Morning Reflection (3/27/15)

What If...

• Teachers, parents and students all worked together
• Teachers were highly paid
• The Arts were funded as much as athletics
• Teachers were respected as experts in their field
• We all lived our lives assuming everyone was making decisions based upon what they thought was best 
• We were ashamed to insult people
• School was a place children and adults looked forward to everyday
• Learning was a process and not a building
• Adults modeled a love of learning and reading
• Students saw their teachers and parents taking the time to read and create
• Education policy was written by educators
• The endgame was about how positively impacting students instead of making money
• We had student spend as much time creating and building as they do preparing for tests

Newsletters

I finally put together a fourth quarter newsletter.  I also send home a note at the beginning of the year that lists our monthly plan for projects and class learning topics. I decided to send one home at the beginning of fourth quarter as an update to parents and students on the direction of music lessons.  Many people have a misconception about elementary music, so I think it is important to provide them with as much information as possible.

Do you send home newsletters?  How often?

Thank you for reading!

Quote Relfection

"Not everyone is meant to be in your future. Some people are just passing through to teach you lessons in life."

I don't remember where I saw this quote, but it stood out to me and it is a great reminder.  I will not love everyone who surrounds me and I don't have to, but I can learn from them.

I believe that I can learn something from everyone that enters my life.  These lessons may be positive and other times they may be things not to do.  The key is to not let myself get wrapped up with these "negative" people and to focus on learning from the situation and the person.

Challenges often offer the most opportunities to learn and grow.  These moments are also a time to make sure my priorities and philosophies are aligned. 

Be Proud

"You should be proud of every year being in education. #sdu46" @JonathanBast

Are you proud of your school year?

If I am being honest, this is a tough question to answer. Some days I am proud of the teacher I am and other days I am not proud of my actions. It comes in phases. Overall this year, I am proud of many things. I am proud of: my gamification setup for Media Class, my new focus on having students create more music everyday and my willingness to try new things.


What are you most proud of today/this week/this month/this quarter/this semester?


Are you proud of yourself as a teacher?

Student Objectives

In college, student "I can" statements were the big thing.  I remember thinking they were such a waste of time to organize as a student teacher.  Throughout my time in a classroom I have experimented with different ways of using a class schedule and objectives. I have tried writing a list of activities on the board, I have posted them on a presentation and I have gone weeks without posting anything.

I see my students for forty minutes two times a week and we do a variety of activities during that time.  I decided to try posted a weekly "I can" list for each grade level.  I don't always reference it, but my hope is that it will help focus my students and myself as we work through are lessons.  I will be posting our weekly "I can" statements each Monday.

Do you post anything?  

Thank you for reading!

Student Objectives: 3/23/15

Student Objectives 3/16/2015

Today I Yelled

I made a vow at the beginning of the year that I would not yell.  I don't yell often to begin with but I realize it is not productive in the classroom (even though it usually produces short term results.)  I made the mistake of telling my students this and one class has taken it upon themselves as a challenge to make me yell all year.  They have come close a few times, but today there was not denying the fact that I yelled.  I could not cover it up as my just raising my voice.  Today is not one that I am proud of, but I am trying to learn and grow from the experience.

I know some of my students may think that I hate them because I get frustrated with them, but I hope they realize this is not the case.  I love and care about each one of them.  Much of my frustration comes from frustration in myself and my lack of ability to create lessons that they find engaging and exciting.  It's hard to try so hard and to continually fail.  It can eat at you after a while.

I want my students to love music, I want them to enjoy the journey of learning a new song or instrument.  They may not become professional musicians, but I hope they can experience the joy of making music throughout the course of their life.


Dear 4th Graders: 

I am deeply sorry that I lost my cool today and yelled during class.  I want nothing but the best for you and I want you to love music.  I am going to keep looking for something to perk your interest and I am not going to give up on you.

Love, 

Mrs. Wren

Parable

Is it worth my time if only 1 student learns?

Is it worth my time if only 1 student is impacted?

Is it worth my time if I only help 1 student?

Is it worth my time if I only help 1 coworker?

Is it worth my time if only 1 person notices?


My Time is Valuable...

Are all students worthy of my best energy and focus?

Are all coworkers worthy of my best energy and focus?

Followers, Likes, Favorites and Thumbs Ups

Confession Time: occasionally I look at the stats on my blog to see how many people have read specific posts and to see if anyone gave posts a +1.  I know these results are arbitrary, but they still make me feel good.  I know I should not base success on these statistics, but it is hard to not find value in followers, +1 and favorites. 

How do we teach our students and ourselves to not base our success on how others view us?

