That's not in my job description . . .

The winner for the cool blues name contest is. . . .

Rockin' Cherry Donegan.

Thanks to a cool sixth grader named Mary, who came up with that fantastic title. I was pleasantly surprised by the number of entries we had for the contest. Without counting the slips, I'd guess that we had about 50 submissions. The kids were REALLY into it, too, which was exciting, since the rock and roll kids are generally apathetic. It seems unexpected to me that the kids really jump at creative opportunities, since they are usually on the lazy side and being creative requires more effort than solely paying attention. . . . and paying attention is usually too much to ask. The same thing happened when we improvised blues lyrics, though - the same kids that are generally half asleep suddenly become active and energetic and involved. I think that means there is a lesson to be learned about creativity and self-expression in the classroom.

For the most part, last week went quite well. While at the high school one morning, I was put on the spot to fix two clarinets. Mind you, I do not really play the clarinet and have never taken an instrument repair class. I'm proud to say that I secured all of the left hand keys back onto one instrument and fixed another kid's squeaky, non-functioning mouthpiece. Back at the middle school, I felt that I really made progress with the seventh graders. As I think I mentioned at some point, we have two seventh grade classes, one of which contains beginners. It's a small class and they have the potential to do well, but they also have issues focusing. The two alto sax players are best friends and tend to talk/giggle through rehearsal. Instead of trying to talk over them (which I find REALLY frustrating), I asked lots of questions of the kids, to keep them busy. We also have one student who ALWAYS plays his instrument out of turn. Whenever I was ready to begin conducting and there was noise (they should be silent when I raise my arms to begin), I simply pointed out that we could all sit and waste our time until I was able to start. It didn't take long until the other kids starting telling the noisy one to be quiet. By the end of the rehearsal, my saxophones weren't having side conversations and my noisy kid wasn't playing out of turn. Small victory, but it was awesome.

Friday was weird in that I had kids sharing really unexpected stories with me. I was walking through the rows during sixth grade band just to watch hand position, embouchure, etc. and randomly, right during the middle of rehearsal, a student started talking to me about her father's death. I was glad she felt comfortable talking to me and that she was able to talk about it, since it must be extremely difficult, but it was so completely out of nowhere that I was really taken aback. Then, at the end of the day, I somehow ended up in a conversation with a seventh grader who was discussing her history with self-injury. I had never really spoken with either student before that day, and it surprised me that they would choose to talk to me about serious personal issues. It was a weird mix of emotions in that I was
1. extremely surprised
2. happy they were able to come to me, and
3. worried, since they were both dealing with intense things.
Those are the types of things that you don't anticipate when you pack your bag and head to school in the morning.

"Things that you don't anticipate" could actually be a chapter in a student-teaching manual, and we could add "eighth graders that try to eat glue sticks" to the list. That's a story in itself. It's both self-explanatory and unexplainable.