11th week(12/6/10-12/9/10)

On my last week of student teaching, I was thought that in overall everything went very well and I found myself to have improved in teaching and dealing with students. I thought teaching choir and keyboard was a quite suitable position that I could pursue in the future. Every experience that I gained each day in school made me reflect about the purpose of a teacher is and also what I as a teacher could do for the students. And once again I found myself understanding how important music was for my life. Sometimes I felt as if I had wasted so much time in studying piano performance before I decided to pursue music education at NYU. However those times that I spent time for training myself for a performer was not worthless at all. I was so happy to assist for the choir as an accompanist in high school during this semester.

Another lesson I learned during this semester was to never limiting myself as a musician. As much as I have devoted my life into the piano, I realized that I didn’t spend much time learning other instruments or especially vocal music. After I noticed that my voice was not projecting due to the lack of breathing support, I started to practice by singing by myself and also in school while my cooperating teacher taught the classes. Sometimes teaching could be effective without many verbal explanations, but also there were times where the teacher needed to demonstrate and describe in order to give clear instructions. On the final rehearsal for Messiah, the orchestra conductor visited the school. He had been conducting for many instrument ensembles and orchestras but not many choirs. He also helped the students sing better but didn’t mention about the mechanism of voice as a choir. I realized how important it was to know about the mechanics of sound before teaching the students.

I couldn’t forget my last class on Thursday. I taught chorale on my last period of class. After the students practiced some sight singing activity, I let them sing the song they have learned. The title was “This is the Moment”. There were so many mixed emotions in my head while I was accompanying as the music was overlapping in my mind. Even though there were times that I was very upset with the students and I had to yell to the class, I thought I could have done much better as their teacher, but there were no more chances. That is why I had tears in my eyes. After the bell rang, the students who knew I was leaving the school came and they hugged with me. Many students including the students that never smiled at me came and said “Thank you Ms.Kim, and you are the best teacher ever”. That was the moment when I felt so rewarded as a teacher and motivated me to be a better teacher in the future.

As I finish my music education program at NYU, I look back at what I have done in and out of school. I think many different classes helped me learn about what I could teach better for the students, but student teaching experiences were the most valuable and unforgettable in my life. While I am pursuing a career as a music educator, I will also develop myself as a musician, which is an integral part of teaching music.

10th week(11/29/10-12/3/10)

This week, there was a test for both an evaluation for the end of the semester and also for an effective rehearsal. Unlike the smaller choral class and theory class, it was difficult to spend the time to evaluate each student in the larger sized classes; especially with the concert coming up soon and also the teacher needed to spend time rehearsing all the parts. In concert choir, which we have been singing ‘Messiah’, my cooperating teacher used a form of quartet to test them. Since the music was written in a contrapuntal form, it really needed the exact pitch and rhythm. There were many parts that needed to be studied with the exception of fixing incorrect notes when rehearsing. The students promised that they would go over their part every night, however the next day when we sang together, it didn’t get any better. The students could have accessed the website, to listen to each part of Messiah. However in the class, their lack of practice obviously could be seen during the rehearsal.

On the day of the test, I could see a lot of the students being concerned about the test and looking at the score while singing along. Even though we had to spend a whole period for the test, the test made the students spend their time practicing music. Sometimes there was one student who kept singing the part with wrong pitch, the other students had trouble finding their notes. My cooperating teacher has been reinforcing the importance of the students’ preparation before each rehearsal and told the students to not expect every single stuff to be fixed by the teacher. I definitely agree with her because the learning process comes from the cooperation of both students and the teacher. What they learn would reflect the improvement on their performance. I could see many students depended on the other students when singing and how they had neglected their assignments. Often they did not look at the score and they just sang whatever they remembered. I believe that the students should have a responsibility as members of the choir and try to be more professional every time when they deal with music.

Students in general seemed, as they did not prepare well for the evaluation tests. They depended more on what they had learned so far and did not really consider much about studying the score for their parts. Observing this, I realized that there are many students who lack the motivation to do well in the test. I started thinking of many different strategies that might help students be more engaged in class. However I can see how difficult it is for a teacher to try to focus to each student individually while trying to teach the whole class. It is hard to accommodate each student, I guess as a teacher it is important to find a way to deal with the class individually and as a whole group. The students understood that they were getting tested, and still they did not prepare well, which was very surprising for me to see. I thought that they would spend some time to get ready. The more I experience in teaching, I realize that there are many challenges that a teacher needs to face to educate students.

9th week(11/22/10-11/24/10)

This week was the midterm period in the school. In the musicianship class, the students took music theory and music history exams. Unlike student in the keyboard class, it seemed that most of the students had a good grasp of the learned material, however at the time of the exam I saw many students were having hard time figuring out the questions during the exam. One student didn’t do anything and he was just looking around instead of trying to figure out the questions. After the exam on Monday, my cooperating teacher also was surprised at the fact that most of the students were not as good as he had expected. He again went over the material that we already learned and asked them more individual questions. He asked one of the students to pretend that he/she was a teacher who was teaching the freshmen students. So the person who was chosen as a teacher had to explain clearly so that the other students who didn’t known about the material could understand. In that way, they were able to verbalize what he/she knew about the material. I thought it was really good way to help the students realize how much they understood the information.

When we met again for the next class, the cooperating teachers again gave the same material which was to figure out the key signature and to make different chords to the students to work on by themselves and they were allowed to ask me any questions that they had. Still I kept seeing that some students were putting sharps and flats after the note or putting the wrong order of accidentals. There was one student whom I had to explain the whole thing again from the beginning. I felt like a number of students seemed that they were not motivated by what they were learning in school. I believe that the reason that the students chose to come to this particular art school was to prepare well for whatever future they desired.