I have eleven players on my softball team this year; last year I had sixteen.  I have to fight myself from thinking negative thoughts.

• They don't like me.
• I am doing something wrong.
• If I was a good coach, girls would want to play for me.
• If we won more girls would want to play.
• I am not a good coach.

I find myself doing a similar thing when I have a rough lesson with a class.

• They don't like me.
• I am not a good teacher.
• I am terrible at this.
• I don't know what to do.

Some of these thoughts may point to valid questions, but a lot of them are not beneficial.  Yes, it feels good to have others validate our work and ideas, but how can we validate our self without an outside influence?  At the end of the day, I am the one who has to live with my choices and ideas.  Therefore it is more important what I think about myself than what others think.

In my opinion, most people struggle with similar challenges, some people are just better at hiding it than others.  Chances are you are not experiencing something new.  We have all been there before.  Keep learning and keep growing.  This is a message we need to tell our kids daily and it is one we need to remind ourselves of too.

Serve~Learn~Grow

Having a Goal

My baby sister is a senior in college and she is recently got back from a study abroad trip to Greece.  I know I am the big sister and I am supposed to be teaching her life lessons, but over the past year she has been a wonderful example of perseverance, dedication, focus and sacrifice.  I don't think she fully understands all of it now, but I hope there is a day soon when she can reflect and feel proud of what she has accomplished.  She has worked 2-3 jobs while going to school full-time in order to save for this trip.

Having a goal is great, but the more important thing is "what are you willing to do to achieve your goal?"  My sister wanted to go on a Study Abroad trip and she was willing to work 10+ hours a day, sacrifice time with family and friends, not take days off and spend a lot of time working and studying in order to achieve it.  I know there were days when she wondered if it was all worth it, but after seeing her pictures and hearing her stories from her trip, I think she is very glad that she sacrificed in the short term so that she could have this experience.

What are you willing to do to reach your goals?

Spring Chorus Concert 2015

My last concert of this school year is in May.  So far I have three pieces picked out.  I decided I needed to program a Sound of Music piece and the other two are pieces I have wanted to program for awhile. 

Favorite Things
Never There
Keep Your Lamps Trimmed and Burning

What are your favorite chorus songs to program for concerts?

State Testing

I completely agree that our students, teachers and schools need to be held accountable, but I don't agree that weeks of testing are the answer.  In my experience, I have seen very little positive impact of these tests.  When I was a student, these tests were a mere blimp on the radar.  Now, these tests take up months of class time.

Here are my questions and thoughts regarding standardized tests.

• Why are people outside of classrooms in charge of making decisions?
• Why are outside people not allowed inside our classrooms when we are PARCC testing?
• Why do we thinking testing is the answer?
• If standardized tests are an accurate measure of learning than students who receive and A or B in their classes should have to issues.
• Core subjects seems to be an acronym for tested subjects and these are the subjects that "really matter."
• Testing reminds students that they are not good at something.

I would love to hear your thoughts on the PARCC test.  As educators we need to use our voices in a beneficial way.  Although I am not sure what the best course of action is, I do believe knowledge is power.

March, April and May

All over the country teachers are being told that their contracts will not be renewed due to budget cuts. One of the podcasts I listen to often talks about the "Obituary Project" where you write down how you want people to remember you.

Even if you will be at the same school next year, you have three months to leave a positive impact on your students.

What will you do with these three months?  How do you want your students to remember you?  How do you want your coworkers to remember you? How do you want the parents and community to remember you?

Memories

My husband was given popcorn as a Christmas gift from one of his students.  I love popcorn, but he has never been a fan.  He has recently learned that if he covers popcorn in butter and jalapeno salt.  This was a great moment for me.  Popcorn from stove popper brings back great memories and I am excited to share this with my husband.  

My grandfather grew popcorn and would use a Whirley Pop on the stove to make regular popcorn and caramel corn.  During the holidays, buckets of caramel popcorn would fill his kitchen.  One of my favorite possessions is the popcorn bowl that my grandfather would use.  My family lived five hours away from my grandparents and within an hour of us getting to his house myself or one of my sisters would "convince" him to make us popcorn.

It is amazing to me how the simple smell of popcorn brought back all of these memories.  I could see my grandpa standing in front of the stove making popcorn for us and shaking caramel popcorn in a brown paper bag.

What kind of memories do our students have about school and our classroom?  What can we do to help ensure these memories are positive?

Memories are an amazing thing and I want my students to have positive memories of school.

Tired

I am tired of...

