As a part of my nesting phase, I've been cleaning out every crevice of my home. One of the many tasks has been to organize all of my teaching resources/materials. My goal was to get both elementary and high school together in one bin.
Since high school music teaching was my most recent endeavor, going through my elementary music things brought back some pretty good memories. I found the frog puppet that saved my life one day while teaching the class from you-know-where. I remembered the story of the little boy understanding a bit about kindness one day in music class. I thought about when I played Nickel Creek for the kids while reading the story, "The Fox." It was really fun just looking through all of the fun games and activities I had!
I had a great experience my first year of teaching, regardless of the fact that I traveled between 3 schools. Of course, I started out feeling clueless and scared. Eventually, I got the hang of things. There were only about 3-5 students of the 400-450 that I saw each week that really pushed my buttons and sucked the life out of me. For the most part, the kids were great and we had a lot of fun.
As I packed up my elementary/high school music teaching bin, I thought about how different both of these professions were/are. They are like night and day. I'm sure those of you who have done both would agree. So, in the coming days, I'll be writing about both experiences with pros/cons for each. Although I'm so grateful to have taught both levels, I think I would have appreciated understanding more about what each job entailed before I jumped right in. So, music teachers, be watching for this post and see if you have any other wisdom/thoughts to add. And future music teachers? Maybe this will help you think about what age level would fit your personality, professional goals, and lifestyle the best.
Well, happy cool(er) weather and 3-day weekend!
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