On Wednesday, I really had a hard time in school to teach by myself since my cooperating teacher was absent. When my cooperating teacher asked me if I could come on the day before thanksgiving, I hesitated a little bit because I started thinking about the days when I taught the students on the days when the teacher was absent. On the other hand, I wanted to have as much experience as I could no matter what happens. I reminded to myself that no matter how chatty students are or how badly they may act they would not distract me and that I would be focused on the subject that I wanted to teach. I had to raise my voice almost all day. I know already that the students would not listen to me the same way they do to their teacher. But that day the students were out of control.

There was a teacher, who works in the library and is familiar with students in the classroom with me. But it seemed that the presence of two teachers was useless, and they did not regard us as someone that they needed to listen to. There were real problem students. One girl never acted in that manner with my cooperating teacher but she moved her seat between two tenors and she was playing with the other male students during the class in the back row. I told her to move to her original seat. Later, another girl was lying on the ground and tried to hide herself. When we noticed her and asked her to get up and go back to her seat, she was dared to ask us what she did wrong saying she didn’t make any noise. And with a frown face, she left for the restroom. Many students were just so rude. I made them stop and told them what they were doing was wrong; they did whatever they wanted real soon.

I believe that when I have my own students, it is not going to be as hard as it is now. I was just so tired that I had to keep on yelling and asking them to stop talking all the time. I tried many different methods to get the students’ attention, however the classroom management methods that I knew didn’t work as efficiently as I thought it might work. It came to the point where I had almost given up teaching the students in the concert choir class. It was a new experience for me, although I had some students behaving badly, it seemed that this day the students were acting out even worse. Even the students I thought were respectful were being nasty. I guess the absence of the main teacher was a big impact, but also it could have been that it was the day before Thanksgiving. The day might have been a tough day for me, but it got me thinking of more methods of classroom management that I can adopt once I become a full time teacher myself.

8th week(11/15/10-11/19/10)

Along with choir classes, I am very thankful to have a chance of working with the students in musicianship class. Even though I haven’t had a lot of opportunities to teach the class because we meet every other day, I didn’t have many concerns dealing with the students. I guess it is partly due to the fact that I teach the same students in choir class and also my background knowledge in piano helped me a lot dealing with this class. Luckily I had a supporting cooperating teacher who always has a positive attitude towards students, so I was able to enjoy teaching this class. In musicianship class that I do not teach, but still observe every other day, I thought about how important is the teacher’s role in terms of teaching methods. The students are using the textbook in order to get musical history and knowledge, but the book itself cannot help the students understand the material well. My cooperating teacher always tries to make a connection between what is written in the book and what they actually learn and understand. At times he seems very animated and he is also very good at improvising when explaining certain musical styles and repertoires. I could clearly tell that his strength in vocal music really helped teaching this class. I have been afraid of teaching music history, in a way it is partly due to the fact I am not sure to how to approach the material to teach the class. However by observing this class I was able to get an idea on how I could approach the music history class.

I had my final observation last Wednesday for the keyboard/theory class. At the time the students were learning key signatures in major scale and they were able to play the song ‘Moon River” with both hands. Not every student learned at the same pace, but by reviewing repeatedly and playing different chords and scale practice, I could see the students were improving little by little. For my observation class, I picked the song “Try to remember” on my own since my cooperating teacher didn’t have any preference on the subject. One day I brought an easy piano solo piece, and they played the music quite well but the students seemed to be more engaged with popular songs. They seemed as though they were interested in learning different qualities of chords and also hearing the sound of the chords. For that reason I chose a popular song that have melody and chord names.

After the first bell rang, I wanted them to start with pentatonic and scale exercise, which has been a routine for the class. Then I introduced the song I brought and I had them clap the rhythm. I didn’t expect the activity to take so much time and I was concerned about the rest of stuff I had planned for the period. I couldn’t stop the activity because many students were still clapping in the wrong rhythm. After a couple of more trials they finally got it. After the activity, the students played the melody part but some students had trouble with playing the melody with the correct rhythm. By the time I explained about some different chord names, many students were not paying attention to what I wrote down on the board and what I was explaining to them. I kept asking the students to stop playing the keyboard, but they just kept on doing that. I had to make clear rule about when to play and when not to play. However I feel like I did not successfully deal with both managing the class and keeping the lesson going. Actual teaching the class was much more complicated than I expected. When I am standing in the front and looking at the students, I really had to catch what was really going on and at the same time try to get rid of all the stuff that was distracting. For example, there were always two girls who played the keyboard in a much faster tempo and they made unnecessary sounds while I was explaining. On top of that, two boys in the back rarely followed my instructions and played whatever they wanted to. When I asked the entire class, who wanted to answer my questions, the same students always raised their hands. That made me worry about the students and how much they understood the lesson that I was teaching. By spending a lot of time in the beginning, we didn’t get the chance to play the song with both hands. I think a lesson could be adaptable to what the students really need to know and it could be slower than expected. After the class I felt that I should have been more aware about managing the class along with keeping the lesson flow. When I had a conversation about this with my other cooperating teacher, she said that it is important to know that class management is also a part of the lesson plan and also to be able to anticipate what the students might do in the classroom. Through this experience I definitely believe that I have learned a valuable lesson that I need to work on and I feel that I am gaining more confidence with the students.

7th week(11/10/10-11/12/10)

Last Monday I had to teach all the classes by myself since my cooperating teacher was absent. There was also a substitute teacher in the classroom but he was not specialized in music. I was a little concerned about how I was going to manage the classroom but I thought it shouldn’t be a huge problem since I have known and taught them. As soon as the students knew that my cooperating teacher wouldn’t be in school that day, they changed their attitude and it became hard to have control over them. In smaller class like opera, I really had a great time with them while we sang individually and also by sharing with each other about how they performed.

