Breakthroughs and Breakouts

Seeking that Teacher Cool:

It was a normal day of choir. The students shuffled in, complaining about the climate control of my room, “Mr. Fitz, it’s cooold in here,” “Mr. Fitz, it’s hot up in here, you got the air on?” “Mr Fitz., why we gotta walk clear over here to your room?” The students, mainly juniors and seniors filed in and had a seat as I checked off their names on my roll and watched the clock. Predictably, one of my SPED students who stands about 6’1” and 300 lbs made his grand entrance reciting rapping and starting to pick a fight with another student. I told him to have a seat, he did, and class began.

My 10 point system involves a set of expected behaviors for a successful choir. This “top 10” allows the class to start with 10 points automatically that they lose if they fail to follow finite procedures like “follow instructions for the first time” or “enter class quietly and in the right seat.” Due to the cacophony and resulting verbal backlash that my student whom I’ll refer to as “Henry” gave another student of equal volume about minding her own business, number 1 was quickly gone.

Another “new” thing I’ve tried out is outlining an agenda and objective for each rehearsal. “Good morning guys. Our agenda for today,” I quickly stopped as a couple of students were talking. It was going to be one of those days, the days where I have to spend most of the period giving consequences and writing kids up for not following instructions. I have a “three strikes” policy in my room, and talking while I am is not a strikeable offence, but definitely gets rid of number 5 on the “top ten,” “Quiet when teacher talks.” The students get quieter in response but there’s still a mutual animosity growing. As I motion the students to get into “choir position” I have to ask one student repeatedly to take off his bag. We’re now about 10 minutes into class, warm-ups usually last 5, but it’s been drawn out as I’ve had to issue two warnings already for students refusing to follow instructions. Finally, after we struggle into the intervals drill and I write up one student, one of my more vocal students raises her hand and lets me have it: “Choir used to be fun last year. I remember when I enjoyed coming, but I don’t anymore. Why do you gotta treat us like little kids?” Her words rang in my ear and I got the class quiet. I swallowed my pride and my instinct to give her two consequences and send her out of the class for being disrespectful. “Tell me what you mean,” I said, and we opened up a discussion on the choir, what I was doing wrong, what they were doing wrong, and what could improve.

It was probably the highlight of my teaching career thus far. As a class we outlined what our expectations were for both the students and myself, and what our goals were and how we were going to achieve them. We decided that we wanted to be a good choir and to have fun. I told them I hated giving out consequences, but I had to if they were not following instructions. They said the songs were boring and they didn’t have a reason to want to come to class, so I said “fine, we’ll change the songs.”

The windfall from this has been pretty interesting and has tried my patience on numerous occasions. On the one hand, the students are much more motivated. We’re almost finished learning two songs and the 2^nd period choir has really improved its work ethic, but it still takes me a couple of minutes to reign them in and get them quiet, and I still have genuinely lazy people who refuse to work. But the kids are happy and we’re making music, so ultimately it’s a good tradeoff.

Nothing new to report other than my little teaching epiphany. I’ve been teaching after school and Saturday school tutoring which has been a lot of fun, and I’m looking forward to seeing the family in a couple of weeks so we can take on the South Fitzpatrick style. I’m also planning a field trip with the choirs to watch a nearby college choir (that was another one of our goals: take field trips and see some choirs).

All in all it’s been an interesting couple of weeks. I definitely feel re-inspired because I have some kids that genuinely want to learn music and sing well. That’s a refreshing change than the mutual ambivalence I had experienced before that due to my frustrations with them not following instructions and their frustration with me giving pointless (to them) instructions.

We’ll see how it goes ;-).

Cheers,

-Nate

“As i spy from behind my giant robot's eyes

I keep him happy 'cause I might fall out if he cries
Scared of heights so I might pass out if he flies
Keep him on autopilot 'cause I can't drive”-Lupe Fiasco