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.
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