My Students Surprise me Again

This morning was the end of year concert at the music school. It started at 9.30 in morning, so I asked my students to be there about 15 minutes before, but when I got there around that time, they were already there!

Recorders were to perform second after the first group of flutes, so I gathered all my students together in one of the classrooms and tried to go through all their songs before we were to go up on stage. I have to admit, I was quite surprised at how well some of the students were playing! I have to admit I was a little nervous over the week thinking about how well they'd do.

After a bit of a pep talk, it was finally time for the kids to head to the hall to perform! I lead them to the seats on the side of the stage, and got each group to come up and perform one after the other. Some groups had a student who wanted to introduce the group themselves, while I had to do it for a few of the classes.

There were no major catastrophes. There were a few little mistakes, but I'm sure the cuteness factor covered it! I pretty much teach the youngest students at the music school, all the little kids who have never played music before! I was extremely proud of the way my students played, the way they were able to count themselves in, and keep going even if they stuffed up...a little!

I led them all back to the classroom to give them reports and a little prize afterwards. I gave them each a lollipop, a pencil, a little packet of Oreo's and a little notebook. I think I spoiled them!

I returned to watch the rest of the performances. I just missed Rebecca, Nadine and Joylynn (who attend my church) perform flute, but I guess I can re-watch the video! Before I knew it, the violins were up! My brothers and I were the last violin group to perform. We had Arthur (another violin teacher who often comes to help out) helping us which was good.

The guitar students were the last to perform before prize-giving. It's always a joy to see some of my old students performing, even if it's another instrument they're playing! I just hope the time I spent teaching them helped contribute to where they are today!

A few of my students actually won awards for other instruments too! My top music theory student, who won the top recorder award last year won the top flute award this year only after playing for one year!

I guess one of the benefits of being a music teacher are the presents you get from students (just a side thing of course!).

After the concert, my brothers and I met up with the music teachers at a nearby cafe for a coffee and a bite to eat. It was really good having a chat to them, as my teaching timetable this year didn't allow me to schedule a morning tea at the same time as all the other teachers! It was quite interesting talking to them about teaching, students and all sorts of other things!

Oh well, that's my seventh year of teaching down. Looking forward to the next!

It's all Western!

Tonight was Rangeview Intermediate School's (my old intermediate school!) Music Evening, with the theme being Western music. Glenna, one of the girls I teach violin to at church attends the school and is in the orchestra. She was really keen on me coming, so it was lucky I sat my exam and returned to Auckland just in time for it!

When I got home from work I got a surprise when my neighbour's mum rang me, asking if I was going and if I'd like a ride there! One of the boys she looks after attends the school and she was taking him there. Apparently he told her that I was going! Glenna must've told him!

Anyway we got there about half an hour early, and the hall was already full! The girl's family (her dad is also our youth group leader and youth pastor at our church!) were all there too!

They forgot to bring their camera, and I couldn't find our camera, so I had to rely on my phone camera which wasn't the best in low light!

The music evening was pretty good, and brought back memories of when I used to be at the school!

There were quite a few performances, with the choir singing, recorder, guitar and keyboard ensembles performing, and of course the orchestra performing.

The head boy and head girl were the MC's of the evening, and were dressed in cowboy/girl costumes, and they came complete with the whole Western accent!

The head boy also turned out to be quite a musician, playing a couple solos and duets on the trumpet!

After the show, I went back to the music room to visit Miss Rai, my old music teacher at Rangeview Intermediate. Fortunately she still remembers me! She still has the newspaper articles and photos of me up on the wall!

I was really proud of Glenna tonight and I'm keen to see her and her brother perform more often! They're going to be great musicians!

The Final Lesson

This weekend marked the last music lessons I had to teach for the year.

Yesterday after having spent all night awake at my youth group's sleepover to farewell Jireh, I was quite worn out when I had to go straight to the music school to teach the kids.

I spent most of the classes playing games with my students - Music Bingo! I tried to get my students to come up with a more interesting word than 'Bingo' to call out. One student came up with

'Mexico New Zealand All Blacks Binga Bingo!'

so that's what they shouted out when they thought they had won!

I did start to doze off in my last couple of classes, especially when I sat down to teach in one of my classes. We were playing Bingo, and I was calling out numbers when I started to drift a little, and said something like

'Fifteen.....to the waterfront....'


