Remedial Recorders

Remember when I mentioned that I was teaching extra recorders to one of my classes?

Well, I've only really had three extra lessons and I am please to announce that they are all caught up! Which is a good thing too because testing is coming up and extra lessons have to stop so our kids can fill in bubbles.

When I studied differentiation in grad school I never in a million years thought I would have to use it for teaching recorders. Here's a little glimpse into how I did it. Well I don't know if I "did" it but I stumbled through it and figured it out as I went and I made learning happen. Well I don't know if I made learning happen but the kids know the song now. I learned something!

I did something that I think the fourth grade teachers hate me for. I told them that their homework was to just play around with their records. I modeled "noodling" with your fingers and just sort of hearing all the different ways you can make notes when you add and subtract fingers. Oooh if there's one thing fourth grade teachers hate it's the sound of recorders, but if there's one thing they really hate it's the sound of a bunch of recorders all playing different notes at the same time. Woops! My goal was for the kids to get a feel for which finger belongs where. If I could go back in time I would have started all the kids out this way, but you know what? No one ever taught me how to teach recorders in teacher school.

So, much to the chagrin of the teachers involved in this particular class, there I am teaching the kids to play nonsense on their recorders a mere 5 weeks before our big spring sing.

But as annoying as those sounds were, it turns out my hunch wasn't completely off. After only one lesson of noodling the kids had their fingers covering the right holes and they seemed to be having a lot more fun. Anyone who says music isn't fun has never danced with a kindergartner in a parade. Or, apparently, noodled around on a recorder.

For my second lesson, we didn't even get out the recorders to start with. We made our hands into quiet coyotes. If you're not familiar with this quiet hand signal, it's basically gold for getting k-1 kids to shhh. You put your middle and ring finger on your thumb, and stick up your pinky and index finger. I had the kids make quiet coyotes and practice a few other finger movements. Then we sang our song while moving our fingers, pretending like we had the recorders out. Then, we got the recorders out and we made our quiet coyotes chomp on the recorders (it's how you play an F#.) Then we just went back and forth from G to F#. This was very tricky. The kids complained they don't know to do it! They said it was really hard! They said they can't do it!

I told them they just don't know it YET. And I promised them then and there that we would all learn it. So they tried harder.

Then on the third day, which was a week after the first two days, they all played G, F#, G, F# like it was nobody's business. So we played the rest of our song. We went slowly. We played in groups. And we played the whole song. The kids applauded and they really did learn it.

Today we had all three classes together and we played the song with CD background. They sounded... well like recorders, but they did a great job!

I can't believe how quickly they went from seriously not being able to put their fingers on the right holes to being able to play our performance song. All the kids needed was a couple of extra chances. And maybe if I had known what I was doing, we could have started off better instead of not figuring it out until now.

I'm not advocating that they teach us how to differentiate recorders in teacher ed. After all, if I had been able to find a real job this year, I would be stressing out over evals, open house, and testing right now instead of spring sing! But I am just saying, this is not what I ever thought I would be doing and I sometimes just have to make things up as I go. I do know that seeing the looks on the kids' faces today as I told them that we could do choreography with our recorders was amazing.

But seeing kids work their butts off to learn something, seeing them try their darndest to catch up to their peers, and seeing them achieve that goal? That was totally awesome.

Just so you know though, I still hate recorders.

I mean, today was totally awesome. AWESOME. But I do still hate recorders.

Your pal, the principal

Have you ever had one of those really awkward interactions with your boss? The kind where you're just not sure if your screwed up and you should really apologize, or if you just did something totally awesome?

No? Oh. It must just be me. Well let me tell you a little bit more about what it's like to live in the world of me. In my world, I'm always doing and saying things that get myself into varying degrees of awkward situations.

My first awkward moment with my pal, the principal, happened earlier this year. She had recommended a song to me during our meeting about spring sing and when I tried it out one of the teachers thought it was so weird she ran to give the principal a hard time about recommending it to me. This was the kind of teacher who is young enough to get away with complaining without sounding washed out but tenured enough to give the principal a really hard time about anything. She's the kind of teacher that I act like even though I am still pre-job.

Well then, in the middle of my class, the principal came and claimed she had never heard of that song in her life. Our conversation, in front of the other teacher and all the kids, went something like this:

Where did you find that song?
Huh? It was the song I wrote down in our meeting, that you recommended. 
Why would I recommend a song I have never heard of? (laughing)
Why would I write down a song I have never heard of? (laughing, but REALLY embarrassed)

We both laughed but I think we both found it really awkward and still blame the other person. Also in case you're curious that weird song got nixed then and there.

So anyways, this week I started giving extra recorder lessons to one of my fourth grade classes. The how and why is another story. But it's true, I am teaching remedial recorders. Remember how much I love recorders? Well then you understand how crazy it is that it was actually my idea to give extra recorder time.

