What do you do?

…when a child sits in the corner, curled up in a ball, and won’t participate or respond to you?

One is the loneliest number…

Today was just one of those days. I teach 9 classes/day, and today was also a choir day, so I had 2 choir rehearsals as well, and then a meeting after school. I can tell you truthfully that I did not feel like doing ANYTHING after that! But alas, lesson plans need to be made. I sat down and went through everything we accomplished today, looked over my monthly goal, and wrote out new lessons for my next teaching day.

* Something I’m struggling with is the fact that I don’t know how the kids were taught before I got there. I know they had quality instruction, but it’s still hard to step in and take over, especially with the older grades who have learned music one way since grade 1. I have different terms, different methods, and different expectations.

For example – sometimes I totally confuse them due to our music-language differences: I call a quarter rest a “sah” and they call it a “shh.” Do I continue calling it a “shh” for their sake? Or do I change them over to my way? I don’t know!

Grade 1 is a whole other story, because I am the first taste of music class they get, I’m starting fresh with them, and that’s great. But it’s a challenge in itself, because all of my student teaching took place in the spring AFTER grade 1 had already had 8  months of music class. I’ve never had to start a whole class from square one!

I do feel like things are going well, and these struggles are not things I didn’t expect, but I am struggling with finding ways to deal with them. I think I’ll meet up with a couple of other music teachers from others schools and pick their brains. It’s hard being a one-of-a-kind teacher in a school!