Was it an impassioned acquaintance who was sharing something with LOTS OF CAPITALIZATION? Was it a Huffpost op-ed written specifically for their readership? Was it a blog post disguised as an article, or an article written like a blog post? I tried to avoid reading only what I agreed with and pushed myself to read the opposing viewpoint until both sides made me so sick that I stopped reading that altogether. Then I made a rule for myself that I would only read published articles by reputable news sources and avoid anything that suggested opinion. The result? I had nothing to read, and a lot more free time.

Adults of my parents' generation sometimes ask me how I can even hope to remain informed without a subscription to a newspaper or a television to watch. I wonder how they can hope to remain informed with those things. I am a frustrated consumer of current events, and much like my distaste for sucralose in my soda, I'm not terribly interested in someone else's opinions dressing up in an article and calling itself news. But because I want to remain informed, I generally have to muddle through at least a few of those sources to find out what's going on. At some point though, it becomes too much to handle, and as the realization of my white, privileged, American middle-class existence sets in I tune out and turn on a show that occupies my brain for an hour or two. (Or five on a Sunday when Tomm is on call.) 

There isn't much I can really do about most of what's going on. My opinions on the Middle East aren't going to change the minds of the ones doing the killing, I don't feel I can affect the police force in Missouri, and the anti-Semites in Europe aren't going to stop harassing Jews and destroying their property because I say so. It's a defeatist attitude, I know. I did make a sizable donation to the ALS Association as part of the Ice Bucket Challenge, so at least that was one good thing to come out of a sad circumstance. Still, unlike Sam and Dean Winchester, we can't summon and destroy the demon in charge and we can't burn the bones of the offending evil spirit responsible for the deaths. As Dean says in one episode when confronted not by monsters but by sick and twisted human killers, "Demons I get. People are crazy." And these are crazy times in which we live.

So, at a time and in a world where I feel so frustrated by the news I hear and so unable to do anything about it, can you really blame me for wanting to see this instead?

Counting my blessings

I'm suffering from a bad cold and it's well past my bedtime. I have to be up in about six hours (which is barely sufficient for me), and I have a 13-hour day ahead of me. But I am anxious - for mostly good reasons - and sleep is evading me, so I turn to my very neglected blog.

Though the NYC public school year doesn't finish until the end of June, my daytime position at one school has come to an end. The principal wanted to make sure the program wrapped up before the end-of-year craziness really began, and I can't entirely blame her for that decision. I was kind of looking forward to a bit of a break myself, despite how sad all the students (and teachers!) seemed upon learning that Monday was my last day with them. To make my departure even more emotional, I received an enormous number of handmade Thank You cards from students which made me smile like a crazy person as I read them on the subway.  But I promised them all I would be back next year, and the principal and I hugged on it to make it official.

As for that break I was hoping for before my summer camp job starts in June, that was only wishful thinking. Two weeks ago my supervisor asked if I'd be willing to fill in as the music teacher at another school for the last seven weeks of the year.  The regular music teacher is apparently unable to complete the year, so I agreed to take on the position. This means an additional 9 hours of teaching a week (plus 5 per week of prep and meetings), on top of the after school position I'm still doing through June.  I was hoping I would have a week to prepare things after finishing the other school, but nope! I start tomorrow morning.

Naturally, I'm nervous and apprehensive, as I suspect most teachers are before their first day with new students.  It doesn't help that I have a cold which has left me feeling stuffy, sneezy, sleepy, and a few other dwarfs (with Doc making me chicken soup when he's home), so I'm definitely not bringing my A Game.  Still, I'm looking forward to it and I'm excited to use these weeks to strengthen some of my lesson plans and try out some new ones.

I also found out fantastic news today: I was accepted to a graduate school program! Starting in September, I will be working towards my Masters of Music in Music Education in addition to teaching.  I'm equal parts excited and anxious, but I have a few months before I really have to start freaking out about it.  I'm just glad I'm in and that two years from now I'll have another advanced degree under my belt.  

