My first year teaching middle school choral music in public schools was awful. I have no idea how I made it through. I didn’t know what I was doing. I was armed with a master’s degree from a very good music school, and I was not good at teaching choral music to beginners. I was […]
Difficulties of Reading Words and Music for your Beginners
It’s a New Year! It is highly likely that we are all teaching new music. Reading music is so natural for all of us who’ve completed college degrees and taken piano since we were children. Like speaking a language fluently, reading music feels natural to us. h …And it is highly likely that most of us […]
The Difficult Parent Conference “Working with Parents in Your Choral Music Classroom” Part 3
Working with parents in your Music Classroom-Part 3 The Parent/Teacher Conference This is the final piece in a three-part series about working with parents in your choral music classroom. In part 1 of this series, I shared some ideas about how to get started with parent collaboration. In part 2, I wrote about some of […]
Working with Parents in your Choral Music Classroom Part 2
Working with Parents in your Choral Music Classroom, Part 2: Parent Volunteers are an invaluable resource in our music classrooms. In part 1 of this series, I wrote about how to get started. In part 2, I am going to write specifically about three characters I’ve encountered along the way and how […]
Working With Parents in your Choral Music Classroom
“Working with Parents in Your Music Classroom” For most of the 25 years I’ve taught choral music and musical theater in public schools, my program has included between 300-350 middle school students. In the beginning of my career, I never asked for help managing day to day tasks. I was quietly overwhelmed. […]
Sixth Graders in your Choral Music Classroom
Here in Georgia, I lead classes for all three grades of the middle school years-sixth, seventh and eighth. I love getting to experience their growth during the three years, but my teaching improved a lot when I really this important fact: 6th, 7th and 8th graders are vastly different. For sixth graders, the world […]