I think I realised what I had said after I snapped out of it and just hoped the students didn't notice!

It was a tad sad teaching the students this time around, as I knew that quite a few of my students won't be back next year. Most of my students were second year students and so I've taught them since they first started music. I've become quite proud of them, and it's such a shame to lose them so early! I know they won't be lost entirely, as they are all going on to learn other instruments such as the violin, flute and guitar and I've reminded them all to remember me when they become professional musicians, and to come say 'hi' to me whenever they're around, as I definitely won't forget them!

One message I left with them was that

'Perfect practice makes perfect'


no matter which musical instrument they learn. There's no point practising the wrong thing!

Two sisters I teach who are moving on to another instrument next year gave me a Christmas card and a present which was really nice of them! I haven't opened one of the presents yet, but they also gave me a snow globe, which is pretty cool!

The message they wrote on the card also meant a lot to me as well.

It was also the last lesson I was teaching at church today, and two of my students (brother and sister) gave me a present and card as well. I'll open the present on Christmas Day just so I'll have something to surprise me, but the card they gave me had quite a few amusing messages:

 

and my favourite...

Ready, Set, Go!

It's the second-to-last music lesson for 2011, and it was probably one of the breeziest days I've had in terms of teaching. I made my Grade Two music theory students to sit a 'mock' exam, using one of the past exam papers.

I only had to teach one class in the morning before the exam and so I just gave them Christmas carols. All the kids seemed to have learnt some other lyrics to Jingle Bells! It was about Santa Claus being too fat, and that I'm glad I'm not a reindeer who has to pull his sleigh!

(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KF2fBLWAyrU)

I got Aonghas to direct my music theory students to another room and I joined them just before the exam started. I have to say it felt quite cool to be in a position of power, on the other side for once! I gave them a run down of the exam rules, and Aonghas wrote down times on the blackboard so he could cross off over time.

(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tbgQlkrdZUY)

I went off to teach one of my music theory students who wasn't sitting the exam, and as I was teaching, apparently the students who sat the exam finished it in about 45 minutes, when there was one and a half hours allocated!

I'll have to start marking the papers, so I hope to see some good results, especially as the pass mark is 66!

The Big Exam

The early End-of-Year Concert at the music school I teach may be over, but for my second year music theory students, they have an exam to study for in a week's time!

None of them wanted to sit the actual ABRSM exam, so I decided I'd hold a 'mock' exam and get them to sit it under test conditions just to simulate an actual exam...and also partially for my own enjoyment! I'm just kidding.

Anyway I'm a little afraid as to how well they'll do. I've given them past papers to complete at home over the past few weeks, but only a couple of them have remembered to bring them to class for me to mark!

The last few weeks have been a bit of a rush, so despite having covered the whole syllabus, revision hasn't been ideal and I don't think the students have memorised the performance directions/symbols and Italian words completely!

I guess we'll have to see this Saturday! I've told them that the exam is one and a half hours long but they have to stay for at least 45 minutes, and use as much time to check, check, check and RE-CHECK!

An Early End of Year Concert

Today was the big End of Year Concert at the music school I teach at. It's not really the end of the year as there is still Term Four to go, but because of renovations to the school hall and the November elections, it was decided to bring it forward to the end of Term Three.

I've been preparing my students for the past three weeks, trying to get them ready and so I was probably more nervous than they were before the concert! 

I asked them all to get to the school half an hour before the concert as I wanted to have a run through with them. The recorders would be the first to perform, then the flutes and then the violins. 

I got half of them to practise with Aonghas on the keyboard while I practised with the other half of them just to save time. 

We only just had enough time to have a group photo before the concert started!

My first year students started off the concert, performing Easter Bunny, Playing in Parts and Two Birds Together. I was a little worried about them as one of them went camping and so missed last week's lesson. The most pleasant surprise was that they played very well!

My first second year class then performed Puff the Magic Dragon, Triplet Round and Little Brown Jug with Aonghas on keyboard. They also did very well which made me very proud, as they must've practised heaps over the past week!

My next second year class performed Donna Nobis Pacem, I Like the Flowers and When Johnny Comes Marching Home with Aonghas on keyboard.

My last second year class (who I've taught the treble recorder to) performed Scarborough Fair, Putta Nera Ballo Furlano and The World in Union (to get in the Rugby World Cup spirit!). The tunes involving all four of the different recorders sounded really neat!