Y'know, riding the subway every day gives me a lot of time to think. I don't always use the time wisely, but occasionally I think about all the luck Tomm and I have experienced since moving here. He's nearly done with his first year of residency and we both agree it hasn't been quite as atrocious as we expected it to be. Together we are making it through his residency, we're beginning to establish ourselves in a new Jewish community, we have found a great apartment in a wonderful area (the keys to which we should be able to get tomorrow), and he even got his first vacation request for next year so we can celebrate Pesach with my family.  On a personal level, I found two jobs fairly quickly after moving here, I have organized and prepared for successful concerts both as a teacher and as a performer (with the BSO), I have made connections that led to a long-term subbing gig and a full-time summer job, and I have been accepted to grad school.  But maybe "luck" is the wrong word; perhaps "blessings" is more adequate.  My father-in-law reminded me today that he is always praying for his children. Worrying and praying. And I know he's not the only one.  Both Tomm and I are surrounded by so many people who love, support, care for, and pray for us that it's a wonder we ever worried about whether or not we'd be able to survive in big bad New York.

Maybe that's why I get these colds so often.  They are annoying and sometimes keep me from getting things done, but they also help me recognize all the bright and good things in my life.  If being sick occasionally is the price I pay for being blessed in so many ways, then keep the Vicks and tea coming.  I can handle it.

At a Loss

I was never a fan of failure.

Throughout my education, I always strove for straight As and high marks; I sought praise like the teacher's pet I was, and I was rarely satisfied with anything less than the best.  Not my best, the best.  Sure, I could admit that certain subjects weren't my strongest - chemistry and P.E., for instance - but that was no excuse for doing poorly.

In hindsight, it was a pretty easy thing to excel in school.  Do the homework, write the papers, listen in class, get a good grade.  So long as my teachers were following a rubric as they graded my work, I was fairly confident.

And cocky.  Way too cocky for my own good.

Now it's biting me in the butt.

As a music teacher, I no longer have the privilege of having supportive teachers grade me with rubric in hand.  There are no percentages and letter grades, notes home or report cards.  But I still feel like I am graded, only this time my students are the ones with the metaphorical red pen.

Sometimes, I think my students are giving me an F.

I teach in two locations for two different programs.  The first is during the day at a public school in an affluent neighborhood where I am the primary music teacher.  I teach in the students' classrooms, usually with the teacher there to assist me if necessary.  The classroom teacher can also help quell misbehavior, leaving me to focus more on what I am teaching.  It's a pretty cushy job.

The other one is after school three days a week at a significantly less affluent school on the Lower East Side.  Past SoHo, past the cute diners, past the wine bars and American Apparel store.  If you go past all those you will eventually find yourself in an area where everyone struggles just a little more: families, children, and teachers alike.

In one particular Kindergarten classroom that I enter once a week to do music activities, the students have been getting progressively more antsy for the last few months.  Back in November they were a fairly mild-mannered bunch, at least insomuch as they could find their way to stay in one designated area of the classroom and participate in music.  They required a lot of guidance, reminders, and structure, but for a few weeks in late Fall they were functioning fairly well when I was in the classroom.

As the weather got colder and recess was more frequently moved indoors, individual students started posing more and more challenges to the overall harmony that had been fleetingly achieved. Like dandelions on a freshly mowed lawn, instances of misbehavior popped up everywhere and spread quickly.

Today I went in armed with a plan. I knew which activities I wanted to share with the students, including one that would review and reinforce the rules of our music time which have long been ignored. I intended to keep the energy high and everything moving along so the students would be swept up in the excitement in a way that would hopefully minimize disruptions. I was ready.

Of course, that was before I actually entered the classroom. And although things started off well, it didn't tale long for this girl to start poking that girl, that boy to crawl to the middle of the circle and spin on his knees, that boy starts crying because he wasn't one of the three children to offer an idea for the Hello
Song, and...well, you get the picture.

I tried to bring the focus back, and at some point I succeeded. For the next five minutes we had a rousing song session to review the music room rules, and they were doing great. But the moment that song was done they were back to their antics and I was wearing out. I tried transitioning to my next activity but it apparently wasn't nearly as interesting as I expected it to be and with ten minutes left I gave up.

Yup. I gave up.

