Yipes! It's been over a year since I wrote. The good news is, I'm doing quite a lot of writing outside of this blog, mostly on my book, The Stretch Project. I'm making steady progress; I work on it every day, even if only for 10 minutes. It's a wonderful, satisfying discipline.
This year, I'm back to teaching in a "normal" school (i.e. one with a building), Stoneridge Children's Montessori School. My youngest students at Stoneridge are 2 years old (!) . . . fortunately, I've also got middle schoolers still . . . and everything in between. I'm loving it. Toddlers and preschoolers glisten with wonder; they are wide-eyed and funny and uninhibited. At the beginning of the year, it was an adjustment to sing "little kid" songs. Some kids' music is obnoxious, but I sift through the CDs for songs that I enjoy: silly stuff, preferably with goofy little dances. There are many moments when I feel sly and triumphant to have found a profession where I can engage in tomfoolery for legit income.
Of course, there are new challenges, too! Some of my classes have been chaotic at times, and I am re-learning that when students misbehave, I can't take it personally . . . but I must take it into consideration. As always, my goal is to get to a point where I don't encounter many discipline problems. I've found that the more I empower my students, the more they want to work hard and make amazing things happen. Fortunately, this is Montessori philosophy, so my colleagues are down with this sort of thinking. With a couple of classes, I still have a long way to go from philosophy to reality! But I'm on my way.
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When I explained that I'll be leaving Miles River Middle School, one of my students suggested that I keep a blog. I've created many class blogs for our "Stretch Projects" in music, so it actually feels weird to have a blog that is MINE! I hope people will leave comments on my posts.
4 comments:
I'm glad that you are blogging again. :)
Hello! How are you Hannah? i am procrastinating instead of doing homework or writing my speech because I have been doing that for hours on end! AAAH!
A direct quote from my speech: "Hannah, our wonderful music teacher, got me into musical theatre, and inspired me to experiment with different types of music. Hannah managed to keep a smile on her face even in the most trying of circumstances. For example, Hannah will sing a note to a middle school-er and the middle school-er either does not understand the concept of singing the note back to Hannah, or they are going deaf. When Hannah tells us to pose like a statue, and says not to be violent, we hold imaginary guns and axes and stand as though frozen somewhere in the process of brutally murdering one another. When Hannah says to be quiet, we do the most marvelous job of making as much noise as possible under the circumstances. The circumstances are a room full of loud instruments and objects that can be knocked over or tripped on. A middle school-er should not be expected to remember any words of a song except the chorus. Even if they have heard and practiced the song a few hundred times. When expected to sing, a middle school-er will stand in place and repeat whatever it is that the person next to them is saying, or just loudly sing whatever assorted bizarre jumble of sounds, syllables and notes that comes into their head. "
And you shouldn't have the name of the school, because M.R.G. (a middle school teacher) said that people would stalk us.
I think that if they know what country we are in they will GET US. Then they will most likely EAT US.
Hannah, I do not want to be eaten. I would be very sad if you were eaten too!
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