To finish off the recorder section of the concert, I got all my students to come up to perform It's a Small World. Even though I had practised the song with everyone only once earlier this morning before the concert, they managed to pull it off! I was so proud of my students!

After the recorders were done, the flute students performed. Rebecca, Joylynn and Nadine who go to the same church as me all performed, and I also saw some of my ex-students which was really cool!

The violins finished off the concert. Nadine also learns violin so she performed with her class, and our class performed last.

It was really good to see all the students performing today and I was so proud of my recorder students! I had a lot of positive comments from parents and other teachers so I can relax a bit now, and just hope I don't lose too many students to other instruments next year!

Teaching More

The End-of-Year Concert is only two weeks away and so today I used all my class-time to try prepare my students and finalise the programme. It's been a bit rushed this year with the concert at the end of Term 3/early October. It's usually at the beginning of December but because of the elections and renovations going on at the school it was decided that it would be brought forward. That means less preparation time!

Anyway, one of the parents approached me after class today, telling me that she had talked to some of the other parents and that they and their children all liked me. She said that recorder was sorta more of a beginner's instrument though, and was wondering if I taught any other instrument like flute etc. and that if I did, they would all follow me next year and learn from me! She had already talked to my supervisor who said she would discuss it with me.

The only problem is...the only other instruments I can play are the accordion and the string instruments, but there is already a violin teacher! I'm sure they wouldn't be interested in learning the piano accordion! 

I really don't want to lose them as students though, and it would be good to teach students at a more advanced level though. I'm going to have to think of something before its too late!

A Little Mooncake Gift

Today after one of my classes I received a small gift from two of my students (who were sisters) - a mooncake! That was really nice of them! 

I have to say this is one of the perks of being a teacher!

Don't Lie to the Kids...They Might Just Believe You

I returned to music teaching this morning after a week off, and my first student (who is little girl) came in and her mum followed soon after. Her mum asked me

"I heard you got married?"

I looked at her blankly...

"You got married to Princess Consuela?"

That's when I realised what I had done! The week before when I told the students I wouldn't be teaching the following week, the girl must've asked me why and I must've joked that I was getting married to Princess Consuela Bananahammock (you'll have to watch Friends to get that one!)

Fortunately the girl's mum knew it was a joke too, and I told her I'd let her know when or if I actually did get married!

First Performance

This morning a few of the kids I've been teaching the recorder to at church were performing for the very first time! I've only been teaching them for a couple of months and they've managed to almost learn everything I usually cover in a year!

I got them to play the recorder along to two of the songs I was leading for children's worship - God is so Good and Amazing Grace. I have to say I was very proud of them!

Hopefully they enjoyed their first performance and have caught the performance bug!

(http://youtu.be/sSyJt9mfWkE)

All is Well Again

My recorder and music theory classes actually didn't go too badly today! My students weren't as out-of-control as they have been in the past weeks, and I think they all actually did some practice!

The only slight let-down was a couple of my students in my music theory class finding the class too hard, which has given me something to think about. I'll have to do something about it to avoid losing their interest completely!

Something that was really nice...in a weird way that was said to me after my last class was when one of my students' grandmothers said to me

"You must have a lot of patience to teach these kids!"

She asked me what I'm up to with myself these days, and I told her I was an intern pharmacist. She said she would've thought I was doing something in teaching!

Smiggle and Food

Thursdays are starting to become a bit of a shopping day for me, having to buy prizes for my students and other various things. 

I ended up catching the bus all the way to West City and bought some Smiggle rubbers for my students. It's like the fourth time I've been to Smiggle to buy some rubbers, even the girl who works there knows me by name now! I think it was my mistake to buy the kids Smiggle stuff in the first place. They seem to really like it!

I also couldn't help myself and went to my favourite takeaway place to buy a $1.00 cup of chips. The people at the takeaways shop know us as we're regulars and they recognise my mum. I don't know if they usually fill cups up this full but this is pretty good for $1.00 considering it costs about $3.00 at uni!

I've started asking for no salt just to make myself feel a little less guilty!

Crossing the Line

Today I had probably one of the worst experiences I've had in my five or so years of teaching music. My first class of two six-year-old girls weren't paying attention. They would just ignore me when I started counting, urging them to be ready. I split them up, getting one of them to sit on the other side of the table, but to no avail. I even threatened to tell their parents or send them home, to which they responded with

"Yayyy!! Then we can go play on the playground!!"