The students were ordered to go back to their seats.  The other educational leaders in the room lectured them while I, the dejected music teacher, stood by and listened as if they were in fact lecturing me. "Come on!" my ear heard. "You're the teacher! You're the one with the actual certification and you've lost control, given up. You've failed your students."

There is truth to the idea that we are our own worst critic, but I can't help but feel that I really am failing at this particular venture. What am I doing wrong? Or maybe it's not my fault. Maybe it's just poor parenting and poor classroom management during the day and not enough play time outdoors and it's too late and they're tired and none of this can be helped. I know there are other teachers who, when faced with this kind of adversity, blame the system and claim they can't do anything about it, but I can't let myself believe that's true. So I blame myself.

After that class I felt empty of any conviction that I'm a good teacher, which is interesting considering how bolstered I feel when teaching music at the school across town. It's hard for me to objectively assess what the problems are and how they can be addressed, worked with, and solved. Part of that is because I'm still a novice, but the other is because of the clouds drifting slowly and ominously through my consciousness, obscuring my judgment. Sometimes, I am my own worst enemy.

Failure in and of itself might not be so bad if I were the only one affected by it, but when a classroom of students loses out on music because of my inability to keep their attention, I have failed 20 others. I can only hope they will forgive me and try again with me next week.

The psychology of teaching

I just finished my third week of teaching at my after school job and my first day at my day job.  Both are at elementary schools teaching roughly the same age group - Kindergarten through 2nd/3rd grade, ages 5-8.  The differences between the two schools - and their students - are immense.  The after-school position is located in an area with a very high percentage of students living in transitional housing, to give you an idea of the socio-economic condition of these families.  Meanwhile, the elementary school where I teach during the day boasts strong parent involvement in the school.  That's just one primary difference between the two.

Whether it's a result or simply a correlated factor, the students at my day job are markedly more well-behaved than those in the after school program.  Home life, parent involvement, health, neighborhood, school atmosphere, teachers' efficacy, and time of day -- I believe these all play a role in how a student performs in school.  Though it's impossible to pinpoint the causes, as a whole the students whose lives are more challenged are more likely to act out and be disruptive than those who regularly get the attention, support, and love they need and deserve.

As a teacher, one of the biggest threats to our students' learning is often their own behavior.  The term "Classroom Management" is thrown about regularly among teachers from before they even get their licenses.  I remember being a student in college and regarding classroom management as my greatest weakness (even though I hadn't even had a chance to try it yet).  I was terrified that no matter how good I might be at teaching a child how to play an instrument or sing a tune, I would fail miserably the moment the class acted up.  I may have even had nightmares about hiding in a corner while my students took complete control of my room and broke every rule I had ever imposed or implied, like a mutinous ship about to throw its captain overboard.  I might still have those nightmares.

I've not been teaching long, and though I've learned a great deal I still have a lot to learn about managing behavior in my classroom, as evidenced by my classes this week.  Oh boy.  Students were talkative and it seemed impossible to get their attention for more than a minute at a time.  They were reluctant to participate and when they got excited, they couldn't control it.  Some students in each class would start crying and throwing hissy fits if they weren't called on to propose an idea and get a turn.  When I would finally get the class focused and attentive, two students would start acting up and the whole class was distracted yet again.

At the beginning of my final class today, I quietly approached one boy who has had some trouble in class the last few weeks.  I encouraged him to have a "good day," to try really hard to have the best music class he could.  I smiled, and we pinky-swore that he would do better.  Five minutes in and he was disruptive.  Now, this kid knows when he's doing something wrong, but fixing it seems to be very challenging.  Typically, one of my ways of pointing out behavior that needs to be fixed is to move away from the circle: if a student is acting inappropriately (talking, ignoring directions, acting out, being non-participatory in a purposefully defiant way), I motion for them to scootch out of the circle, and once they show me they're ready to return I invite them back in.  It works for some, not so much for others.  Well, for this student, it did not work.  He ended up sitting out the entire class period.  By the end of the day, he was so distraught that he wasn't allowed to participate (ignoring much of what he would have to do to make that happen), that he was bawling.  "Let him bawl," I thought.  "Maybe this will deter him from behaving similarly next time."

