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.
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