In concert choir class, which is made up of about 50 students, we were supposed to practice two pieces in ‘messiah’ that my cooperating teacher assigned to me. When the second bell rang and all the students had to be seated in their seats, they were just all over the place, in and outside of the classroom. I tried not to get angry or feel bad in front of them because I wanted them to realize what they were supposed to do by themselves. Later I had to speak louder and louder in order to take attendance for everyone. It took about 15 minutes in order to make them realize that they were in a classroom with two teachers and it was an on going class time. But silence didn’t last long. I saw many students that would not stop talking and of course they didn’t listen to me. A few students acted out really badly, but a number of students who were worried about the class tried their best to pay attention. We didn’t have time to rehearse due to the many disturbances.

In women’s choir class, I had the same problem controlling the class. It seemed that just because the cooperating teacher was not present they could take advantage of the situation. Due to the noise and the constant interruptions, we were not able to advance far with the rehearsals. In many ways it was a learning time for me, I was confident that I could work well with them since I knew them, however it ended up being the opposite. I realized that managing a class is not easy and it takes a lot of time and effort to try to advance with rehearsals. After class I made two of the loudest students stay, so we could have a talk. At first they were hesitant and did not want to stay, making up excuses that they didn’t have time. I told them that it would only take about 3 minutes. I scolded them because they would not stop talking during class. It seems that they felt sorry and ended up apologizing. The funny part is that the same two girls were so quiet in the other class that it surprised me seeing their reaction. The substitute teacher told me that I had done well by scolding them, but I need to do the same in the actual class time in order to take control of the class.

6th week(11/3/10-11/7/10)

As I taught as a student teacher this week, I thought that an important fact dealing with teaching was to know how much and how fast the students are able to understand the lesson. Without considering this aspect in each different class, both teacher and students will have a hard time understanding each other. While I was preparing the lesson plan for the class on Wednesday, I tried to make an organized, clear, and enjoyable lesson while analyzing the piece. Since the Women’s Choir sings many different genre of music and usually they understand the lessons pretty quickly, I didn’t worry about them having trouble singing the piece. In class, the majority of the students seemed unfamiliar to classical pieces such as “alleluiya”. It took much more time than I expected to get all the correct notes from the students. Even though the piece seemed to be written in a very straightforward manner, I could see that the students had difficulties identifying the note value, intervals, and how the consonants went in the text.

When I was teaching in the elementary school last semester, I often introduced ‘solfege’ singing in each piece to the students. It worked very well however we had to put extra time working on the piece. As I taught the choir, I spent most of the time working on about only three or four phrases and in the end I felt as if I taught so little considering the lesson plan that I came up with. At the same time, I thought about the true meaning of education dealing with students who have so many different levels of learning ability. After the class, I honestly felt that I had learned a huge lesson for myself. I believe that lesson planning should be focused on the students, and should not be something that I want to present to the students regardless of the level of the class.

I believe teaching is not always associated with people who already have a certain level of knowledge in music. I realized that I did not pay attention on how to present the lesson in a matriculate way. I guess the problem is that sometimes things do not seem difficult in my eyes, but it might require a lot of work for students. I cannot expect the students to follow the lessons that I have come up with at all times. In my opinion I guess the better way to go with this matter is planning a lesson that is approached one step at a time. Such lesson might take longer, however it could be an easier path for the students to understand. Breaking down the lesson I think is good way to start if I see some problems arising from the students. However I cannot always slow down the pace of the lesson and not give the students might not receive all the knowledge that they are supposed to receive.

One day in chorale class, I was reviewing some sight singing for their test for their next day, but many of them seemed to be not ready. Unconsciously I kept working on what they wanted to go over, but at the time my cooperating teacher was very upset about their irresponsibility and asked me to move to the next part of the lesson. She said to me later without tests it is hard for them to learn and go over by themselves even though she didn’t wanted to do so. Is there any way for us to get the students’ attention? Can there be any way to make them stay focused in the class without yelling all the time. As I see the students in the school, I thought that they needed to mature more even though they looked like adults physically. Whenever I was frustrated from the way they talked and responded to me, I thought about the development of a human being and that it is part of what the teacher needs to acknowledge when educating the students. At the same time, the teacher should be aware of the students’ improvement as they are learning and not let the students take advantage of teacher’s kindness.

5th week(10/15/10-10/29/10)

When I first started student teaching last semester in elementary school, I didn’t have a lot of confidence due in part to my personality and also the lack of experience I had in teaching in front of many students. I have been teaching piano privately for a long time and so far I didn’t have any problems with teaching children individually. However dealing with a group of students has definitely showed me that it is a completely different matter. My previous cooperating teacher always told me that I needed to speak louder even though I tried my best to do so. I practiced at home in order to have a “teacher’s voice” and I tried to make every word come out clear every time I spoke, being that English is my second language. I wrote a “script” about what I was going to tell the students and I observed very carefully the way my cooperating teacher presented her lesson. From these prior experiences, I was able to learn how to approach and what to tell the students in order to make a clear point in a lesson. While teaching in high school, I find myself to be much more confident compared to last semester. I wanted to show my strengths instead of being concerned about my weakness.

