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How Full Is Your Bucket--Part 3

I've realized in reading this book that it's hard to maintain positive emotions and positive responses to everyday life and people.  I think I'm most negative when my own bucket is empty--job stresses and weird schedules that over-pack my life seem to take a toll on my ability to feel very positive. 

I disagree with the idea of changing the idea of "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you."  The assumption is that we know what they want--how do we know what someone else wants?  But I get what he means--we should try to treat others well.

Sending a note to someone telling them how you appreciate them reminds me of how we send Good News cards to our students.  Because I teach the whole school, it is a challenge to send as many notes as I would like.  I know the students appreciate the notes because they often tell me. 

This book has been helpful to me in my teaching because it reminded me to look for positive things to say to my students each day.  Building relationship through positivity will benefit the atmosphere of learning.

How Full is Your Bucket?--Part 2

The magic ratio:  5-1.  That's to say that five positive comments to 1 negative comment is the ratio that brings the greatest productivity.  Teacher morale is down in America.  Perhaps that is because we receive so little recognition or praise for what we do.  I remember watching a recent episode on 20/20.  It was a segment which pointed a finger at teachers in our country, saying that we were failing.  Students from other countries were given the same test as American students--we did not do well.  After watching a bit of that program, I had to change the channel--I was so depressed because it was all so negative.

In our everyday life at East Central, we have many reasons to feel positive about our work.  We have a fine principal who supports us and gives us freedom to do our jobs.  We have fine families who are bringing up fine students for us to teach.  We have materials needed for teaching.  Yet, many times I feel negative at work.   I suppose it is because we are all so busy that we don't have much time to interact with each other as teachers.  It's hard to work day after day, doing my best on my job, if I don't have the positive feedback mentioned in this section of the book.  That makes me realize how I need to look for opportunities to give positive feedback to my fellow teachers--if I need it, then they must need it as well.

How Full Is Your Bucket--Part 1

The impact of negativity in our lives is strong.  After reading the first section of this book, I decided to try the "positive approach" at school the next day.  It does seem to not only change how others feel, but I felt different, as well.  It's hard right now for me to feel positive about my work at East Central because of the pressure I feel to get the musicals ready in time.  I also have a 6th grade chime performance at the school board meeting in May, as well as 6th grade graduation music to prepare.  It is simply overwhelming to think about.  It makes me feel tired.  I work too many hours to feel very positive about anything.

However, when I did pretend I felt positive, I found that my day went easier.  Perhaps it is simply a decision not to be negative.  Being negative certainly doesn't change the situation at work.  It doesn't make the musical go away.  It doesn't make time pass quicker nor does it get more work done with the students.  This is certainly food for thought.

Part Three--Music Learning Theory in Practice

Part Three is basically a breakdown of how Bluestine teaches his elementary students.  He gives the objectives for second through fifth grades and then shows how he develops each unit.  This is a great resource to have!  I hope to try some of these lessons when I finish the musicals.  I wish I could watch him teach, but at least I have the process.

In chapter fourteen, he discusses the techniques for teaching patterns.  While he says that each teacher should develop his/her own techniques, he describes some techniques that work for him.  He gives a list of "do's and don't's" which are helpful in planning what to do and how long each part of the lesson should be.  He even shows how he documents each student's progress.  This is very helpful because it gives me a starting place to try this system of teaching music. 

This has been an interesting and thought-provoking book.  It's made me realize I need to do more tonal work with my students.  As I work with next year's crop of kindergarteners, my hope is to implement some of these objectives into my lessons.  It seems it will be tough at first, but I'm glad to get some new ideas.  It's so easy to burn-out in teaching.  Refreshing the planning and lessons will help me renew my enthusiasm and energy for teaching.

Part Two: Curriculum Reform

One of the frustrations I've felt with my own teaching at East Central is that I've not had enough early elementary formal training in my background.  A lot of what I've been teaching has come from the way I learned music as a piano student with my mom and from the band director who continued my music instruction from fifth grade through high school.  It has been a constant challenge for me to learn how to teach the early grades--especially kindergarten and the first semester first grader.  I've not felt I had enough "prep" lessons for students to develop music skills until they were ready for more formal instruction.  For example, I know kindergarteners need to move a LOT, but I have not had enough movement activities in my bag of lessons that would use movement to teach music skills.

Part two of this book begins with an introduction to the seven stages of Preparatory Audiation:  1.  Absorption; 2.  Random Response; 3.  Purposeful Response; 4.  Shedding Egocentricity; 5.  Breaking the Code; 6.  Introspection; 7.  Coordination.  Rather than discuss each one, I would rather focus on my weakness--how he begins with kindergarteners.

I was surprised to read that Bluestine doesn't sing songs with words in his kindergarten classes!  Rather, he uses listening with movement and chant without words to begin developing his students who he says are in the tonal babble stage.  I plan to order two items he recommends:  One is a collection of recorded music compiled by Gordon, Jump Right In to Listening.  The other is a book:  The Early ChildhoodMusic Curriculum:  Experimental Songs and Chants.  I have a lot of thinking to do about teaching kindergarten in this manner--I can just imagine Dr. Ware or Mrs. Wood coming to do my observations with our East Central students dancing and chanting around like a bunch of wild things!  Perhaps it's just what I've been looking for--time will tell!

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