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.

Sally the Singing Guitar

It’s been a while since I last wrote, which is perhaps to be expected in the first weeks of a new work schedule.  Additionally, the community orchestra I’m performing with had its opening concert of the season on Sunday.  It was the first concert I performed as a member of a symphony orchestra since I was in college.  It’s been three years.  I know that probably doesn’t seem like much to most people, but after having performed with string orchestras regularly since I was 10, a three-year hiatus is notable.  It feels nice to be back on the stage playing that particular flavor of music – the kind that only 60 string players, a full wind section, and percussion can pull off simultaneously.

Meanwhile, I spend my days pushing my music cart around three floors of an elementary school with my guitar on my back.  Sixteen classrooms – in and out, in and out, setting up, tearing down, every 50 minutes.  Initially I was put off by the thought of not having my own room.  The classrooms in this school are great, but there's not nearly enough room in which to dance, move, explore, get into groups, play instruments, and do all the things I intended to do with my perfectly planned, immaculately designed lesson plans. You know, in that dream world of mine. Still, despite my discontentment at not having a space to call my own I’m discovering there are a number of benefits to using the students’ own classrooms for music.  First of all, they know the room.  With knowing the room comes knowing the room's rules, which makes my job easier.  Then there's the fact that their teacher is still in the room.  Her presence alone is helpful, but it's especially beneficial if there is a student who needs just a little more one-on-one help with paying attention, in which case the teacher or her aid can step in without me having to turn my attention away from the class.  So even though pushing a cart around isn't remotely ideal, it's not quite as bad as I had imagined.

The students know me best by the guitar, whom I have affectionately named “Sally” for the sake of the kids.  Their reactions upon seeing me in the hallway are adorable, as expected.  “Hi Sally!”  “It’s Sally!”  “Saaaaallllyyyy!!!!”  and the occasional “It’s the music teacher!”  Many do remember my name, but I’m apparently not nearly as cool as my guitar.  Either that, or they think my name is Sally, which is fine so long as they’re saying it with such excitement. 

I feel like I’ve stumbled upon a nugget of teaching wisdom in personifying my guitar.  Last year I made the rookie mistake of assuming that the students would have some sort of innate, evolutionary predisposition to respecting instruments and personal property.  Oh, how wrong I was!  The youngest students were always reaching out to touch the shiny, blond wood, or brush their fingers over the strings like they saw me do every day in class.  It was especially tempting for them when they lined up and there stood the guitar in its stand by the wall, so close!  All it took was a single finger, a quick flick of the wrist, and out came the ringing tones that didn’t quite make a diatonic chord but sounded like music nonetheless.  At least, that’s what I figure it sounded like to them.  The same sound, to me, had quite the opposite effect.  My head whipped around, eyes searching wildly for the child attached to the fingers which had so brazenly touched my guitar.  My guitar!  Really, I guess I wasn’t so different from the children.  I just didn’t want to share.

What I had failed to do was introduce them to the guitar as a thing to be respected.  Yes, it is mine.  Yes, it is [relatively] fragile.  No, students shouldn’t get to play it whenever they please because, well, chaos.  But I never explained that to them or helped them understand the difference between mine and yours, about asking permission, about respecting instruments just like we respect people.  I forgot that children will be children, and it is my job as an educator to help them grow up, little by little, into the kinds of human beings we need in the world.

So this year I changed things up a bit.  It wasn’t a well-planned conscious decision; like many things that happen in the classroom, it just kind of happened.  “This is my guitar, and her name is Sally.”  Sally?  Don’t know where the name came from, but it seemed appropriate for my small, well-loved guitar.  “Sally loves to play music, and she loves singing with friends, but she’s very shy.  She doesn’t like when people she doesn’t know try to touch her or play her, and if she gets scared she might go back home (to her case, of course).  So let’s promise to respect Sally so she stays with us to make music!”

Wow.  Why didn’t I think of this before?

The immediate response among the children was powerful.  By giving the guitar a name she transformed from an inanimate thing into a someone, and someones can be spoken to, cared for, and respected.  Sure, sometimes a student’s curiosity still gets the best of them, but even then my response is measurably improved because the lesson I teach in reprimanding them is far more powerful than “It’s mine, don’t touch it!”  I can speak to the child and say “Oh no! Did you touch Sally?  Remember, Sally doesn’t like being touched by new people.  What should we say to her?”  Respect, apologies, and just a dash of guilt, all thrown into one!

Little by little, I think I’m figuring out how to be a good teacher.  Between the ideas that pop into my head without a moment’s notice and those that I steal shamelessly from other teachers, I’m slowly collecting the tricks for that bag my music ed professors always talked about. 

Great, one more thing to carry around!  Maybe I should name it, too.

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.