I don't think many of us do our job as 'just a job'. I'm sure there are teachers who have accepted a specialist position as 'just a job' or just to 'try something new', and if they did, I'm sure that they moved on pretty quickly. This job is truly a labour of love. On top of my regular teaching load, I run choir on a Monday lunchtime. I run band before school on Wednesdays and Fridays. I run after school rehearsals. I am the Team Leader for the Specialist Team. Every second year, I stage a major Musical. In the off year, my year 6 students compete in the Wakakirri Story Dance competition. Rehearsing, arranging, transposing, excursion planning, knowing every child's name, keeping data on 400+ students, choral festivals...the list goes on! It takes me at least 2 hours of out of school time to prep and tune my class set of ukuleles or sync my 8 ipads if we are doing digital composition, and I am sure I am not the only specialist teacher who invests this amount of time into her classes. The point is that this profession is both a calling and a curse; a muse and a harsh mistress rolled into one, and I take my hat off to all who are brave enough to assume the mantle. We are artists, as well as teachers, and it is extremely easy to get bogged down, wrapped up or even just plain old overwhelmed with the enormity of our job. This is something I have felt particularly keenly this year. I miss performing. I miss doing it for me. I miss practising my craft. 'So, on the weekend, I did a scary thing. For the first time in a long time, I auditioned for a play. Quite a big deal play, a big part and with a short rehearsal period and a big time commitment. Having children (three! Who on earth thought that was a good idea?) this also brings with it a bucket load of mummy guilt too.
But, as soon as I stepped into the theatre, I got the thrill. An honest to goodness, 'Anne of Green Gables' moment thrill. I was in my happy place, and it must have shone through because they cast me. Practise your craft, and before you soul gets sucked into the vortex of exhaustion and frustration that is teaching sometimes, take a moment to remember that you are in this job because you are an artist. Audition for a band, do the singing competition, try out for the sports team, act, sing, dance, move and feed your soul. It will be good for you. I promise. Good luck with reports everyone.
0 Comments
In my first week as a Primary School Performing Arts Teacher, I lost my voice. I wasn't just croaky, I had nothing. Dry, raspy nothing until I started teaching, and then nothing nothing. For a teacher, this is bad news. See, I love to sing. My voice is pretty, and strong and I singing makes me feel happy, but is also a challenge. I love to sing, and so when I moved from teaching high school Music to primary school, I sang EVERYTHING. I would sing the example track, and then I sung with the students, just for fun. I sang my 'attention grabbers', and sang my pitch exercises. I sang in music games and I sang with the choir. In addition to this, I wasn't very careful with my vocal care. I didn't drink enough water. I didn't support my voice by breathing in before raising my voice. I yelled. I stayed up late. And as a direct result my vocal chords protested, and then stopped working altogether. Since then, I have become a lot smarter with my voice. I have to! It is one of my most important tools. Here are three tips to protect your voice as a Specialist: You Don't Have to Sing Everything. Your voice needs rest too. Whilst it is tempting and fun to sing everything, it will not serve you in the long run. Try to: * Use a guide track with vocals * Play the melody on the piano *If you are using well know songs, ask a student to sing the melody to demonstrate * If you have to sing, don't sing at full volume Drink Your Water Experts are pretty clear on this one. Dehydrated vocal chords are less lubricated and become red and irritated quicker. Constant irritation leads to the vocal chords trying to protect themselves by growing the vocal chords equivalent of calluses, which is the thing that terrifies teachers and singers alike: nodes. Change up how you manage your classes (and stop yelling!) It's easy, quick and probably achieves the desired result, but yelling to control your class is not good in the long run. Your voice will be trashed, the children will become desensitized (leading you to having to yell more forcefully) and it sends the wrong message to your students...save yelling for the odd occasion when you are very, very angry.
There are far more effective and less damaging ways to call for attention or correct behaviour, including; * All your "low key" responses. Remember studying Bennett and Smilanich at uni? The look, proximity, scanning the room, gesture, touch. They work and save your voice. * Bells, whistles, countdown timers. * Clapped patterns. Good for aural rhythm recognition as well. These are the three that have saved my voice. In addition to these you could also: * Sip warm tea or water * Use a humidifier at home * Maintain a healthy lifestyle * Don't smoke, and avoid places where people are smoking * If you do need to yell, support your voice well by taking a deep breath first. * Warm up before you start teaching for the day * Get a good night sleep! I sincerely hope some of these are helpful to teachers out there, as I am sure I am not alone in this experience. "Miss, I can't work this xylophone. It's controls aren't the same as my Xbox 1." (Look I get it. They both require a series of complex movements to achieve a desired result. My face still looked like Captain Jack's though. I must work on controlling my facial expressions)
This post could also be titled "What I wish I knew before I started this job".