They would get out of their seats and run around the classroom as well.

As just a Saturday morning music teacher there isn't much I can really do. It's not like I can give them detention. Fortunately my supervisor came over to ask if I needed any photocopying, and I mentioned I was having problems with these two girls and so she sat down and helped control them. This is the first time I've ever had to ask for help with controlling kids. She talked to the parents at the end of the lesson, recommending they sit in on the class from now on. Hopefully that will work.

I've never had a class as disruptive as this before.

Anyway on a lighter side, here are a couple of drawings of Charmander one of my older and more well-behaved students drew!

There's Still Some Hope!

The past two weeks of music teaching have really put me off wanting to become a teacher, so I was looking forward to teaching this morning. However, I was pleasantly surprised when my students actually were able to play the music I had given them for homework, and my music theory students had actually done/attempted to do their homework!

There was an incident with a wasp flying around the classroom though, with all the children hiding behind the bookshelf at one point. I was getting frustrated as ten minutes had already passed, and I actually forcefully told them to sit down! Even I was surprised with myself! One of the girls started crying for some reason though and then sat underneath the desks for a little while which was a bit weird.

I made the class run over time to make up for it though so it's all good!

Testing my Tolerance

This morning some of my students almost pushed my tolerance levels to the limit!

In my classes I usually count my students in to start them off and expect them to be ready. Some students in my class thought it'd be funny to pretend to get ready to play and then when it was time to play they'd just play nothing! They kept doing it despite me telling them not to, that I almost got to the point where I was going to end class early and tell them to go home.

Instead, I gave them a worksheet to do and that shut them up for half an hour!

The Final Concert

This morning was the End of Year Concert at the Music School I teach. The concert was set to start at 10am and we arrived just before, with a lot of my students standing outside shouting out to me

"HURRY UUUUUUUP!!"


I told them to go into the hall to watch the violin classes perform before going into the adjacent classroom to prepare for their performance.

I rushed into that classroom with my brothers to get our violins ready for our violin performance as Aonghas set up the video camera at the back of the hall. That's when he realised the video camera was missing any card! We had no idea what to do as after our violin performance the flute classes were going to perform, and then my recorder students! There wouldn't be enough time for Aonghas to drive home and back to grab a card, so the best thing for him to do was to buy a card.

Our violin class was the last of the violin classes to perform, and we performed a Pleyel duet. It wasn't too bad, although we almost collapsed at the end! Straight after our performance, Aonghas rushed off to buy a card while I got all my students to gather in the adjacent classroom to prepare. I ran through the procedure and what was going to happen, and was going to have a run-through each class's performance. I ended up having to make each class perform only two of their three pieces. I only got through one class's pieces when the flute teacher came in to tell me my students were up next!

I brought them into the hall before realising I forgot to bring with me the larger recorders, so I quickly went back to get them. I got back to the hall, and Aonghas still wasn't back so I had to start the performances without him.

The performances went pretty well. It was then time for one of my classes to perform a piece that required Aonghas to play one of the parts. Fortunately Aonghas just arrived in time! I could see him setting the camera up  at the back of the hall, so I introduced him and the different sized recorders to the audience just to give him some time to get up on stage! When he got on stage, I gave him a large recorder and he asked me if I wanted him to play a smaller recorder but I just told him to play with the big recorder. I was playing the treble recorder, and it was only half-way through the piece I realised we were playing the wrong recorders! I just had to improvise!

Finally we had out 'grand finale', when I got all my students up on stage together and got them to either play or sing We Wish You a Merry Christmas. I forgot that I had gotten two of my students to introduce the item, and so I introduced it myself. Just as I finished, the two students started introducing the item themselves! They did pretty well though! The performance was equally impressive! I was really proud of them!


(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vZ1kh2BQELA)

I led them back to the classroom after the performance to take a group photo with all of them as well as to hand out reports to them (which I had written the night before during our youth group Christmas play rehearsal!), and some small gifts for each of them (I spent all of yesterday wandering around West City trying to decide what to give them - I ended up giving each of them some lollies, a pencil and a magnetic bookmark!). I got quite a few Christmas presents from my students as well which was really nice of them. One of my students wrote a nice message in the Christmas card he gave to me:

After students from all classes had performed, it was time for prize-giving. Each of us teachers got a present from the school, before certificates and trophies were handed out to students. The turnout for recorder was very poor! None of my students stayed for prize-giving except for three of them, and so we gave them extra special claps just for being there!

