Take Your Mom's Foot Out of Your Mouth, Kid

Captains Log 3252011.9 - Was teaching an SAB version of "America the Beautiful" to my choir today. Stopped to talk about some of the lyrics and what they mean. Got on a tangent about how people often blindly recite the Pledge of Allegiance or the Star Spangled Banner without much thought to the text. Somehow I got on the subject of 9/11. That's when the high-functioning autistic kid in the front row chimed in:

"When 9/11 happened, my Mom said that all the Muslims in our neighborhood must have been really happy. She says they were throwing parties and stuff."

Stunned silence from the class. I quickly diverted attention by jumping into another song. While the class fished through their folders for the music, I had a word with Autistic Ted on the side.

Oh man... I hope I don't get a phone call on that one. I mean, it's not like it was my fault or anything... but.... damn....

Nom Nom Nom

One of my students gave me five boxes of shortbread.

Five.

Boxes.

Either he likes me or he's trying to kill me.


(Pardon me while I shake the crumbs out of my keyboard)

A Dolphin in the Tuna Nets

So as you know... part of my 'great reform' involves pull-out sectionals in choir, where I go around and check each kid individually. (Mostly that's meant to light a fire under the kids who want to sit in the back and do their math homework instead of sing. ) I'm trying not to make it traumatic for people - inevitably I end up instilling terror in some kids.

Katy, for example, is a reasonably cooperative kid. She never acts out in class, shows up on time, always participates, shows up to the performances. She's far from being the best singer - in fact she's rather tone deaf, and prone to singing in her low register with a range of about a minor third at best.

Katy is also the kid who bursts into tears any time she's asked to sing by herself. I don't do it a lot... only when I'm going around checking on everyone individually. I feel really bad for her, but I can't excuse her from going through the same process that everyone else goes through. What makes it worse is that she's the only girl in her section who has difficulty just matching pitch - everyone else has a handle on the part, some of them are just really really quiet. But Katy... she's trailing the pack pretty badly, and it's pretty obvious.

It makes me feel like a complete rat-bastard.... but there's really nothing I can do. Given the philosophy of my Concert Choir class, I have no intention of holding her grade accountable for her ability. Grades are mostly participation based and... well, she is participating. Even when I ask her to sing by herself... she never resists, she just gets really embarrassed and turns four different shades of red. Her eyes then start puffing up and in no time flat she looks like she's gone a couple rounds with Mike Tyson.

I don't know... I get caught between wanting to penalize the goof offs who really don't deserve an easy A, and helping out the kids who need to be cut some slack.

Phhttt.

Progress

The Great Reform - Day 25

My productivity on developing material has stalled a little bit this week - however, I've made progress on implementing new procedures in the classroom.

* I started doing pull out sectionals in choir, and spot checking each student individually on small sections.

* I finally handed out the scale sheets in band, along with fingering charts, the circle of 5ths, key transpositions for all instruments, and one scale exercise.

* Re-introduced keyboard basics in beginning instruments - with the emphasis that all students (not just percussion) will be learning fundamentals on the keyboard.

Up next:

* Scales, bowing and shifting exercises for orchestra.

* Chord symbol - improv scale charts for jazz band.

* Begin student portfolios.


Tally-Ho!