"But Out's"

Teaching in the 21st Century is constantly evolving to keep up with the demands of this "Brave New World".   Notice I said teaching...Unfortunately, the education system is a ship much slower to get turned in the right direction; therefore, it falls to the teachers who are on the front lines to make the needed changes to prepare our students for what they will be faced with, in an institution of higher learning or in the modern workplace.

I know that I will have to make my teaching more global in nature.  I will have to make connections with other forms of the arts and other subject areas, in order to make learning most impactful for my students.  Students have to understand "Why".  Sometimes I don't fully give them the "Why".  I may assign a project or a musical passage and I need them to understand what that means to them.  I need them to understand what we do is meaningful.  I have great students who listen and try, but I need to equip them better with real world connections.

Access to technology is a necessity as we prepare our students for the world they will be entering upon graduation.  I want to make the use of technology in my room more streamline with my educational objectives.  Sometimes I have used certain technologies because they were there, but not because there was a strategic advantage in using it.  I have learned from the training this past 5 days that it is about the content not about the bells and whistles that I put on it.  I want to use my access to different technologies this years to enhance student learning and create an environment where the students take control of their learning, by using Higher Order Thinking Skills(HOTS) in order to solve problems.  

Lastly, I want to create an even more collaborative environment for my students.  I want them to know that it is of the utmost importance that they learn to team and use each other's strengths to prepare a product.  I want to help them see that we can accomplish so much more when we learn to work as a unit.

It is going to be an exciting year!

Failure...a part of the art of Play

My father often says, "you learn more from your failures, than your successes".  I have tried to impart that same knowledge to my students each day.  Being that we are a performance arts class, our goal is perfection.  For example, students in most classes are happy with an "A".  Well, an "A" is scored, on the low end, at 93%.  That does not work well in music.  That means 7% of the time we are playing wrong rhythms, pitches, dynamics, articulation, etc.  This is not very appealing to listen to.  My students understand that we strive for perfection, which is unattainable, but to continue to improve and striving for being better than the last time is the key.  Our mistakes actually teach us.  I want to continue to offer my students opportunities to fail, and grow from the experience.  We will continue to miss notes and play rhythms wrong, and when we get those right...we will find some more challenging rhythms and notes to play incorrectly.  Through the experiences in my class, I will continue to teach my students that it truly is about the journey...not the destination. I created a poster for my wall and as a class we state what it says...in the words of the great John Wooden, "Failure is NOT Fatal...but Failure to change could be".