1)I am less rigid than when I started in 1999 .

2)Administrators come and go, teachers stay.

3)Never wish the pain in the ass kid was not in your class, because guaranteed some bigger pain in the ass will be coming around the bend.

4)Nature Hates a Vacuum - when the attention seeking kid is absent, another student who is usually not disruptive will rise up to take their place.

5)Unless you work in Special Education, when an unevaluated child, who desperately needs special accommodations or services, acts out in your classroom - YOU are a bad classroom manager. In the mainstream classroom , a child with undiagnosed autism acts out in your class while an administrator is watching - the administrator labels you as a bad classroom manager , but in special education, everyone knows the child has special needs that need to be met and accomodated. The child screaming is screaming because he/she learned they can’t hit people when they are frustrated! like they had been doing. The administrator of the special needs classroom understands this and you are not labeled.

6)I am not as important as I thought I was when I first started. Not that music education isn’t important, but if I don’t fit in with what the administrators expect/need/demand , there are many other music teachers who could take my position-though noone will quite do it like me.

7)Concerts/Assemblies are like Bulletin Boards in and out of the classroom-they show final product and are great public relations for the school, but all the real important work takes place in the classroom. I have high expectations in my class, but when we get on stage, anything could happen.

8)Related to 7-the kids could burp on stage and do very little of what I taught them and the parents would love it. They just want to see their child perform on stage.

9)Related to 6-Happy parents, make happy administration, which gives less headaches for me

10)Related to 9-Grade on a curve-create a system where the student who earns the lowest grade gets a B- or 3-, and then administer the grades up from there. Parents don’t care about what the grade means - just that it does not have a bad connotation .ie C or below. You know from your work who is at the top, middle, and bottom of the class and that is what truly matters.

11)I am too old and too tired to complain to parents about their kid’s behavior, especially since many learn the behavior from what the parents model. I will gladly call the parents of students who are showing good effort in my class.

12)Lesson plans - if you fail to plan you plan to fail

13)Your coworkers are not who you look to for fulfillment of personal friendships in your life. Be professional, be compassionate, be friendly, but remember that everyone has stuff going on outside of work that they let bleed into their professional life. At the end of the day, you need to care of yourself and your family and friends.

14)Don’t live to work, work to live-don’t let your professional life take up space in your brain off work hours.

15)Your worth as a teacher is not based off of 1 observation or 1 concert, but the mosaic that is formed from a career of giving concerts and being observed in the classroom.

16)A career in education is a marathon, not a sprint. Pace yourself. You have a bad day, go home, enjoy yourself and relax, get a good nights sleep, wake up and start all over again.

17)Know your contract and if you belong to a union, know what the union officials are doing on your behalf that will affect your salary and benefits, before it actually happens.

18)Related to 7-I HATE BULLETIN BOARDS!

19)Working in a school means working in a small community where everyone has a job of importance and should be treated with the respect that comes with it, no matter if the job is teacher, administrator, paraprofessional, related service provider, custodian, nurse, parent liaison, cafeteria worker. If you work in any capacity in a school, you treat every coworker with professional respect.

20)The only thing my teacher training gave me was the license to learn how to become the teacher I was destined to be. All the coursework and hoops I
had to jump through to get my MA and my license in the real world mean NOTHING. I have been in a test from the first day I started my first job 25 years ago. That is where you learn to become a teacher.

21)Teacher wisdom cannot be taught - it is the ability to know how to avoid doing stupid shit that will get you in trouble. You acquire teacher wisdom by doing stupid shit that gets you in trouble and learning not to do it again.

22)If a lesson is not working , don’t keep “beating a dead horse” - switch it up and go to your plan B (the lesson you can pull out of your back pocket and never fails).

23)Over 27 years of doing school concerts, 99% of them left me unsatisfied that I could of done better, but I was always 100% proud of my students,

24)When the district makes a contract for a new curriculum that every school in the system must use, IF the curriculum evaluation measures show that students are not improving, the system keeps it for 5 years. If the curriculum evaluation measures show that students ARE improving, the system gets rid of it in two years for a curriculum that costs less.

25)Know your union contract and rights and do not DEPEND on your school union rep to know it for you. You need to look out for yourself, because EVERYONE has agendas- the administration, the union, and you do as well - if the agendas are competing against each other, you are on your own!

Every morning this week I’ve woken up about an hour before my alarm and I just can’t stop thinking about work. Either what went wrong yesterday, or what might go wrong today, or sometimes just running through songs and dances in my head. By the time I actually get to work, I’m exhausted. Does anyone have advice on how to get my brain to shut up and let me get my whole eight hours of sleep?