It was really cool seeing some of my old students from past years getting awards for other instruments.

Some of my students won't be coming back as they'll be moving on to other instruments like the flute which will be a bit sad, especially one of my students, Brian, who I've taught for the past three years. Hopefully I'll see them getting awards for the other instruments like some of my other old students though!

I can't believe I've already been teaching music for my sixth year! There have been ups and downs but I've enjoyed teaching this year, and I'm really glad I'll be able to continue next year! Till then, time to sleep in on Saturdays!

Pre-Concert Jitters

It's one week out from the end-of-year concert at the music school I teach, and so today I did what you could call a dress rehearsal with my students.

You'd have to say there were mixed results with the classes. I've got about six classes. Some were great, some needed a bit more work, and one class just kept speeding up in their pieces!

What will add extra risk to the recorder items next week, is that I will be getting all the students to come on stage right at the end of the recorder section of the concert to perform We Wish You a Merry Christmas. I've never done this before as they never practise together and I don't want to risk it. This year though I decided to risk it and try something different!

I always worry about how they'll go one week out from the concert, but they all usually manage to pull it off well so hopefully the same will happen again next week!

Kicking Them Out!

You may remember the last time when I was teaching music and had to deal with some random kids who came into my classroom and started disrupting my class.Well there was potential for something similar to happen again today, but I was determined to deal with it early and avoid it.

I was teaching a student, when I saw a couple of kids come into the cloak bay carrying some sort of tube that looked like gift wrap from where I was. I wasn't sure if they had taken it from the cloak bay or not, so I went over to see what was going on and saw they were actually fireworks! They were outside though so I left them to it and continued teaching.

One kid came into my room though and when I asked him if he was here for something, he said he just wanted to listen. It was not long till he went over to the window and started shouting to his friends outside! That's when I asked him to leave. His friends entered the room and I asked them all to leave as they weren't here for music lessons and were distracting my lessons.

I managed to shepherd them out the door, and as soon as they were all out I locked the doors! They did bang on the door for a little while, but I was going to be teaching for another hour and I'm sure their attention span wasn't that long, so I wasn't too bothered. I saw them chuck the unlit fireworks onto the roof of a classroom before wandering off somewhere.

I think I'm finally being a man! Next time I shouldn't be so polite...

Is This Normal?

Does anyone else think this is a little odd? I was teaching one of my students today, and she brought all her Bakugan toys with her. She took them all out of her bag and placed them alongside her and then told me the story about all of them, how one like the other but another one likes that one...

I tried to get the focus back on playing music, and just as I was counting her in, she turned to her toys and told them to stop distracting her!

Growing Some Balls

Teaching music was difficult this morning for completely different reasons!

I was in the middle of teaching a class when a couple of kids came in and just wandered around! I asked them if they were here for anything and they said they just wanted to listen, so I got them to sit on one of the couches and asked them not to touch anything.

I continued teaching, but they got up and sat at the desk group my students were sitting at. I thought...OK maybe I'll try teach them as well, but they kept making noise! One kept going over to the whiteboard and drawing on the whiteboard! I had to ask him to put it down.

The rain started to come down and I saw them rush to the classroom door to lock the door and saw some heads pop up in the window. They had another two friends and asked if they could come in because it was raining. I really didn't want to let them in, but I didn't know what to do as it was raining, so I said they could come in as long as they sat in the back of the classroom, kept quiet and didn't touch anything.

Once the class I was teaching had ended and the rain stopped, I asked them to go outside and have fun out there, as my last class would be big. They did go out, but during my last class they came in again! I had to tell them to sit down in the corner if they wanted to remain inside, but they kept making noise so I had to keep telling them to be quiet, and one of the parents also told them to stop distracting my class as well!

I eventually finished teaching and locked up the classroom before heading off to violin lessons. The bad thing is they came in and started mucking around in the hall during our violin lesson as well! The violin teacher soon told them to leave too.

The annoying thing though is they attend this school, so I really hope I don't have to deal with them again! I'll have to be a lot tougher on them!