Long Time Listener, First Time Caller

Let me start by saying this is my first time posting on this blog, so I have no idea if this will work.

That being said, as my title suggests, I am a long time follower of this blog, but like I said, this is my first time blogging on it. Over the past couple of months, I have been trying to come up with something profound to talk about or share about my program, learning, or teaching so far, but nothing has struck my as significant enough to share. Despite this obstacle, I have been determined to share something for discussion. Thus, when I found out yesterday afternoon that we were going to have our first snow day of the year today, the first thing that went on my "to do" list was "BLOG ON DSTL".

I suppose, the most important piece of information to start with in this post is a little about myself as a first year teacher, and a little about my program. Currently, I am working at Riverview Middle School in Plymouth, Wisconsin, and I am just beginning my 6th month as a Music Educator/Band Director. I teach 6th, 7th, and 8th grade band and have 1 jazz band that meets before school. There are about 250 kids in my program and every grade has their own band class. In addition to the band class, I teach individual lessons to every 6th grader, as well as the brass students in 7th and 8th grade; there is another teacher that comes in to cover all of the other 7th and 8th grade woodwind students (without her, there is no way I could deal with all of the students by myself). All of my students feed into the High School in the district which has a very strong fine arts program. As I am his major source of students, there is a good amount of pressure from the High School to not only have the numbers he needs, but to also have the instrumentation he needs for his program.

This leads me to my first topic: Students Dropping Band. In the state of Wisconsin, students are only required to take 1 trimester of band/chorus during middle school. Therefore, at my middle school students are given two (three really) opportunities a year to drop band. The first opportunity comes at the beginning/end of the year when they sign up for classes; students can chose whether or not they want to take band the following year. The second (and third) opportunity comes at the end of each trimester, when they can drop the class if they "do not like it."

At the end of the first trimester this year, even though I was reassured that nothing was out of the ordinary and that students drop every year, it felt like there was a significant amount of students that dropped band at every grade. After this, I had a meeting with the principal to try and change the policy of the school in order to limit the number of students dropping. To my surprise she started the conversation by saying, I do not think that students should be allowed to drop after second trimester. She said, after first trimester, students are making a commitment to the program and should not be given any more opportunity to drop until the end of the year. This was great news, and I especially appreciate knowing that the principal is a big supporter of the music program and our efforts as educators.

But dropping band is the result of a much larger problem at hand. After 5 months of teaching, I strongly feel like I have a great relationship with all of my 6th graders (primarily because I am the only teacher they know), and my 8th graders (who I feel see me as a "cool guy"). It is my 7th graders that I am most concerned about. Everyday feels like a challenge when I begin class. It is a constant battle to engage them, and keep them excited about playing, rehearsing, and working at getting better. The first thing I have going against me is that 7th grade band meets during the first hour of the day. Lethargic is not a strong enough adjective to describe their level of energy. I do have to admit there are about 10 students that always come in ready to work, but that is only an eighth of the band.

The other thing I have going against me, and I think this is the major player here, is that I am not their previous band director. This is not to say that they had an amazing bond with the previous band director, but I feel they are at a stage in their life where they are making significant emotional attachments to teachers and friends. Therefore, my philosophy of hard work, dedication, and excellence are foreign to them. To put things in perspective though, the choir director (my mentor) has been there for about 4 years (she has been teaching for 30+ years) has seen the same emotions and actions in her choir students. Therefore, I feel a little better knowing that it is not all "me" that is causing this reaction in the students.

Still, I have been trying to deal with this motivation issue for months. It has even become something that I am using in my Professional Development Plan as a new teacher; in a nutshell How do you motivate students to work hard for you? Because we only meet every other day, I constantly stress the importance of working (or homeworking) outside of school by practicing and coming prepared for class. Even though it does feel at times this motivation falls on deaf ears, it does feel necessary to keep repeating.

One of the major things I have changed is the way I have been giving feedback. During the first half of this year, there was a lot of negative feedback on my part for two reasons 1) I hardly see the students so I felt I needed to point out all of the problems so they were aware of them, and 2) the students were not doing the work outside of class to progress and I felt I needed to remind them of this fact. My goal is to give them more positive feedback from now on and see where that takes me, but I fear that this will not be enough because even when I give positive feedback, they hardly receive it with excitement or appreciation.

All of this leads me to my big goal for the end of the year: Motivating the 7th graders to stick with band and to work hard. I have come up with some more ideas such as extrinsic motivation (the karate belt method), but my goal is that students will switch from being extrinsically motivated to work to intrinsically motivated. While I never want to give up on these students, it often times feels very difficult to motivate someone who does not care or want to be motivated.

Well, with all of that negative aside. There is far more positive aspects of this job such as technology in my classroom, an amazing batch of 6th graders, and a very supportive music community which I will share in my next post. I think an hour an a half of blogging is enough for now. Until then, I look forward to anyone sharing their creative ideas on inspiring students to work.