This company uses predatory marketing.. and deceiving language.
They took my money and refused to refund me.. and forget having access to any of their scores without committing to the premium membership..

Week 4 into the school year, who else has the back to school crud? How's your singing voice been? The other day I straight up told my kinders my voice isn't feeling well today so you won't hear me sing like I usually do, but please, you can still sing when I invite you to! The other day I ended up teaching off my sub plans by the end of the day and introduced activities that used recordings, props, rhythm sticks and movements. I could sing today, but it was not pretty. A few of my kinders asked me if my singing voice felt better during dismissal, so sweet! I love this job even when I'm incapacitated! Gonna legit make lesson plans and label them "crud". What's your strategy when your fighting the lingering crud when not sick enough to call off, I'd love to hear it! Just looking for some solidarity here, lol.

Someone asked me over on another sub how you would actually run this across a whole choir in one rehearsal rather than one singer at a time, and the answer did not fit in a comment, so I wrote it up.

https://thibaudlepan77-svg.github.io/steady-pitch/vocal-range-check-choir.html

The short version, in case you would rather not click. Pairs, one sings and one writes, low end first because doing the top first tires the voice and drags the bottom figure up. Take the lowest and highest note they can HOLD, not their extremes, because nobody sings their extremes in tune and the extremes move with sleep and confidence while the comfortable band barely does. Then sort the lows, sort the highs, and the interval between the highest low and the lowest high is the band your whole room can sing in unison with nobody excluded. Put it on a card in your score folder.

There is a section on the cambiata and one on the student who cannot match pitch and is usually matching an octave down, which came out of a conversation with a teacher here this week. No tool needed for any of it, a keyboard and a pencil does the same job more slowly.

Im currently a senior in high school and my hope is to be a singer/songwriter. I plan to attend a private music college in LA, I was wondering how I’d be able to, if at all, teach music as a gig to make a living while in and after college. I plan to teach vocal if I can, what are the credentials I would need? Thank you for reading❤️

Hey all,

Going through first full week and my lessons with 1, 2, and 3 have been GREAT. That being said, when it comes to 4th and 5th they fall off and students completely lack interest in what’s going on.

I find I work better with younger students myself so it makes sense in that regard to me, but I definitely want to improve my lessons for those two groups.

Anyone have a good formula for upper elementary lessons or lesson plans for them they could share?

Hello! I’m a student at the University of Houston and I am designing an app to enhance the teaching and management experience for music teachers who are self- employed or work and small studios- having to do the administrative work themselves. Filling out this 10 minute survey will greatly help me and the success of my project. Thank you for your time!

Survey Link

Hello, I'm a newly graduated teacher getting my foot in the door by subbing for orchestra classes. I've had some great success getting gigs in the beginning of year. I wanted to ask about some strategies for talkative ensembles in middle and high school.

I'm pretty successful in teaching content and rehearsing music but managing behavior is something I wasn't taught very well and struggle with. My student teaching was a dream where the students hardly ever had behavior issues so I am not well versed in what to do in situations where the class is very distracted.

I understand this is partially due to me being a sub and that will always amplify any classroom struggles. I believe though if I can improve my classroom management while I'm subbing that once I have my own classroom things will be just a bit easier to manage.

Any tips or suggestions to help with this issue? Open to all feedback and ideas. Thanks!

Hello All,

I teach middle school band and recently replaced my music stands, but had a couple of these Wenger stands left over from a million years ago. The kids always fight over them, so I decided to paint them to make them more "special." One is purple, the other is gold (our school colors). I have been trying to come concrete criteria for each stand that makes it meaningful and teachable. I'm open to any ideas. I would like it to be stuff I can track so it's fair and subjective.

Thanks in advance.

I've seen this brought up before for discussions, should pibroch as a form be taught in schools - and in particular, Scottish schools as a form to build music from?

It's usually in a pentatonic key, which simplifies things. Then you could choose the primary form and go from there - involve the children in choosing some historical event to 'write' about and try to make compelling, moving music to match.

Just a thought.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p03t1r4f

I've seen this brought up before for discussions, should pibroch as a form be taught in schools - and in particular, Scottish schools as a form to build music from?

It's usually in a pentatonic key, which simplifies things. Then you could choose the primary form and go from there - involve the children in choosing some historical event to 'write' about and try to make compelling, moving music to match.