• decisions being made based on "what we have always done."
• having to justify why music and the arts are important.
• teachers being scared of being cut.
• communities being lied to.
• politics in education.
• hearing "doing what is best for kids" when actions don't support it.
• seeing athletics are more important than the arts.
• behaviors not matching words.
• teachers being pitted against each other.

I love my students and care about them immensely.  My students are the reason I come back each day, but the "extras" are draining my energy.

I Don't Have Time

Time is a great equalizer.  We are all given 24 hours in a day.  It does not matter who you are; the President of the United States or a kid in elementary school.  Each day for every person on this earth is made up of 24 hours.  What separates average from greatness is what you choose to do with your 24 hours.  No one sets out to be the worst at something. We all want to be the best, but we are not all willing to do what it takes to be the best in our field.

What are you doing with your 24 hours?  Look at the people that have what you want.  What are they doing with their 24 hours?

We all make sacrifices and what we do with our 24 hours today will lead us to who we will be in the future.  

This is a difficult concept for many students and adults in general to understand.  Yes, some people are extra talented in certain areas, but in most cases, how others use their 24 hours is reflected in their achievements.  Yes, Kevin Durant (NBA All-Star) is a gifted athlete, but his work ethic is also insane! He is always in the gym working on his game.  He is often in the gym working hard 2-3 hours before team practices.  His athletic gifts have helped him be successful, but without his dedication he would not be the player he is today.

So, what do you do with your 24?

Thank you for reading.

iDoceo

The ultimate goal for my classroom is that assessments will be snapshots of the learning journey and this information will be used as a guide to shape future activities.

I still struggle with the concept of grading participation. I know some students can sit their and still learn while others need to be actively involved. I have started "grading" participation with the intention of tracking behavior.  I only downgrade for misbehavior. I try to give my students the benefit of the doubt.  In my opinion, not participating is different than causing a distraction for the class.

I have started using the iPad App iDoceo and I absolutely love it!  This app allows me to take pictures of my students and use them for seating charts.  I am a visual person and this helps me remember names.  This app also allows me to customize grades, add notes to specific assignments, add notes to specific grades and to use images for grades, which is very helpful for quick assessments.

How do you keep track of student growth in your classroom? 

Thank you for reading.

Being Right

I was listening to a Joshua Medcalf MP3 the other day and one statement stood out to me. "Your brain has a vested interest in making what you tell yourself to be true."  

Ever notice how when you are annoyed with someone you can easily come up with numerous reasons why they are an annoying, lazy or mean person?  I have noticed myself doing this with my husband.  I will be annoyed about him not putting something in the garbage and soon I can come up with a list of all of his "offenses."  I have realized that my frustration is more about my mindset than the actual behavior.

The same thing happens in our classrooms.  Students say this is hard, I can't do this or this is stupid and their brain has a vested interest in making sure that they are unable to perform the task.  No one wants to be proved wrong and it would be even worse to prove yourself wrong.

Teachers do the same thing when they say Student X will never be able to do this, Student A is mean or Student B is a behavior problem.  We will see what we want to see.  If we think a certain student is mean; we are more likely to see their mean behavior.

We know in athletics that it would not be beneficial to tell yourself that you can't perform a skill or that you are not good at something, but it is also not beneficial to have this behavior in other areas of our life.

What would happen if we and our students focused on what they can do academically and on beneficial behavior and thoughts?

Thank you for reading!

Doggie, Doggie

Song

Doggie Doggie where's my bone

Somebody took it from my home

Who took my bone?

I took your bone

Concepts
Solo vs Group

Singing Voice Assessment

Procedure

I have my students sit in a circle and I choose one person to be the "Doggie."  That student sits in the middle of the circle and closes their eyes.  As we sing the song I choose one person to "steal the bone."  I hand them a small rhythm stick or another item that is our pretend dog bone.  The "doggie" sings the 'Who took my bone?' solos and the person who "stole" the bone sings the 'I took your bone' solo.  The "doggie" picks who they think 'stole' the bone.  This is a great game at the beginning of the year to help with listening and to help students recognize each other's voices.

Music Trophy

This summer the art teacher shared a classroom management book with me.  "Classroom Management for Art, Music and PE Teachers" by Michael Linsin is filled with many ideas on how to setup a classroom management plan that takes in consideration all of the challenges that are specific for specials teachers.   

After reading it, I decided to partially change my classroom management plan.  The art teacher, librarian and I all decided to implement similar systems.  We hoped that this would provide consistency for students.  Each class can earn four classes per day: 1-walking in quietly, 2-lining up quietly, 3-working hard and 4-listening.  Once a class earns 30 points, they earn the music trophy to display in their class until the next class earns the trophy.

I give points based on the majority of students behavior.