As the class was leaving, the teacher whose room I use approached me.  She's not much older than me, but she has a Masters degree in Special Education so I definitely appreciate any advice she can offer.  "Have you tried rewards with him instead of punishment?  The kid obviously doesn't respond well to punishment, so maybe try giving him something special to do instead, or offer him a prize for good behavior."  Bribes.  Bribes always work.

It made me think about my approach to behavior management.  Yes, I realized, she was right.  Not just this boy, but many students respond best to getting opportunities instead of having them taken away.  At the end of that lesson, I built a drum circle by inviting a couple students at a time - those who showed they were prepared to join us - instead of starting with everyone and moving out the ones who didn't do well.  In the end, every student in the circle was doing what they were supposed to do.

Then tonight I read something interesting.  A friend on Facebook shared an article from Business Insider entitled "8 Mistakes Our Brains Make Every Day and How to Prevent Them." The third mistake discusses "sunk cost," whose origins are described by psychologist Daniel Kahneman:

Organisms that placed more urgency on avoiding threats than they did on maximizing opportunities were more likely to pass on their genes. So, over time, the prospect of losses has become a more powerful motivator on your behavior than the promise of gains.

The article briefly describes how people "emphasize loss over gain."  Now, I am certainly no psychologist and having not done any additional research on sunk cost, I can't be sure I'm understanding this accurately.  But in considering my teaching, the idea that losses are a "powerful motivator" struck me.  If my experiences today alone are any indication, then while loss is indeed focused on, it doesn't actually motivate young students to avoid it.  It seems that many of these students can't get past what they are losing, but the threat does not encourage them to do better.

In fact, I don't know that that threat works on me, either.  I remember a professor in college who told me that if I couldn't master the performance of a particular piece of solo repertoire, then perhaps I should consider another profession entirely.  It didn't make me work harder on the piece, but it did leave me crying in the cello locker room (which was, thankfully, immediately across the hall from my professor's studio).

But maybe that's precisely what this concept is all about.  It's not that we are encouraged to do better by avoiding negativity, but that we dwell on negativity in such a way that it impedes our ability to seek positive experiences. Is this what my students are doing, dwelling on negativity?  And does that mean that the punishment I'm offering is actually much more severe than I previously thought?

I need to find a way to correct the wrong behaviors.  I do believe that children need to learn how to behave even when they're not getting any discernible prize for doing so.  But by the same token, if students cannot fix their behavior after being punished then perhaps I need to change the process entirely and avoid the negative behavior in the first place.

Maybe, to borrow from Mr. Kahneman, I need to avoid the threats in order for my students to maximize their opportunities.

"Too much time on my hands"

It's a darn good thing Jews don't subscribe to the concept of the Seven Deadly Sins, because if we did I would undoubtedly be guilty of sloth.  I certainly wouldn't want my watching an entire season of a show on Netflix over the course of a few days to be the cause of some Divine wrath.  Besides, I don't think our renters insurance would cover the couch if it were mysteriously struck by lightening on a perfectly sunny day.

Since I was 15, I have always had a job or been a full-time student, and sometimes both concurrently.  Every summer I have had at least a part-time job, typically working between 20 and 35 hours a week which is just enough to keep one occupied.  This summer, for the first time, I am unoccupied.  Sure, moving was a big deal and the weeks surrounding the  move were hectic and busy, but now that everything is unpacked, organized, filed away, and set in its appropriate place, I find myself without a whole lot to do.

"But it's New York!" you implore.  Yes, yes. New York City, center of the universe (bonus points if you can identify the song I just alluded to), but I seem to be suffering from the same malady which affects so many of today's youth:  "I'm booooorrred.  There's nothing to DO.  Ugh."

It's hot and sticky again outside and quite frankly I'd much rather hang out on the couch in front of a fan or the air conditioning instead of venturing to the subway where the stagnant heat is amplified to an impressive impersonation of a warm oven.  And sure, it might be a small price to pay for the reward of lounging in a library or a coffee shop or under a shaded tree in the park, but it always comes back to the same old excuse - that I simply don't want to.

