The latest happenings...

Well, my first placement is finally over...yay! I have been so ready for it to end.  I shouldn't complain too much though because on my last day at the school this week, some of the kids baked cookies and brownies, got balloons and had a little surprise going away party for me.  It was really nice and I appreciated it.  Now that I am five months pregnant, I decided it was time to break down and buy some maternity clothes...do I look pregnant now?!

Tom took this unflattering picture of me but it is a picture nonetheless.  Did anyone get to enjoy the snow on Monday?  I sure did!  I didn't have to go in to school that day since the storm was so bad.  That didn't stop Tom from driving to the shore to surf though.  He said the waves were really good so it was worth the treacherous drive down (I know he's crazy!). 
I have been wanting to put this picture online for a while now...some students got the bright idea to fill Tom's office with balloons...this is a shot through his office door.

Another picture of the shore!
The drive down....

Tom in his office....
In a little under an hour, Tom and I are going to get THE ultrasound (boy or girl?).  I am so excited to see the baby!  I have been feeling movement more and more lately and it is really amazing.  I will probably post again once we find out so don't worry, you'll know soon hopefully.

The day I think I should have stayed in bed...

I know I just posted yesterday but I just have to tell you about the day I had.

As you know, I have been able to conquer managing/disciplining the middle school grades and these students have been relatively easy for me to teach with no real major challenges.

High School has not been the same. Today, I had high school choir which the cooperating teacher and I decided to split boys and girls. I had the boys today and she had the girls. The reason we did this was because the guys were so bad, they needed more attention and were kind of dragging the girls down...most can't read music at all and rely on me playing their parts to get the songs.

Today I had asked another teacher at the school to come and observe and give me pointers. The guys were good in the beginning for warm ups but got progressively worse as the rehearsal went on. One student asked to be excused to go to the bathroom and on his way out, was kicked by another student. This I did not see because I was playing the tenor's part at the time. When the student returned from going to the bathroom, he smacked the student who kicked him in the groin. This unfortunately I also did not see because I can only see the guys from the waist up when I am sitting at the piano playing parts. All the guys saw it and of course no one would explain what happened, even the student who got hit in the "man area" would not say what happened.

But the teacher who came to observe me today saw it. She told me afterward what happened and said they have done this before.

In the midst of all this, I had another student in class who told me he wasn't singing because he wasn't going to be able to go to Dorney Park which is what we were practicing this music for (I found out later that the reason this kids wasn't going was because his parents couldn't afford it). I informed him that he could sing with us regardless because by doing so, it would help him become a better singer. He did not fight me on this statement and joined the choir but for the rest of the class, proved to be rude and distracting in everything he did. At one point, he blatantly walked in front of me and was making faces at the tenors. It was at this point that I asked him to sit down.

On my way home, I had to call Tom. He of course was very comforting and encouraging, and gave me some good tips and suggestions for Wednesday when I have this particular class again. Tomorrow I am going to speak to the Principal about the kid who hit another student in the groin. That act could be considered sexual harassment. I came in to the class trying to treat everyone with courtesy and respect but now realize that I can no longer treat them as young adults but as children who need to be directed in what they should do. I am amazed at the level of behavior in this school though. In talking to other teachers, this seems to be accepted that the students act this way and most struggle at ways to help them behave. I can't wait til I get to the elementary school!

Pray for me if you think of it!  I need it right now.

The home stretch...

Yay! Only 1 and a 1/2 weeks to go until I am done with my first placement!  The past couple weeks have been very full...at school all day, come home write lesson plans all night, go to bed, repeat the next day.  The weekends aren't much better.  Saturdays we have drama/music rehearsals with the church for the Easter musical.  I leave my house at 11AM and don't get back til 6PM and by then I am tired and don't feel like doing more work.  Sigh.  I knew this was going to be hard when I decided to do this whole student teaching but the gravity of this has definitely sunk in.  At least when I am all done, I will have my certification "just in case." 

I met the teacher for my next placement (which will be at a public elementary school, starting March 11) this week.  I am really excited to get to work with this woman, she has been teaching for over 22 years and has quite the reputation at the school for teaching the kids how to read rhythms and melodies in elementary school!  

As far as my impressions of the school I am still currently in, I am really enjoying the middle school but the high school leaves much to be desired.  They are kind of a rowdy bunch and do not respond as quickly to behavior management techniques that work so easily with the middle school.  I have found quite a few of the high school students rude and disrespectful and it has been a challenge coming into such a culture.  It's funny because I thought that the high school would be the easiest for me since I have more experience with that age group working with the choir at my church but they have proved to be the most difficult.  When I asked other teachers at the school whether they are experiencing the same things, they all seemed to voice the same concerns that I have.  Unfortunately, I probably am having a harder time because the high school students see me as an inexperienced student teacher. 

Despite the business, my belly continues to grow...it is just such an amazing process.  On March 5th, we find out if the baby is a boy or girl!  So exciting!  Tom and I have been working away at the "baby" room.  So far, everything has been cleaned out of there but no decorating yet until we know the sex of the baby.  

I think I can, I think I can!