On the first day, the teacher had completely forgotten about our planned extra recorder time and the kids went completely nuts when they saw me. And then you know who else was in the room? You guessed it. Our pal. The principal. I never did figure out why she was there but I think she was going to do an observation. So yes, she saw the kids completely utterly out of control. Yikes. Classroom management, minus two.

My lesson went off ok. The principal did not stay to watch. At lunch though, my pal, the principal, cornered me and asked me whose idea it was to have recorders at that time. She also wanted to know if that was a pre-planned thing or did I just show up out of the blue? Her tone was, in my impression, fairly accusatory. Oh lord, I thought, I am in so much trouble. I was CONVINCED I was in trouble for not running the idea by her first. Also I was convinced I was busted for using my prep time for recorder time and for interrupting her observation AND for using the classroom for recorders instead of the MPR.

I launched into a quick explanation about differentiation, said I should have emailed to confirm the time, etc. but before I could get more than two sentences in, my pal, the principal, interrupted to say, "Great, I love it, love it!" and briskly walk away. Oh crap, she was trying to compliment me and I just made all the excuses for why it was so terrible!

So... that was awkward. She loved it? Yay? Did the other teacher get in trouble? Does the think I'm a complete idiot for not accepting a compliment from her boss? Does she think I'm insane for trying to differentiate something like recorders? Do you think I'm crazy?

I will probably be over analyzing my interactions with my pal for the next several months. When I don't find a job in the fall, I'll blame the dinner party I went to where I didn't drink wine when everyone else was completely sloshed. Or I can blame the day she came in pretending to look for something in the chair closet and I was letting the kids lay on the stage instead of sit up on the steps. Or I can blame the day I tried to do something good with remedial recorders and instead I just stepped on everyone's toes, put my own foot in my mouth, and came home and banged my head on the wall.

Tell me, please, that someone else out there goes through every interaction they ever have with their boss with a fine toothed comb? Especially if their boss is currently writing them a letter of recommendation?

Anyone?

Anyone?

Bueller?

recorders

One of the joys of teaching music at the elementary school level is that I get to teach recorders. Please note: I use the word "get" loosely. Also I think the word "joy" is used sarcastically.

I remember playing the flutophone in the 3rd grade. I had a recorder of my own starting in the first grade, which I used to pretend like I was playing the saxophone (the instrument my oldest brother played.) One time I tried to play my recorder with my next door neighbor who played the piano, but she told me it wasn't a real instrument. By the fourth grade, I started playing the clarinet. (Unfortunately that didn't work with piano either and it wasn't in C and no one told me I had to transpose the notes...)

However, in my school now and in schools across much of the U.S., many school bands don't start kids on instruments until the fifth grade now. The only logical reason I've been able to find for this is that this way they can torture fourth grade teachers and music teachers by having them make fourth graders learn recorder. The kids are a year older and a year more beyond the best fit for recorders.

Here are all the things I HATE about recorder.

1) Recorders teach children crappy embouchure. Regardless of how a kid frames their lips around the mouthpiece, the thing still sounds terrible.

2) Recorders teach children wimpy breath support. Most recorder instruction books even teach "warm air" which is actually the proper way to play a recorder. But it really doesn't help the transition into a wind instrument. Do you know how much it kills me to actually tell a child they have too much air going through their horn?

3) Recorders UNteach children their natural instinct for good intonation. Most people have a good "feeling" for what sounds in tune or even just what sounds good or bad. After four months of listening to 26 recorders, I promise at least some of those kids have lost that intuition as now it all sounds awful and no one can tell.

4) Recorders are (almost) unbreakable. Despite my best efforts to prevent such behavior, I've caught kids sliding their recorders across the MPR, hitting each other with recorders, dragging their recorders against the wall like a stick as they're walking home, and using their recorders as toy swords, guns, baseball bats, or batons. Of course, they are sneaky and most are smart enough to never get caught doing these things in my class. Nevertheless, I've seen them at it! Recorders teach kids that musical instruments are toys and not fragile. It's hard to make the argument "it's not a toy and it could break" when I remember using my own recorder to lead a parade of dolls I once had when I was six.

So there you have it. I hate recorders.

....Ok, sure, they introduce kids to music who would never otherwise consider playing an instrument. But I still hate them.

....Ok, sure, I get 100% participation and they kids love them and are really learning about the elements of music in a way that is accessible even during budget cuts. But I still hate them.

....Ok, sure, I sort of pretend like I'm Mr. Holland every time I make a special connection with a kid through recorders and I think I've changed a life (I haven't). It's like having my own little orchestra of terribly tuned horrific sounding toys. That's doesn't mean I don't hate them!

Just to prove my point that I don't like them, I'll write you a haiku. Haikus are poetry's highest form of hatred.

Stupid recorders

Performing really tuneless

Oh, I hate them, boo.