This week was a tough week for me because I had a hard time handling some students. Since the students know that I am a “student teacher”, most students are more attentive of what I am teaching and sometimes I can feel them judging me if I am teaching correctly. It depends on who they are, but some students have been showing their lack of respect throughout the class as they disregard to what I am asking them to do. Some of students did not seem to consider me as a their teacher. What made it really hard was that those who thought that they are pretty good at singing or reading music didn’t listen to my recommendations about how they were singing or the corrections I made of the errors that they made. Another concern is that so many students suggest and even insist their ideas “at the same time” during rehearsals. For example, when I made the students stop singing since they were singing incorrectly, the students kept on saying, “we need to go back from here.” or “I can sing that part if I start singing from here”. Although I didn’t like the idea, I decided to take the suggestions as long as they could sing successfully. But they kept making incorrect pitches because they didn’t know how the harmony sounded. I explained how each chord sounded and its value of harmony and I emphasized on understanding music correctly and precisely. Some students sang very well but they are so used to hearing the melody without looking at the music that they don’t realize the importance of reading music accurately. I agree singing might be fun, however I believe that fun comes after students learn music in a correct way instead of just singing over and over again.

For my first observation teaching chorale class, I was able to see how much more concentration and experience I needed to have to be more comfortable with students. I tried keeping a reasonable pace while teaching, as well as thinking what to do next. I also needed to watch the students in order to give them better suggestions dealing with the lesson. On the day of the observation, I prepared a much longer time than I actually prepare, however I wasn’t able to teach everything I wanted the students to learn about the music in one period. When I was teaching sight-sing, I allotted 15 minutes since I really didn’t expect the students to have trouble with sight-singing. But 15 minutes somehow felt very short. Although I was going to give them the prepared lesson, I had to change my plans and instead I taught them some new stuff. I did not want them to feel too overwhelmed when learning music and also to spend too much time on sight singing. Instead, I thought it would be more important to make the class move forward with dynamics. The recommendations that my advisor and cooperating teacher made were:

- Make a concise and clear lesson plan

- If I decide to give students homework, make sure that I check it next time.

- Don’t give the same homework twice

- Check if students sit up straight

- While rehearsing each part, ask other parts to sing together with them

- Instead of me repeating the answer, ask the students to speak loud enough for other students to hear

- If they don’t get the beat or everybody has their own tempo, have the students tap or clap the beat all together before reading the music

- Ask students where the trouble spots are in the piece to solve any concerns or problems

I have not had many experience teaching choir but I have been accompanying for different choir groups. While I have been observing many other conductors rehearsing, I found many effective ways of teaching a choir. I think I have to be a good listener while the students sing in order to find any troubles that they might have as well as to think about suggestions that they might need. I noticed that sometimes it is hard for me to listen very well during rehearsal if I accompany the piano for the choir or I am distracted by some other stuff. However to be a good teacher and musician, I believe it is the most important to listen to the music and the sound that student make.

4th week(10/18/10-10/21/10)

It was one of the busiest weeks of this semester at the high school. There was an open house for a couple of days, the first rehearsal for the “Messiah” at Carnegie hall and also there was a cabaret performance from Friday through Sunday night. I was able to see how much effort and professionalism as well as the love for music and the students was necessary in order to be a good music teacher. By preparing many different schedules, both students and teacher were getting tired and a few students were neglecting to do what was assigned to them. There were moments when the teacher had to shout to the students as they acted out in a bad manner or talked back to the teacher. I felt bad for some students because it seemed that they were missing important values that come from working with other people. Especially when it deals with a rehearsal right before the concert, they should try to be there unless they had something urgent. Otherwise the students should let the teacher know and explain the reason why they were not able to present themselves for the rehearsal ahead of time. Some students thought that it was okay for them to inform of their situation the next day and the conversation between the teacher and students end up terribly. One student just didn’t show up because he was extremely tired or so and he kept on insisting with a negative attitude, which made the teacher angry. Aside having unpleasant discussions with some students, the teacher had to think about many things related to the concert; selling tickets, getting permission slips from students’ parents, black out rehearsal, decorations, table setting, bringing food, making a floor chart (where tables, kitchen, waiting areas will be), how to perform in limited stage area and so on. As a student teacher, I had a great opportunity to watch how to deal with all these different preparations; also it gave me the opportunity to know the students better while preparing concert.

At all times I try to think of the different qualities that make a good teacher or how I can improve the way I teach to be a better teacher. Once I thought that I could be a good music teacher if I have enough musical knowledge, good class management, and a warm heart to love and care for the students. From the experiences I have learned from NYU and as student teacher plus my own philosophy of music, I really hope that I could be a teacher who communicates well with students with discipline. I have seen many teachers had a good, well-written lesson plan, but they were not really concerned about how much the students were getting the lesson and just kept on moving to the next lesson. Some teachers had the whole class really be more focused to him/her to prevent any disturbances or any noises. But is this a good way of approaching the students? I would say maybe yes, but not always. There are many students who are staring at the teacher, but they are not really paying attention to what is going on. In one choir class, I tried to make everyone look at me, and follow my instructions. At the same time, I tried to look at everyone’s eyes while I am teaching so that I could show the students that I am interested at what they are doing. Unfortunately there were still some students who did not really care about my instructions and what I was saying. At the time I was discouraged by the way they reacted at me but I didn’t want to show any unpleasant feelings. I think speaking louder or calling out to them individually can’t be a solution. I believe and I really hope that I express myself well enough to communicate with the students through music. But how? I am still in the process of learning how to teach better. I believe that teachers should concentrate on how much improvement they can bring to the students and they should give praises and comments on what the students are doing better. Second, teachers need to explain very clearly and specifically enough so that the students can understand. Third, teachers need to have certain discipline and authority. I have heard so many times from people not to try to be friends with students. I guess it depends on who are in the class but generally it is important to have a certain kind of control over them.

