with a quality of eternal reassurance in it, that you may come across four or five times in life. -The Great Gatsby
I decided to use a literary quote this time rather than a movie quote. Make me sound like a more rounded person. And smarter. Maybe
China, and several other Asian countries and people, have a large unspoken concept or rule they all follow: saving face. This has proved itself to be true time and again while coming to call this country home. I see it especially in my students. In my secondary choir I get the honor of teaching 35 Korean, 1 Russian, and 1 Norwegian students. Granted, many of these children have never sang much or received any real training much less singing in a choir but it takes almost all of my energy in the early morning to get the kids moving and get sound out of them. My boys in particular have their own qualms about singing particularly in front of their female classmates. (The work and sound I could get out of them if I had gender separate classes. First world music teacher problems. HA!) Anyway, I finally was proving the point that they were not loud enough as I could outsing the roughly 21 girls in the class and almost singing lower than some of my men. Finally, one of my freshman boys who has enough confidence and personality to fill the classroom already, started belting his voice out and not caring who was listening. This got the class worked up and everyone started laughing instead of singing but I quickly corrected their behavior as I told him there was a problem with EVERYONE else's sound because they could only hear his voice. Any well trained music teacher knows the key to a good sounding choir is blend, blend, blend. (and intonation. and breathing. but mostly blend)
"If you can't hear yourself AND the person next to you, YOU need to change something."
I also confronted one of my students for the first time today about his grade in another class. He had a low C in another subject and had also just recently left one my tests he took half blank. After asking him why he did so and why he had such a low grade in other classes he kind of got this shocked look on his face and was really uncomfortable. (YAY. my job is to push my kids to their limits!) I told him I care about my students too much to let them get lazy in other academics when he works so hard in my class. Come to find out, several of my students have low grades in other classes but tend to excel in music. Not surprising, as music is an elective course and we don't have many tests or homework assignments but I still expect them to work just as hard as they do in their science and history classes.
Most of the time I can tell you, I look like a complete and utter fool in front of my students. And I don't care. My kindergartners think I'm a comedienne. I should honestly just start doing stand-up according to them. If I was looking at myself though, I would say I'm quite an unfunny person. My comedic timing is off and I always come up with funny things to say several hours after the fact. This may be due to the fact I never had siblings or someone to practice on. But anyway seeing the kindys doubled over in laughter giggling until they are literally rolling on the floor to my middle school boys that will occasionally crack a smile if I start doing some weird dance move in the middle of a song, tends to make this job worth. I think that a lot of people tend to think Asians are so focused on schooling or their work, they don't know how to have fun. For some, this is a completely true statement. And many of my students do only do work at school, and after school tutoring and don't ever have to time to just have fun and be...a kid/teenager. Music is their muse. I know it was mine. Heck, that's why I stuck with it for so many years and then actually decided it's what I loved doing more than anything else so I chose it for a career. Seeing the rare smile of my little Estelle or Emilie in Kindy and Caleb and Amanda in my secondary choir makes me remember that maybe I am actually teaching these kids something. I just hope it's something more than music.
I decided to use a literary quote this time rather than a movie quote. Make me sound like a more rounded person. And smarter. Maybe
China, and several other Asian countries and people, have a large unspoken concept or rule they all follow: saving face. This has proved itself to be true time and again while coming to call this country home. I see it especially in my students. In my secondary choir I get the honor of teaching 35 Korean, 1 Russian, and 1 Norwegian students. Granted, many of these children have never sang much or received any real training much less singing in a choir but it takes almost all of my energy in the early morning to get the kids moving and get sound out of them. My boys in particular have their own qualms about singing particularly in front of their female classmates. (The work and sound I could get out of them if I had gender separate classes. First world music teacher problems. HA!) Anyway, I finally was proving the point that they were not loud enough as I could outsing the roughly 21 girls in the class and almost singing lower than some of my men. Finally, one of my freshman boys who has enough confidence and personality to fill the classroom already, started belting his voice out and not caring who was listening. This got the class worked up and everyone started laughing instead of singing but I quickly corrected their behavior as I told him there was a problem with EVERYONE else's sound because they could only hear his voice. Any well trained music teacher knows the key to a good sounding choir is blend, blend, blend. (and intonation. and breathing. but mostly blend)
"If you can't hear yourself AND the person next to you, YOU need to change something."
I also confronted one of my students for the first time today about his grade in another class. He had a low C in another subject and had also just recently left one my tests he took half blank. After asking him why he did so and why he had such a low grade in other classes he kind of got this shocked look on his face and was really uncomfortable. (YAY. my job is to push my kids to their limits!) I told him I care about my students too much to let them get lazy in other academics when he works so hard in my class. Come to find out, several of my students have low grades in other classes but tend to excel in music. Not surprising, as music is an elective course and we don't have many tests or homework assignments but I still expect them to work just as hard as they do in their science and history classes.
Most of the time I can tell you, I look like a complete and utter fool in front of my students. And I don't care. My kindergartners think I'm a comedienne. I should honestly just start doing stand-up according to them. If I was looking at myself though, I would say I'm quite an unfunny person. My comedic timing is off and I always come up with funny things to say several hours after the fact. This may be due to the fact I never had siblings or someone to practice on. But anyway seeing the kindys doubled over in laughter giggling until they are literally rolling on the floor to my middle school boys that will occasionally crack a smile if I start doing some weird dance move in the middle of a song, tends to make this job worth. I think that a lot of people tend to think Asians are so focused on schooling or their work, they don't know how to have fun. For some, this is a completely true statement. And many of my students do only do work at school, and after school tutoring and don't ever have to time to just have fun and be...a kid/teenager. Music is their muse. I know it was mine. Heck, that's why I stuck with it for so many years and then actually decided it's what I loved doing more than anything else so I chose it for a career. Seeing the rare smile of my little Estelle or Emilie in Kindy and Caleb and Amanda in my secondary choir makes me remember that maybe I am actually teaching these kids something. I just hope it's something more than music.
"Music acts like a magic key, to which the most tightly closed heart opens." -Maria Von Trapp
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