Sunday, March 8, 2015

Observation #2

Mr. Armstead never ceases to surprise me.

When I arrived for my observation on Friday, he was observing while Josh Gronlund ran the class.  I joined the girls in their warm-ups, and really appreciated the amount of thought Josh put into each one.  Not only did each exercise have a kinesthetic, but also an emotional context.  And if the girls were lack luster, he called them out on it, and refused to move on until most, if not all, were enthusiastically participating.

Mr. Armstead only had Maura and I observing the class for maybe 4 minutes before he pulled us aside.  He pulled two girls from the choir, and sent each of us with a student to a practice room.  The girl I worked with was looking at this Solo and Ensemble piece for the first time.  It was also unfamiliar to me.  I worked on teaching her notes and rhythms, which was difficult as an outsider.  They learn all their music first on solfege, which is not a technique I use unless passages are tricky.  Most challenging though, was not knowing how to explain things to her.  For example, she asked me how long a certain note should be held before moving on.  I sang it to her, but she still didn't understand, obviously, because I didn't actually answer.  I tried swaying to macrobeats.  I tried having her tap to microbeats.  To no avail.  It wasn't until she said, "but doesn't a quarter note get one tap?", that I realized this issue.  At the beginning of the "lesson", I asked her was time signature we were in.  She said 6/8, but I didn't ask what that meant, and she didn't know.  Long story short, I helped her figure out that a quarter note got two "taps".  I suppose all that is to say, I think sometimes the hardest thing is not to assume that they know what I consider easy as a college musician.

I taught this one girl for most of the class period.  Which meant, that I really didn't get to observe Mr. Armstead teaching this week, and therefore I can't really comment on his teaching techniques.  At the very end of class, Josh gave a brief presentation on musical theater and its history.  The girls had a worksheet that corresponded with the presentation, and encouraged critical thinking.  Mr. Armstead apparently does similar presentations about once or twice a month.  I can definitely see myself nabbing this sort of setup for my own classroom.

1 comment:

  1. Such an important lesson, Lindsay. We (me included as a young teacher) assume they know more than they do. What is easy for us (or developed over years) is completely new to them. Even the approach of solfedge for all pieces does not account for individuated understanding. Lots to ponder...

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