I noticed in music appreciation class that I am watching, the teacher was overall very dynamic and encouraged the students to be more involved in the class. In the beginning of the class, he reviewed the previous lesson that the students had learned last time. When explaining, he gave enough examples until students understood the lesson. He often asked questions, not always but to those who were not paying attention. I also noticed he tried to keep the class moving forward with energy. He made students ask questions, which were relevant to the topic (he refused to answer the off-topic questions, he let them take notes the way they could understand, have them listen to the music and connected to the concept, and let them read the book by paragraphs out loud). I could see that most of the students in the class were paying attention and were very engaged throughout the class. Interestingly, when the same students are in keyboard class, it was really hard to get their attention. I guess it is because they were making noise with the keyboard. I don’t know what is the best way to solve this problem yet.

Last week I didn’t get the chance to teach choir class for the whole period due to several announcements that were needed for the concert. So I thought it might be better to slightly modify the lesson in order to fit for the time that I had. I shortened the warm up exercises and I skipped the sight-singing activity. Since we have been singing the same song from last week, I wanted to start by singing the whole song once. They sounded quite nicely but there were couple of places that we needed to practice in each part. I made them sing the given notes to the pitch that was required. If the first note was the middle C and it went up to Bb, I reminded them to think about the 7^th chord (dominant) that they had learned in the keyboard class. They haven’t worked on all of the intervals, so I didn’t want to explain too specifically about the intervals between the notes. There were only two tenors in the class, sometimes only one person; it was hard to hear the balance between the parts. After the lesson, my cooperating teacher suggested me that I could ask the choir to stand up in some parts while singing because she thought it gives more dynamics in the class and by switching singing positions, it helps them to be awake, especially in the hot room without any shades. What I am concerned about this group of students is that they are used to singing the music by listening to the piano and they don’t really look at the music sheets and notes sometimes. I believe that by the time they learn new music; they should be aware of the notes written on the music as it would help them make harmonious sound as a group with correct pitch. There is a limitation to improve music of the class due to the lack of an accompanist so the teacher cannot always conduct the choir. I really hope that they could sing together by understanding and listening to every sound they make.

3rd week(10/10/10-10/14/10)

The more experiences I have on student teaching, I realize that there are both good days and bad days. I guess this means that I am getting more and more involved in an actual school environment. The good thing is that now I can remember most of the students’ names but I still have some hard time pronouncing certain names so some of them seemed “a little bit” frustrated when I call their names. In overall this week was pretty hectic even though we had the holiday on Monday. Most classes are preparing for the upcoming concert so we had to work really hard for this. However students were not following the way the teacher wanted them to follow; sometimes it seemed that they were practicing on the pieces only in class and not at home. The worst thing was that they would not let the class progress not even a single minute, or second because they could not stop talking with their neighbors. That made my cooperating teacher and me really tired which made it hard to focus on what we were going to do next. There is definitely less effort to control a small sized class such as opera I, II, women’s ensemble. However classes such as concert choir or chorale, it was hard to stop the students to stop chatting throughout the class.

One day when my cooperating teacher had to leave early because of her dress rehearsal for the concert, I was really concerned about how the students were going to react to the fact that the teacher was not in the classroom. She had assigned another teacher with me, so I thought they would not make so much trouble. But I was wrong. Almost none of the students were listening to what I was saying to them, even as I checked the attendance. That was not all. Although they should be seated in the classroom, many students were walking around acting out. As I tried to make them stop talking, I was not be happy of course and my voice definitely was getting louder and higher. One student told his neighbors “she has a bad day” laughing. I was really frustrated by hearing this because I felt that he seemed that he was taking advantage of having me instead of my cooperating teacher. I know most of students behave well except the fact that they are really chatty. After that I started to observe more precisely how my cooperating teacher reacted to them when they do not listen to her. There were not so much differences in their attitude. She got mad and had to use a louder voice and sometimes even shout and whistle to them. I felt that at often times they could do more stuff in one rehearsal but by repeating lines for each part as they chatted, each period we lost so much precious time and in the end, we found we did so little. I believe music class should be enjoyable but at the same time the teacher should have a certain level of control over them so that they don’t fool around or they don’t regard the music class as just wasting time, especially in large sized classes.

Below is what we were discussing and my cooperating teacher was suggesting for better rehearsal.

1. Come prepared:

- Be punctual; bring music with pencil; and practice

- Be better for each rehearsal

2. Warm-ups:

- Centered participate: what does my voice feel like toda

- Breathing focus in voice, projection

3. Pay attention

- Work on the next part of your music while others are working with their lines

- Stop talking

- When conductor stops, you must stop

As I prepared for teaching the choirs, I looked for many references to deal with different types of choir. Since my cooperating teacher was giving me a lot of freedom I guess when dealing with the choir, I tried not to mimic the way she taught, however still I followed some plans the same when I liked the way she taught. As I read from the books, it seemed good to have some routines for the students regarding the process/steps for the choir such as do warm-ups, sight read, and the piece. But whenever I did warm-ups, I felt like I didn’t have much knowledge about how to make better sounds using our whole body. Sometimes I gave them information that I got from books or other resources but I had difficulties when giving recommendations to them when I identified problems as they were singing. All I could do, I guess is anticipate what was going to happen in the classroom and prepare for how I might respond to them. I knew it might be impossible for every single person in class to pay attention to me and sing well, but I really wanted to communicate with them through music and I believe each class is so valuable for both them and me. They might be learning music from me but also I learned from them how and what about music to teach. So what I will do is to prepare well enough to teach while I am controlling their behavior. I wanted to be friendly but I am not going to be controlled by them. As a student teacher, it seems obvious to have these kinds of concerns or stress; maybe I guess every teacher has the same concerns but they are devoted to the profession because they experience teachable moments.