I didn't train as a Primary School Music Specialist, mostly because there is no specific uni degree for what I do. Most Primary School Specialists fit into either one of two categories: * Qualified High School Specialist who (for a variety of reasons) migrated to teaching Primary School. *Primary Classroom Teacher who has extra training or a special interest in their chosen subject area and fell into Specialist teaching. So my background is High School Drama and English, however I wound up teaching Drama, Dance and Music to years 8-12, and then migrated to teaching Primary school Performing Arts. These are the things I wish I knew before starting this job: Specialist Teaching is Lonely When I taught high school, I taught in a team. We would often collaborate, we could talk to each other about curriculum issues and we would share projects and team teach. There was a great sense of relief to be able to work with someone whose passion and area of expertise matched your own. In my school I am fortunate enough to be in the "Specialist" curriculum team. It means that I have people in my learning team that teach and manage similarly structured classes to my own, and I work at a school that respects and values the role of the Specialist teacher. However, in many schools this is not the case. Specialists sit through Professional Development that has little to no relevance to what they teach in the classroom. They work with colleagues who don't teach or understand their particular subject area and in general, are very isolated. They also need to make many decisions alone without collaboration or a 'sounding board', in the form of a fellow team member. Sometimes it is soul crushingly lonely. What do we do about it? Get involved. Reach out to other teachers in your discipline in your area. Do every and all specialist PD you can get your hands on. Get emails, and actually follow up and email people. Share programmes. Jump on facebook and start a group. If you are a department teacher, log into Connect and join ALL the groups. Do WAGSM, ASME PDs, May Day, Schools Make Music, Local ANZAC Day Ceremonies, Local shows (Canning Show, Kelmscott Show), contact your local Music shop and introduce yourself...I know I did! Surround yourself with your tribe. Teaching is not an easy gig, but it is made easier with intelligent, inspiring and down right cool people supporting you. Specialist Teaching is Physically and Mentally Exhausting Classroom teachers have a lot to cram into their work days, however they have the full spectrum of a day, with it's natural highs and lows to work within. There is literacy and numeracy, as well as HASS and all the other incredible things they get done, but there is also finishing off time, Go Noodle brain break time, Silent reading time and all the other 'times' that allow you to breathe, order your desk, mentally catch up or observe the incredible little people we teach. In a Specialist Classroom, you have to be the MOST EXCITING PERSON five or six times a day, every working day. Your time with that particular class is so incredibly precious, and you definitely cannot get through everything in the curriculum if you allocate 5 minutes every week for 'packing away' or 'finishing off'. You are constantly revising, as you may not have seen your class for a week, or more if you had a carnival or a public holiday, and you feel like you are assessing every second or third week and still don't have enough data to write reports. What do we do about it? Well, first of all, we need to get smarter about assessment. Do you need to assess every child, every outcome? Will a group task provide just as much data? Are you still marking writing tasks when you could be using Plickers or Kahoots? Do you do over the shoulder marking or peer marking? Do you record or video work for moderation? Can your lower years interview each other with ipads? Also, we need our down time as well. Some days it is nice have a clean classroom, and a room of year 2s simply love being asked to tidy the instruments, even for the two minutes before recess. Can the 'hook' of your lesson be an inspiring clip on YouTube so you have 2 minutes to catch your breath? Do you have a Level 3 EA in the room who can supervise, so you can dash to the toilet? All of these things will make such a difference to your stress levels at the end of the week. Specialist Teaching is Fulfilling Early childhood is my least favourite age bracket to teach. They cry, they dob, they put snot on everything and I tired quickly of going over Beat and Pitch. However, the year 1 students I taught nursery rhymes and clapping games to, are my year 6 students who are singing complex harmonies and sight reading and composing incredible film scores and writing essays about Australian protest music. And guess what? I got to lead them on that journey. That makes me feel pretty proud. What can we do about it? Just keep being awesome at what you do. Have I missed anything? What do you wish you had been told? |