November 30, 2009

I have been re-reading some of Pink's book and trying to determine a subject area for my project. I have been thinking about what I do in my classes and what needs to be done. I travel between five different schools during the week and sometimes the schedule of classes can be mind boggling. There are field trips, special assemblies, and everyday life stuff that sometimes causes classes to be rescheduled and cancelled. Therefore, during my time with the kids I try to make the most of it and really give them some time to play their instruments. I try to have time for the kids to experiement with their instruments, sightread, and stay rehearsed on band methods. I have noticed the past couple of years that it seems to be harder for the kids to identify notes. I am wondering if this could be of some interest to me for the IRB project. I will give it some more thought this week and see where it leads.

November 23, 2009

I was re-reading Pink's chapter on Play. During the week of November 23rd, I tried to incorporate this idea of having more fun while doing the work aspect into my classes. I made it a point to include more jokes, do weird stuff the kids would think was funny, and basically tried to back off "gettin git right all of the time". When you work in environments like mine you have to be flexible no doubt. This time of year though it is espcially hard to be an itinerent teacher and having to prepare for multiple holiday programs. Time is always a factor for us this time of year and I think that sometimes I get too into getting it right: the notes, rhythms, etc. that I forget that this is supposed to be fun. I'm not saying that its dull town coming to my class, but I just focused on getting it right in a little more of a fun way. It turns out that I was just as successful cracking jokes as getting it right all the time. The kids were perceptive and more on task, so it was a successful chapter for me.