I had a really good opportunity to watch a performance by drama major students. At first I didn’t know what to expect and what was happening but I got to know many facts about the students living in America and I definitely believe that the contents of the performance will give positive effect on the students who were watching it. In the beginning, about 15 students got on the stage wearing all black colored clothes, and they had different words written on them, which represented each student performing. Basically each person has his/her role to say something related to the issues in this society in mostly monologue setting or acting with one or two more persons. They speak about how much pain they had gotten by being called negative words; such as nigger, chink (Italian Chinese), stupid, fat, gay, bitch, and etc. All of them said never judge people because of their ethnic background, skin color or religion.

The performance tells much more behind their pain and makes us realize how we treat other people. Not only students but teachers regardless of what they are teaching, we can overlook this matter. People say human beings are all equal no matter how they are but we have to think about how much judgment we have had as we treat people differently. I hope students are more aware of what they say to other people and are more responsible as they get older with a more open-mind. I really believe the more the students accept the diversities happening in this world, the more they mature to make a better future.

2nd week(10/4/10-10/7/10)

This week I have tried to learn more from every opportunity I encounter observing and teaching because I missed many classes for about 2 weeks. Fortunately, with the help of professor Lieberman, I am able to attend 2 other classes, which are music appreciation and keyboard class offered in the 1^st period. Working with another teacher was fun and a very challenging experience and meeting students who I have already met in choir class in different classes gave me more chances to get to know them better. While I was watching both music appreciation and keyboard classes, I had many concerns about how to deal with these classes. In music appreciation class, they use a certain book in order to get all the information about music history and other materials concerning about music. I noticed that even though it has a lot of information, the role of a teacher is how to explain and relate music history and the information to the students. Teachers need to increase the knowledge of students, so that they can understand and be interested in music class, instead of just memorizing the information that they take notes on. And in the end, students could realize that knowing music history is beneficial.

In keyboard class, a lot of students were pretty good at figuring out key signature, scale, and chords. During class time, it seemed very hard to control the students so that they do not play the instrument while the teacher is talking to them. When I saw the teacher make them stop playing all the time, I was really concerned about how to control them and at the same time I told myself not to get mad when I start teaching them. Also, I started to think of how I am going to break down the material and help them understand and at the same time encourage some students with difficulties following up with the material. I am in the process of learning new instruments in woodwind practicum class, I understand how hard it is to learn something new and my hope is to get every student involved in the class and help them individually so that they don’t fall behind. One student asked my cooperating teacher if he would play the piano much better if he could follow the instructions better, but the teacher told him she was not sure because as they went to a higher grade, they might not get the chance to take the keyboard class. He seemed very disappointed by hearing that and he thought that he might not get a chance to improve his skills with the keyboard later. I just hope that the school could provide a learning environment to the students who want to study and experience more about music and keyboard but may not have the financial support to follow through.

Today it was the first time I was teaching the choir for the entire hour. Unlike other choir classes, the students are mostly 9^th graders and some 10^th graders and they don’t need to audition to get into this class. So, their level of singing was quite different. I prepared the lesson plan for this class and in overall I wanted the students to sing and also I wanted to help them be more engaged in singing while enjoying and learning more about music. Since there was a sight singing test next day I asked them if they wanted to go over some of the stuff they needed to prepare. Personally I like to ask and talk with people when I teach something. They seemed quite hesitant to ask me for help, so I had to make them feel more comfortable by interacting and smiling at them more often. A couple of students asked me about some parts that they were unsure about and all of us sang it through. During sight singing I could hear that many of them were struggling to find the intervals between the notes. Sometimes I used hand signals to show them high and low pitches and I sang with them all the time. Later I noticed and was also told by my cooperating teacher that I was singing too much and did not let them figure out how the melody went. I realized that the time when we finished sight seeing including attendance and some warm-ups already had passed 25 minutes, so I tried to speed up a little bit. The title we worked on class is “Music, You are a friend to me”. Since they only had a chance to sing a little bit, first I wanted to explain the triplet rhythms that was used in many places in this piece. My cooperating teacher kept pointing out that most students don’t know these stuff so I might need to spend some time explaining from the beginning. It was harder than I thought, to explain the material in front of more than 50 students and have them respond to me. After this, I only had less than 10 minutes to rehearse the piece. I asked them start singing from the place where we worked on the rhythm. Surprisingly, they sang nicely all the triplet rhythms with the words. For the last minute, I tried to make a comment about what we had done today and I promised them that next time we were going to sing a lot more. After the class, my cooperating teacher mentioned to me that she thought the lesson went smoothly and the students seemed that they liked today’s lesson. She also pointed out some things that I might need to fix or alternate for the next lessons. Once again I felt that observing the class and teaching the students were totally different experiences. I will be more focused on managing time on each activity so that I don’t rush towards the end. At all times I have thought carefully on how to explain the material so they don’t get confused as I explain to them.

One day, two people from Carnegie hall visited the school and wanted to see how the students were singing and at the same time they were able to give a short sort of master class. Since the concert at Carnegie hall is coming soon, they wanted to listen and help since they had experienced so many concert choirs. They recommendations on how to make it better and the students kept trying to sing the way they wanted. Since many of the songs had very tricky rhythms and difficulties in terms of where they put syllables, they needed to let the students sing the same thing together. They explained that it is important that when they sing in large places such as Carnegie Hall, the students need to have unity. I guess not all the recommendations were acceptable to my cooperating teacher, but she was very open and tried to find better ways to accommodate the situation.

I know that usually musicians have more guts than people who don’t do music, but it is really important to listen to the opinion of other people and apply it for better results in music. It was certainly useful and valuable time for me to have them and see what they say about the choir as they prepare for the concert.