Frazzled.  That would be a good word to describe my current state of being.  At this point in my Student teaching I experience, I have reached the halfway point.  I have completed 3 1/2 weeks of placement one and have 3 1/2 more to go.  Unfortunately, the next 3 1/2 weeks will be harder than the first because I have been gradually adding classes into my teaching day week by week until this week where I am now teaching the maximum 3 lessons per day.   That means I will be writing 15 lesson plans per week from now until March 4.  If any of you are wondering how many that it, it's 54 from now until March 4!  While it can vary depending on the subject I am teaching, each lesson takes anywhere from 1-2 hours for me to prepare and write.  That is a lot of time considering I am teaching 3 voice students at PBU as an "affiliate artist" this semester, taking a 4 hour long graduate class on Tuesday nights, running my churches Easter musical practice on Saturdays from 12-5 and still trying to remember that the house should be cleaned, dinner should be made and I should get to bed at a decent hour.  

As you can imagine, there are some things that are starting to slip through the cracks and I don't feel one bit guilty about it.  For example, I was able to vaccuum the house on Saturday and get all the laundry done, but there would be no dusting or washing of floors.  Some things have to give for me right now because there is just not enough time in the day.  Thankfully, I have been to make some time for exercise and scripture reading in the late afternoon evening (before I start writing lesson plans) but you can pray for me that I make it through this whole ordeal with my sanity intact.

The first week of teaching!

Well, I think I just barely survived the first week of student teaching! The teacher that I am working with at the christian school has an unbelievable amount of classes to teach...she not only teaches the middle school and high school, but last year, she was told that due to budget cuts, she would also be teaching all the elementary classes as well, for the same salary! It has certainly made me think hard about wanting to teach in a christian school.

The first few days of student teaching were strictly observation. I got to see my cooperating teacher teach all her lessons (this includes...middle school handbells, highschool handbells, middle school choir and high school choir, 1st, 3rd, 5th and 8th grade general music classes, a fine arts class, music theory class, a voice lesson, and a select ensemble) and at the end of every day, I was exhausted. I really don't know how she does it. She told me her first year of teaching she didn't sleep very much and used to take all her work home with her until her Dad told her she needed to find another alternative (she still lives at home as she is not married) So this week, I got to run the rehearsal for the middle school choir which was fun. The kids were, for the most part, kind and respectful to me while I was teaching but of course there are always a few that try to test you. I am thankful to have this experience however, because I feel as though my knowledge and preparation of my subject is where it should be but I certainly have room to grow when it comes to learning how to respond appropriately when there are discipline issues or in simple classroom management techniques.

This morning, I got a call at 5:45AM from my cooperating teacher telling me that there would be no school today due to the snow/ice. Yes! I went back to bed and slept until 9:30AM! I think I really needed that. Next week, I will be teaching the middle school choir, music theory and middle school handbells so I have a lot of lesson plans to write and this will give me some time with which to do it.


The middle school choir is the first time I have dealt with young boys and their changing voices, so I found this cartoon very fitting. The rehearsal I led was interesting because about a third of the boys were singing somewhere in the vicinity of the right notes and the rest of them were all over the place. I thought maybe they were tone deaf but when I asked my cooperating teacher what the deal was she told me that many of their voices are changing.

The Beginning of the End?

Well, the long weeks of Christmas break and waiting seem to be finally over and tomorrow I will begin my first day of student teaching! This first placement I will be in a Christian School teaching from middle school to High School and it runs from Jan. 21 to March 4. After that, I will switch to teaching music at the elementary school level but in a public school.

I am excited and nervous at the same time. Starting tomorrow, I will basically be "shadowing" my cooperating teacher at the Christian school. So theoretically, from tomorrow until next Wednesday, I will simply be observing her teach classes, writing reflections and getting to know the kids and the general atmosphere of the school/classroom. After the first week is over, I will gradually begin taking over the teaching of her classes which are basically all musical ensembles (she has a few select choir ensembles, select handbell ensembles and a couple of other choirs). I am excited about the choirs because this is what I do now at my church and I really love it. The only variable is that in talking to the teacher, I found out that hardly any of the students in the choirs can read music (not many people can read music anymore) so my approach to the rehearsal will have to be different from the one I take when I conduct the adult choir at the church.

On a different note, I came home from church on Sunday afternoon and was surprised to hear Tom say "let's organize our room for the baby." Wow. I thought I was going to be the one to get the ball rolling on that matter so he jumped the gun on me there. But I should know by now that even though one of my strengths is organization, Tom is 10x as organized as I am and is very good at it. So Sunday night we spent a couple of hours working on moving things around in the bedroom to make more space. I am about 3 1/2 months pregnant now and still able to fit into my pants. People at church tell me they don't see the belly but I can tell. I guess I have at least another month until I start "looking" pregnant. 

I finally finished the book "Angela's Ashes" and was pleasantly surprised.  If anyone is interested in reading a true story about a young boy growing up with his family in poverty in Ireland during WWII I would highly recommend it.  This book was so fascinating and it was just amazing what people in those days lived through.   

Books! Books! Books!

Anyone who grew up with me knows how much I love reading and I have lately just been getting that hobby back in full swing since I have no responsibilities until student teaching begins. I just finished reading "The Great Gatsby" a few minutes ago and it was quite depressing. It is funny that it is considered a classic because the ending was not the type of ending that you close the book and feel satisfied.

In between breaks from reading the great gatsby today, I read the "5 factor fitness" recommended by Christy. I also got a chance to try one of the workouts in the book and I quite enjoyed it. So far I have been enjoying the beginning of the second trimester because I have been feeling so much better and now feel able to exercise again. Yay!

I am going to try to read one more book before student teaching begins..."Angela's Ashes" by Frank McCourt and a winner of the Pulitzer Prize. Unfortunately, this seems like it will also be a sad book but it is also a true story so we will see. Tonight I am "going out with the girls" for dinner and a movie and it should be fun!