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.

Newsflash: It's not just about music

I am now one-and-a-half weeks into my teaching career at this school and I must admit, things are going better.  Some of the shock has worn off, both from my side and the students', and already I'm feeling a much stronger sense of ownership over my position, my lessons, and my goals.  On Thursday I began my second week's lesson and though I'm still getting a sense of what the students already know, it seems the lessons went fairly well.

One of the greatest challenges I'm finding about teaching in an elementary school is the amount of time and energy I spend at any given moment focusing on behavior.  In fact, at this point I'd say that most of my time with the students is spent establishing and reinforcing behavioral expectations.  This was something that also shocked me throughout my student teaching experience last semester.  I took for granted that students need to be taught how to behave, and not just as students but as citizens and human beings.  Children need be taught how to stand or sit in a particular spot, how to govern themselves and their actions, how to move safely from one area to the next, how to raise their hands and wait to be called on.  I realize that most of you reading this are probably older than me, have been teaching for a while, and/or have children of your own, so you're just nodding your head thinking "Yup, yup, definitely, yup."  But as a young teacher far-enough removed from childhood to not remember the details of learning those skills but not yet entirely familiar with how to teach them, the responsibility of it all is, well, a little daunting.

I hope that recognizing this responsibility is having a positive effect on my classroom management.  Long before I even got to student teaching one of my biggest concerns was about classroom management.  Could I be strict enough?  Could I earn my students' respect?  Would they be able to like, respect, and listen to me?  I was afraid of becoming the nice teacher that would rarely get all her students' attention, like some teachers I had throughout junior high and high school.  Yet in the back of my mind I was also aware of the opposite problem, the possibility of becoming the teacher that was too strict, too demanding, and thus reviled by her students for having the class that was all work and no fun, led by the draconian power-hungry authoritarian.  

Well, let's face it: I was never really afraid of becoming the latter, but I knew the former was quite possible.  I'm a softy.  What can I say?

Now that I have my own room, though, I'm discovering a strength I didn't know I had.  Once I get into the right mindset it's actually not quite so hard to scold a student for jumping around the room when he should have stayed in his spot, or for quickly telling a girl running through the lunchroom to stop, go back, and try it again walking!  Every day it's becoming more instinctual to be on the lookout for behaviors that need to be corrected and properly taught and to actually take the time to do it, because at the end of the day it's not about how well a student can clap a beat or sing a melody, but how well a student can function as a good person.

I've gotta admit, though: sometimes I wish I could do this all the time.

You see, most days out of the week after I leave school I head directly to my other part-time job in a service industry where I interact with all kinds of people.  All kinds.  Some are lovely, wonderful people.  But many, 

well,

aren't.

I had a slight breakdown last week that had very little to do with the stresses of teaching and very much to do with frustrating customers who have no sense of decency or protocol for interpersonal communication and interaction.  The lack of proper etiquette among some of the people I deal with (both customers and coworkers) is astonishing, and sometimes I wish I could respond to them in the same ways I respond to my students.  In the cafeteria if a student says "I want a milk," I say "How do we ask for that nicely?"  And I help them, encourage them, and wait until they come up with "Could I please get a milk?"  But if a customer barks an order at me at my other job I have no option but to smile and acquiesce.

What I want to know is this:  Where were their teachers?  Where were their lessons in manners and acceptable behavior?  Or if they had such lessons, what happened along the way to adulthood to destroy what they had previously learned?

In some ways, it is very good that I have to work in some very frustrating circumstances.  The juxtaposition between my two roles -- as a salaried professional teacher and as an hourly bottom-rung retail clerk -- is jarring, but every negative interaction with a cranky customer is more incentive for me to positively influence a generation of young children.  

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.  :)

An art degree would have been useful

I suspect that throughout the course of this blog, especially in the first few weeks and months, the most common topic of my posts will be "Things they didn't teach me in methods classes."  Today's specific point of interest: Decorating Your Classroom.

Decorating Your Classroom is certainly not something that is covered in any of the various methods classes I had to take in college.  There was no Music Ed 357: Decorating Your Classroom.  There was no talk of borders and color combinations, themes and clipart and designs, printing pictures vs. buying posters vs. attacking a giant sheet of blue paper with Sharpies and Crayola markers while praying to the gods of art, design, and Scholastic Inc.  Heck, other than being told I should have a list of positively-worded classroom rules placed squarely in the front of the room with glaringly large letters that no student would ever dare to ignore (sarcasm, anyone?), I received little to no guidance on the art of Decorating Your Classroom.

Please don't mistake my frustration for bitterness.  In the grand scheme of things, this is not the biggest of deals or the most mountainous of molehills.  But in case I wasn't already terrified enough at the prospect of having my own room with my own kids trying to follow my own rules while learning from my own lessons, I also find myself worrying entirely too much about the aesthetic appeal of this room that each child in the school will see for precisely 30 minutes every week.  Also, because this is just how my mind works, I feel like I can't move forward with planning my first lessons until the room looks just the way I want.

Unfortunately, and as is often the case, I have very little idea of what it is I want.

I do know this, though:  I want students to walk into the music room (which is in a new location this year) and be wide-eyed and breathless.  I want them to get excited just by looking around and feel how this will be a magical, wonderful place completely separate from the rigors of High Expectations and Closing the Achievement Gap (which are likely far more important to us adults than to any of the children we are so valiantly working for).  And I want to feel proud of this room that I suspect will feel something like a second home to me for a few hours every day.  After all, if I have to spend so much time in it, I'd better surround myself with things I like to see.

I also know that this will not be perfect the first time 'round.  My strengths lie in music and teaching, not interior design, and I can't expect my room to look quite as exciting and glorious as that of the veteran 1st grade teacher who, over the years, has collected and created more colorful posters and bulletin board ideas than there are paintings in the Louvre.  I should probably also cut myself some slack considering I saw my classroom for the first time precisely two weeks before the beginning of school and had very little in the way of posters and next to nothing in the way of other decorations.

This is one of those situations where I'm fully aware of how silly it sounds to worry so much about such a superficial thing.  Will my students have any less fun because the walls are a little more bare than in their regular classrooms?  Not at all.  In fact if I plan it right, those kids will be too busy singing and listening and dancing and learning to look around and contemplate the decor.  But still, I want to have pride in my space and I keep thinking that if I can make my room look like a music room should, then my teaching will follow suit.