1st week(9/13/10-9/16/10)

In the school I am student teaching, there are six different music classes; chamber singers (SATB), concert choir (SATB), opera, women’s ensemble, women’s choir, and chorale(SATB). The number of students depends on the class, about 10 to 50 people. I have spent this week observing how the teacher rehearses for each class and at the same time I helped her by accompanying for the pieces they were working and rehearsing in small groups to practice their parts. Students are working on almost all the pieces to prepare for the upcoming concerts, which are scheduled for Oct through Dec. The teacher already chose the pieces including classical music, a cappella, opera aria, and Broadway musical pieces. My cooperating teacher majored in voice and she also was able to play the piano when dealing with each part practice. In each class, she spent time checking attendance, doing warm-ups, and rehearsing one or two pieces. Some concerts are only offered for those who pass the held auditions, which will occur in about 2 weeks. For that reason, students had to work on their part individually.

I don’t have much experience with working for a choir as a director even though I have been playing the piano for the choir for a while. As I am going to direct different choirs as a student teacher, I have thought of how to deal with them in terms of needs, levels of each choir, number of students, creative but efficient way of rehearsing and so on. Recent choir experiences I had were the NYU women’s choir and the Kodaly program where I sang in the choir. Through both of these classes I have learned how to teach choir and make the choir sound good. I enjoyed the classes a lot and worked hard but I realized how I neglected to learn how well they were taught. I always thought that I had a sense of understanding music and teaching choir is something I could do because I could play any music at the same time.

One day the teacher asked me to have the choir warm-ups and part practice. Even though I wasn’t prepared very well, I wanted them to have fun in a way and bring something different than what they were doing. I tried to be confident, bold, and at the same time loud. As warm-ups, I asked them to stretch out their bodies and massage their neighbors. They really liked it and it helped each other to be relaxed. Then I went on vocal practice. At the time I didn’t know which warm-ups were going to help when singing the different pieces, so I just did some easy ones and then I asked them if they have particular warm-ups they wanted to do. One girl suggested an exercise and we had fun while warming up our voices.

I have been thinking about different kinds of warm-up that can be used for the choir and also that can connect to the actual pieces they are working on, instead of seeking routine. In one of the classes that I am taking, we talked about this topic a little bit and if we do the same warm up every day, it might not be a warm up anymore. I am still figuring out what the best way of warming up might be by reading books and searching articles. In most classes I have watched the teacher playing the piano in order to get the pitch or melody and if students do not get it right, she played the piano while singing the part. Even though the students are holding music sheets, they kind of figured out the melody by only listening to what the teacher played or sang. Sometimes they seemed to be confused about the melody because she played a bit differently every time or because she made many mistakes. I am still debating on which way would be better for them, playing the piano whenever I need to or not relying on the piano too much while letting them look at the music sheets and helping them to get the right pitch. After observing many classes, I had many questions.

- Is repetition the best way to get their lines?

- How am I going to stop the chatting, especially when I am working on one part?

- If their voices and sounds are not strong enough, how am I going to encourage them to sing out loud? More energy, is that it ?

- Use appropriate words or terms according to the situation

- For beginning singers, what can I ask them to do? Something not too difficult to understand

- Posture; I think good posture definitely makes better sounds.

- What I could use while I observed from the classes

- Have them at times sing while seated or standing (alternation refrains to get bored I think

- Have them sing by row sometimes not everyone is singing correct

- Give an example that might help them understand about singing

- Not all the time but speaking works with rhythms rather than singing right after they get new music

- Let one part hum while I work with the other part

10th week

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9th week

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8th week

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7th week

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6th week

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5th week

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4th week

Reflection on teaching for Kindergarten last week

While preparing the lesson plans for kindergarten music class last week, I had some difficulties gathering the repertoires that had the relevancy to the objective and level of the children. Whenever I look for songs for the class, I tend to think about the children and how easily they can sing with me. In that way they can find joy as well as they can learn. Once I get a theme for the lessons, I thought about how to make connections between each activity. For example, which songs might be good for the beginning of the class, how can I extend from one song to another, When do I use books, is it better for them to sit in a circle, what will I do(say) during transition and so forth.

After I presented my lesson plan in class, I thought about a couple of things I needed to be more aware of when teaching the kindergarten class. First of all, I need the students to get more involved in the lessons. I think this relates to making sure that every student understands what I am trying to explain for the lesson. Some students might have heard or sung some of the songs before so they participate more actively, however on the other hand, it takes some time for the other students to learn the songs. When students are noisy or they don’t seem to get the lesson, I need to remind them by asking the students about their understanding in the particular lesson.

Secondly, I should be more specific and clear in every activity. When I asked the students to listen to the music, instead of just letting them listen passively, give them an objective, which will help them listen effectively so that they can verbalize better about what they perceived and experienced whiled listening.

Third, I think it could be a very efficient way to summarize the lesson or ask them at the end to talk about what we have done during the class. I believe it may help them remember better next time by reviewing right after the class. Another thing I experienced through teaching is to be more open and honest. Whenever children ask about something I haven’t thought about before or they respond to me in a way I didn’t expect, I tend to be embarrassed.

Lastly and more importantly to me, I need to speak much louder and slowly. When I was performing in the past, I did not pay too much attention on how I would present music because there was a medium such as the piano. But for teachers who convey their ideas and plans through articulating their own voices, it is required for me to organize my thoughts and express it clearly so that I can communicate better with children.

I have found that trying to think about the lesson and the students at all times is very complicated and hard. Much practice and thought about the lesson plans must be given before starting the class so that I can be mentally prepared to deal with teaching the students.