Don't get me wrong, I have things to do around here, and I've been doing them.  Laundry, dishes, grocery shopping, cooking, more grocery shopping, more cooking.  I'm actually finding that I kind of enjoy participating in these very domestic activities.  They're comforting.  Making a home feel like a home is comforting.  Walking out to brush shoulders with silent strangers is not quite as comforting.

I keep hoping this is a temporary thing, but my job hunt over the past couple months has, so far, been disheartening.  The application-to-response ratio is less than ideal, and the application-to-interview ratio is even worse.  Being a young and relatively inexperienced teacher is challenging enough as it is when everyone seems to want "Two years of experience, required," but being a young, inexperienced teacher in a field that is rapidly dissipating in public schools is even worse.  I want to be a music teacher.  Specifically, I want to be a strings teacher for a school orchestra.  Not only are there an aggravatingly small  number of jobs in that field, but they're disappearing before our eyes as schools are forced to focus more on the core subjects of math and English Language Arts (ELA).

This could be a rant about the state of music education in today's schools, but I'll leave that for another day.  For the moment I'm just frustrated at my lack of occupation and afraid of how long this may continue.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go find another TV series to get hooked on.

I'm back...and in Brooklyn

Whelp, so much for trying to keep a blog throughout my first year of teaching.  Blame it on fatigue, stress, business, or sheer complacency, but after a full month of not writing I realized it just wasn't going to happen.  But this time I'm back, and hopefully here to stay for a little while longer as I explore this new territory called The Big City, a.k.a. Brooklyn, a.k.a. My New Home.

My move isn't 100% official yet, but I just got my Brooklyn Public Library card so I'd say it's close enough.  I'll be going back to my small town home once more before moving here for good, but in the meantime I'm doing my best to make my new apartment and my new neighborhood feel as close to home as I can.  Though I've gotta tell you something: it's hard.

You see, I grew up in a small town with a population well under 50,000.  I'm used to wide streets and big backyards, two-story houses with separate two-car garages. I'm used to a 15-minute round trip to drop off a book at the library, free and ample parking spaces and giant lots, and something like the Cheers theme song, where everybody knows your name.

I'm also used to pretty much one language and one accent (though thickness varies) throughout the city, one widely accepted set of traditions (though I typically did not share them), one primary religion (not that I was a part of it).  I'm certain I'm not giving my home town nearly enough credit for the diversity that does exist there, but by New York standards I come from a pretty cookie-cutter Wonderbread kind of place.

Okay, okay, so I did go to college in a big city.  Well, in the context of my own state, anyway.  New Yorkers don't even recognize the city when I mention it.  But even there I didn't feel the city was overwhelming or multitudinous.  Actually, all things considered, I really enjoyed living there.  I'm a bit sad to have left.

So here I am, a small town Jew in a giant metropolis where people live on top of one another, where languages, ethnicities, traditions, and dress codes bump and shove and glide and mix with one another like splatters of color in a Jackson Pollack painting.  Beautiful to some, jarring and uncomfortably chaotic to others.

With this change comes a shift in the purpose of my blog.  This time 'round, I think I'll need this space as a way to process everything I'm experiencing and to share it with all the people who can't be here with me in person.  This is the biggest, grandest, most terrifying adventure upon which I've ever embarked, and this blog might just be the one thing that keeps my head together.

Join me, won't you?

The first few days

NOTE: Before I get into the blog post all [five] of you have been anxiously waiting to read, I'd like to direct your attention to the Note on Anonymity featured on the right.  I hope that you will read it and kindly respect it.  Thank you!

The first day of school was on Wednesday and, as I'm sure you can understand, I was just a little too overwhelmed and tired to write until now.  Part of my fatigue is also due to the fact that since I am only teaching part-time, I am still working another part-time job (completely unrelated to either music or education), and by the time I get home I want nothing more than to curl up in bed with a book, forget about reality for a moment, then fall asleep.

For the sake of perspective, there are a few things you should understand about my job and the school:

• As I mentioned, I am only working part-time.  The students have Specials (music, art, gym, library) only once a week, so each of the Specials teachers are only scheduled half of every day.  
• We teach the K4 (4-year-old Kindergarten) through 2nd grade classes.  
• There are five or six classes in each grade level with anywhere from 24 to 28 students per class.  
• The school is situated squarely in a predominantly Hispanic part of the city, as reflected by the student population.  In fact, many of the students come from non-English-speaking homes, but the fact that I do not speak Spanish is actually more of a help than a hindrance in our English immersion school.