Just a thought.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p03t1r4f

i am a junior in HS, and i really want to go into music ed, but im stuck and really feel like i'm doing not doing enough but i dont know what more to do. currently, i'm in leadership for marching band, i'm taking piano class (taught by my band director), taking a teaching class, and practicing on my own at home too. i dont know what else to do, i'm working on getting a job to pay for private lessons but i have marching band rehearsal and a ton of homework and i'm worried i can't balance it all. if you're currently a music teacher or band director, or in school to become one, what did you do your junior and senior year?

also sorry if this isn't the appropriate place to ask this 😅

My daughter is attending school this year at a small homeschool co-op for second and third grade. They asked parents during our orientation if anyone had special skills they could share with the girls, and they gave the example of music. Being a lifelong musician, I naturally raised my hand to volunteer. I’m self-taught for the most part, but I have taken some formal lessons* in all of my three instruments: guitar, drums, and voice. I’m confident I know enough that I can teach the girls, but I don’t know what they know already, so I don’t know what I *should be teaching. I do plan to spend a lot of time trying to demystify music and instruments so they come away feeling like they are capable of making music themselves. Any suggestions?

i’m planning on playing SLTS at my old elementary school if they allow it and idk if this gen would like it or not cuz it’s hard to tell.
I’m playing just guitar and a backing track with vocals as a high school student.

I’m a general music teacher, and no matter how much experience I have I am just not a kindergarten/ first grade teacher. I get by and some people might even watch and think the lessons look great, but I am counting the minutes until I get them out the door. I feel like nowadays they are especially needy, even if they are little and they make me extremely anxious.

Kindergarten also does but also the assistants at our school think they own the building and admin kind of lets them think that. They couldn’t believe I dared to ever ask them to help me pass out materials.

For example, one of the things I tell my students is to check their thumb when playing because most of them either have it super close to the fretboard, or not at all. It was never taught to me and I don't really see many people talk about it, but it's something I've noticed as the years went by as a player myself. I've had students go from struggling to reach lower notes to suddenly *getting* it because they're now aware of where their thumb is.

So! Was wondering if yall had any little things like that, that you would want to share! From anything common to things you feel like people don't really talk about (but should).

Do you guys have your syllabus, and whole year planned out already? I’m a new teacher in the NYC DOE and I’m just trying to get a sense of what I should have ready at this point! All I have so far is a list of repertoire and classroom expectations (for Modern Band). My peers have also said that they really don’t have too much ready either. I also haven’t gotten much info from my school on my schedule, performance dates, etc.

So I’m looking for some advice or suggestions for this. Small 1A school with a 42 piece band. 26F that is teach teaching not only HS, but also middle school and elementary music.

The head band director that I work with took a sabbatical for marching season. They brought in someone else so that I would have help.

My students do not like how much change we’ve had. My administration because this band program has been labeled as the problem child for a couple years, wanted me to implement some rules and consequences.

This was something that the headband director and I talked about before he decided to take this sabbatical. But now that he has taken the sabbatical, I am left with putting these rules in place.

Well, I have some parents that are supportive. There are students that are feeling that I am disrespecting them because of some of these rules or because they cannot go and do whatever they want in the band room anymore.

I’m looking for ways to explain to my students that I am not trying to make band no longer fun, but I’m trying to help them to become better humans in with that is structure. Any advice would be helpful. I do not need someone saying anything negative with this. I’ve heard too much negative and I don’t wanna hear any negative.

They are learning the recorder this year! Why???? I have to apologize to my neighbors in advance now and get the bus schedule in case I want to jump in front of it!!

But seriously…..why??? Those things are the worst! And why do they have to bring it home to “practice”? No one is gonna grow up to be a professional recorder player!!

I love my child and do everything I can to ensure he thrives in school and in life but the recorder is where I draw the line. I just might “lose” the damn thing!

Edit: people can’t read between the lines so I have to make this edit. I’m not going to “lose” his recorder. And I’m grateful my kid is getting music education. I encourage and support my kid in all of his classes. But be fr people….everyone knows the recorder is annoying af. And I’m not looking forward to hearing hot cross buns every night. But I ensure you all that I will encourage my kid to practice if he enjoys it.

Hello!! I was wondering if anyone could help me try to decide a uni to attend for a major in music education (specifically choral music). I do have a couple of options like Kent State, BGSU, Cinci, and VSU. I live in Ohio and would like to stay instate but if I go out of state (like VSU) I want it to be a neighboring state to Ohio. I'm a junior in high school currently and would like to get some more options as safe schools. I would like a small town type campus because I get overwhelmed with bigger campuses and it does need to be cheaper than most, which is why I'm leaning a bit towards Kent. I would also most likely be living on campus to get the full experience and I just want to get out of the house and start to get a feel on being alone-ish. I also appreciate any other advice from any current choir director or someone in college! I'm so excited to begin this journey, even if it can get rough. :)