3rd week

In the beginning of the class, I introduced the new song “Che che koole” to the kids. I was happy because they seemed to enjoy singing the song. It was still not easy to pronounce the lyrics, which came from Ghana, Africa. But they just imitated the what I showed them. I also could share the new game song with the teacher’s help. In these particular game songs “Mrs. Macaroni” and “Muffin Man”, we had to cover all the kids in the class, which seemed fair to them. Doing 2 game songs together was really tiring because I needed to sing out loud to support the class repeatedly and had to be aware of the small space to fit every kid while making a nice circle shape. Lastly, the teacher introduced “Follow the drinking gourd”, which was new to them. We all loved to share the story and music in this black history month. While reading the book, the teacher kept asking what happened in each page by looking at the picture and reading through it. Still many kids were not sitting still in the front, so the teacher had to remind them to sit properly so that kids sitting in the back could see all that washappening in the front.

3^rd &4^th chorus; We went over all the songs we needed to be working for the upcoming concert, which is Martin Luther King Jr. Assembly. Since they performed once last week, the students seemed a little relaxed. One girl standing on the side kept doing something else rather than singing. When especially working as a group, behavior like that really annoyed me. Even if the teacher gave a couple of cautions it didn’t seem to work. Finally the teacher asked her either follow her directions otherwise there will be no need for her to spend time here. The class gathered by someone who they had chosen themselves. Afterwards we rehearsed the whole program that will be played for the MLK concert for this week. I accompanied in several songs of the concert. I think it was a good opportunity for me to see their interest for music. It was also very helpful to see and learn from the teacher as she conducted to chorus. She guided the choir in a clear and simple way so that the students could understand and follow her cues. Although we did not have enough time to prepare for the concert, I think the teacher chose the right songs to express different themes according to black history month.

2nd week

Since many of the children were a little having some difficulties making clear sounds when they switched notes, the teacher recommended them to hear the tone before playing. IT WORKED. I thought the instruction or imagination that the teacher gave the class made a big difference for them to make the sound quality better.

I think it could be an effective tool for children to challenge them when they want to play very well as a whole. For example, when the teacher asked to play according to each row where they sit or girl versus boys, they really seemed focused on what they were doing. And finally when they made it without any trouble, they looked more confident. For the recorder class, it always is requirement to mention the posture (seat on the ground, straight backbone) and fingering (sometimes without blowing, by only pressing their fingers on the holes – noticed they were thinking what each notes sound like).

When most of the students got the stuff, she made a comment about the dynamics they were supposed to make for the song. They all seemed to understand what they needed to do tomake soft/loud sounds.

This Kindergarten class is one of my favorites. Not because they are cute little ones, but I see a lot of joyfulness and interest. I see that they sometimes have hard times when they are pairing up. Personally I like the way they just grab someone next to them instead of finding their closefriends in particular. I saw some girls discriminating one single girl. I am not sure if it was because she was black or just because they didn’t like her. Seeing little girls acting this way surprised me when we strive for a multicultural society. After we sang a few songs, I taught them “Che che Koole”. Since a couple of the students knew the song already, I could ask further questions to them. One kid came up to the front and then he/she demonstrated once the whole song and thought about other different motions that would go along with the song. The purpose of learning this song is to know what the lyrics meant while using their body movement.

At the Recess & Lunch Period

There was always more than one kid sitting at the corner of the gym which meant that person isnot able to play with his/her friends because he/she had done something wrong in their previous classes. They cannot talk, play with anyone and they also have to be seated properly during punishment. What made me sad was that some of them were still doing things that the teacher did not allow and again they had to be punished another way. I was just wondering if there is better way for them to think about their wrong behaviors made in classroom so that they could behave better.

1st week

The students started the class by playing recorder. They also had time to learn about flute instrument. After, I taught a new game song called “Sansa Kroma”. This was my favorite game since I learned it from school. Even though it looked very simple, this was actually the first time I had a chance to teach a NEW SONG. That meant I had to pay more attention on the kids just to learn the song. I routinely started to sing the song and try to teach the game rule. That was my big mistake. First of all, I really needed to teach the pronunciation of each word since the language came from Africa. After I noticed it from a teacher, I explained how they would go about playing this game. After the class, the teacher proposed to me that when dealing with young kids, I should break down every step I need to teach them. That was a good experience for me to realize how to process teaching

Unlike the last week, teachers and I went into their classroom. That was the kids’ lunchtime. It was great for me to be there since I could watch for each individual closely and get to know them while helping as they ate their meals. The classroom was pretty nice and big enough for them get reach to all the stuff. I could see the picture of the students with names in the center attached to the blackboard. It is very hard for me to memorize names of people, but I thought the best way to be able to know the kids well is to know their names. So I tried to match their faces and names. After finishing with having lunch, the children started to sit on the rug and started reading books. After a while, we continued to read for the kids the book “Follow the drinking gourd” with the addition of music. I think this book is great for any grade in elementary school because children can think throughout the book with a historical background. Surprisingly, they got to understand the lyrics for the song by reading the book even though they were still young. We also had fun while freeze dance. I think it can be a good transition as well as letting them relaxed.

At the start of the class the teacher wanted to express the different cultures, and asked the students to come up with “hello” of different languages that were taught previously to them. The song “This land is your land” involves different hand motions that seemed to help the children remember the lyrics better. The song “Che Che Koole” which I taught the students, gave them the chance to understand about previous knowledge. There are many kids that had learned this song since preschool and helped the rest of the students to follow and enjoy the song better. Parade of wooden soldiers is performed by the students using different percussion instruments, where they have to follow a couple of different specific patterns that they listen beforehand. This activity allows the students to learn better about the lyrics. Since the students are first graders they learn more by listening to the rhythms rather than by seeing notes or music books. At times when the teacher is explaining an activity, I have noticed that there is always a bunch of students who do not pay attention. I have realized that I need to find ways to take control and allow these students to respect music and engage in the activities.