My Teaching Schedule is Way Way Off
The Schedule is Off:
We have a hurricane moving through
This flu season is supposed to be bonkers
We have holiday breaks coming up
We have performances we’re prepping
We have everything happening all at once, and it feels so sad and frustrating to plan everything in a spreadsheet, then watch it all become irrelevant, and we’re scrambling to find something to do because all of the sudden every plan we made has completely gone out the window.
What is True?
Often, when I feel overwhelmed, it seems like everything is falling apart all at once.
Look at your grades you’re teaching. Very likely, your situation will be something like - Kindergarten is on track. 1st grade is basically on track but feels off track because the classes talk so much. 2nd grade I don’t even know what’s happening. 3rd grade is on track. 4th was on track but we were getting ready for a concert and now I’m not sure where we are. 5th grade is hanging on by a thread, I don’t even know.
Thought: Everything is broken, I’m dropping every single plate I’m trying to spin
When we get it on paper, we see that three classes are wandering around in space from a curricular perspective, and three classes are on track.
Centering Reality
One possible approach: I’m either the smooth, no stress teacher of the year with everything calm and color coded, or I’m frazzled and burnt out and ready to quit my job and everything is chaos. And if I feel frazzled with one grade, it means everything is frazzled.
Another possible approach: There are tweaks I want to make in 2nd grade, 4th grade, and 5th grade to feel more calm in my teaching.
The reason this is important is that it changes the problem we’re trying to address. We’re not inventing an entirely new curriculum from scratch for the entire program that needs to last the rest of our year. We’re course correcting three grades
So when we notice all-or-nothing thinking creeping in, it’s helpful to name it.
It’s also helpful to name that when a grade is on course and you feel calm, it isn’t a reflection of your value as a human. When a grade is crashing around in space you feel like each class is herding cats, it isn’t a reflection of your value as a human.
The purpose of the music class is not to get to half notes by January in 2nd grade.
Deep Breath & Brain Dump:
With the grade that feels frazzled and aimless, get out a sheet of paper or a curriculum outline, and write down what you have done. What were the musical interactions students had? Write down what you did teach.
Ideally this is a list of concepts with corresponding songs and games and activities and projects
Sometimes though, it’s just the songs and games and activities, without being connected with a thread of concepts. That’s ok too!
Wherever you are, write it down.
Curriculum Outline:
Music teachers think vertically because most of us see the same population multiple years in a row. As students move through our program, what does the development of knowledge and skills look like?
This is a broad overview of the entire program, across all grade levels. What will we teach?
The format of this document can be anything - but consider grouping by musical elements rather than things like musical genres or how to play instruments or periods in music history. When we plan this way, the emphasis is on foundational musical elements that can be applied to pop music or recorder or listening experiences. Students can transfer their understanding across many different pathways of musicing.
This is the program-at-a-glance, and we can have a different list of concepts, we can have them in a different order, and we can go through them at different paces than other people. The point is not that everyone teaches half notes in 2nd grade in January. The point is that there is a logical and artistic flow of musical concepts and skills, so that students can build knowledge sequentially and move from the known to the unknown.
If you’re interested in hearing more:
Look at where we’ve been - what have we taught, what have students learned, what musical interactions have we had - and move to the next step.
Make a Plan:
Write down the next thing in the sequence
Build a foundation
Episode 42 - Review and Assessment Projects
Scheduling Breathing Room
We know the fall has disruptions. This will happen in the spring too! We can expect scheduling disruptions and concerts and sickness every year.
What if, every semester, you had a planned two weeks of “my brain is on fire, we need to get back on track.” You turn on a movie and do coloring sheets, or you do something on ipads that doesn’t need supervision, etc.
It’s like you’re hiring a sub, but you’re the sub
Or maybe - whoah - you actually hire a sub for the day and you go work at a coffee shop, then come back
While students are doing the activity, you’re doing whatever you need to do. You’re organizing the room, you’re taking a breath, you’re going back to repertoire that gets you excited to teach, and you’re making a plan for how to land the plane for the next six weeks.
This is one of the things I’m really happy about inside The Planning Binder - I’ve carved out time every few months for “breathing room.” It’s just empty space in an otherwise very active scope and sequence where we do a fun one-off project.
The Enemy of Understanding is Coverage
Even if you expected to be in a specific place by December, and while that can feel discouraging, I want to caution against an idea that it’s bad to go backwards and build a foundation.
Coverage of a document is not the goal. The document needs to be reflective of the real human musicians in the classroom. The document is there to serve a progression of understandings and skills over time.