Though the first day was Wednesday the students didn't go to their Specials on the first day, so my first classroom interaction with the students was on Thursday when I had a K4 and a K5 class.  Shortly before the kids entered my room I was online chatting with the music teacher from the previous year who assured me I had nothing to worry about, that the moment I saw the kids I would fall in love and everything would be fine.

...

She lied.

Scene: K4 teacher leads a scraggly line of little itty-bitty uniform-wearing 4-year-olds to my door and I notice that a few of them are crying.  She leans in to me over the heads of the confused children to say "Remember, this is only their second day of school  They're scared.  Good luck."  And then she muttered something about being too old for this.

I knew many of the students were not yet speaking English, but as clearly and kindly as possible I told the students to line up on the bright pink line in the music room and wait for me because, per school culture and behavioral policy, I was to greet every one of the students individually as they entered my room.  Dazed, bewildered and almost definitely terrified, the students filed in.  Some stayed on the line.  Others went to sit down immediately on the rug.  Others still wanted to wander around.  Once all the students were in the room I grabbed the seating chart I had so meticulously prepared and tried to get students to their spots on the rug.  Whether it was my poor excuse for a Spanish accent or their fear that rendered them deaf to their own names, I don't know, but finding the right kids and getting them to their spots was far more challenging than I had planned.  It was made even more challenging by the fact that I had one student at my side bawling and saying "Teacher?  Teacher!  Where's my mommy?  Teacher!!!"  

At some point, realizing that herding cats would have been an easier endeavor, I decided it would just be best for all of us to sit right where we were.  At least that way they might be a little less fidgety, I reasoned.  So I said we were all going to sit, and I sat down right where I was, then repeatedly made motions for everyone to sit, nodding happily whenever a confused child looked at me with questioning eyes and slowly crouched down.  Somehow the boys figured it out, but there were about seven girls who decided that no, standing was a much better option, and they didn't seem to have any clue what I was expecting of them.

At that point, I wasn't even sure I had any clue what I was expecting either.

Somehow I finally got them all to their spots, and I had hoped that with this element checked off my lesson plan I would be able to, at the very least, start teaching them the hello song.  No luck.  Of the many children who were crying, two boys were sobbing so uncontrollably and inconsolably that every other student's attention was inevitably drawn away from me.  Then I thought "Maybe if I bring out my guitar, the students will calm down a little bit to listen and we can all relax a little."  No dice.  One of the boys only sobbed louder.

The 25 minutes I had with the students felt interminable, but eventually I lined them back up and their teacher came to fetch them.  The moment they were gone I wandered into the gym which lies between the music and art rooms.  Those two teachers are just as new as me so I knew I was in a safe space when I looked at the gym teacher imploringly and asked "How did it go for you?"

"Oh, catastrophic."

At least I wasn't alone.

The K5 class that afternoon went significantly better, as did most of my classes on Friday.  I even did a fine job of dealing with a 2nd-grader's bloody nose on the playground after lunch.  But that initial experience with the terrified K4 class jarred me in a way I'm still trying to comprehend. And truth be told, I suspect my impression of the littlest kids was not entirely unaffected by my own fear, as if they were a reflection of everything I was feeling.  I, too, felt lost and scared, wondering if I was doing it right, if I was forgetting something, if I was being clear, if I was doing too much of this or too little of that.

I may be nearly two decades their senior, but for at least a couple moments in that first lesson, I was no different than those children.

In an interview I had over the summer for a different position, I was asked about a challenge I might have to overcome in my professional career.  I responded that the greatest challenge I would likely face would be those I create myself.  My mental blocks and moments of weakness, the fears and lapses in confidence that will find their way into my psyche at the worst possible times - those are the challenges that I will have to overcome.  I suspect that this is one of those situations.  I need to believe I can do it, that I can teach these children and be successful in my endeavors, despite my fear and trepidation.  

I am the little music teacher that could.  :)