Final Teaching Presentation

FINALLY!!! I have a video of an example of me doing what I love!!! Well... this is KIND OF an ok representation... to fill you in, I am taking an Elementary School Music Education class for the first 3 weeks of summer vacation to fulfill a degree requirement. Ummm... let's just put it this way... Teaching really isn't for me :) (Sorry Em!!! I know that was supposed to be Plan B). Throughout a majority of the lessons, I really felt like there was something missing from the professor's lectures... there was something missing in the content. I knew what it was immediately... But I kept my mouth shut. There is a stark difference between Music Therapy and Teaching-and don't get me wrong! That is TOTALLY ok and it SHOULD be that way!! I've learned quite a number of things from my "teacher" classmates and hopefully I've been able to help some see more of the "therapeutic" way of going about things. Anyways, it hasn't been my favorite class to take... could be due to it being everyday for three weeks from 8AM-10AM... not so fun... but, at least it's done and out of the way.

For our final teaching project I was SO blessed to be partnered with a classmate who has done 2 practicums already and is SO good at teaching. You can just tell she's going to be awesome in the field. We had a ton of fun doing this together and I was so grateful that she was so flexible and willing to use my ideas and keep the activity as therapeutic as possible. Granted, we only had less than 10 minutes to teach one activity due to the assignment requirements or else I would have LOVED to film a full blown "session" with the kids-complete with Hello Song, 2-3 interventions (activities), and a Goodbye Song... We got to do one "intervention" and a Goodbye Song so it just had to do :)

I apologize up front though... and maybe I shouldn't even say this but... I wasn't feeling well to begin with and hadn't eaten anything for a very long time so I knew my blood sugar was super low so I had the shakes pretty bad... anyways... I wasn't in the total right frame of mind, not feeling well, and nervous-cuz I knew I was being filmed- SO! This is not me at my best :) Just saying. But I hope you enjoy anyways!!! I love what I do! Seriously. Seriously love it. And I love kids. The end :)

The first song we did was (supposed to) sound like the 12 Bar Blues... Don't listen too hard or you'll hear my mistakes as my fingers slid around HA!! I wrote the song for an assignment in class in the Spring and it happened to work out perfectly for these 1st graders. The objective was to asses the students' sense of self and body orientation. At the last minute, we decided to just model the right side of the body (which I did wrong ;-]) to save time and frustration for the kids. Ideally, I had thought of using this song in a hospital setting with kids who don't have the chance to move around as much as they would like. It's easily adaptable by inserting any type of body part, and be as specific or non specific as the client wants to be (left, right). It would also be a great activity to use for disabled clients and help them move trouble body parts when able (depends on client) and even adapt to Physical Therapy requirements. Anyway... there's my spill on it :) Here, we just had to teach them the words of the song, the melody, and the body actions and that filled the teaching requirements... Obviously, I'm passionate about the deeper meaning and application music has :) NOTHING against teaching... NONE. That's why it's our job to educate others :)

The second song, "Goodbye Everyone" was another one I wrote for class in the Spring and wrote it to the tune of "Good Night Ladies". At first, I didn't realize what I had done, I had just taken the Goodbye song my supervisor had used with our kids when I observed him and they picked up on the tune super fast and loved it... apparently, when my professor brought it to my attention, I had piggybacked off of "Good Night Ladies" :D Whoops!! Oh well :) Kids love it... we actually were done with our presentation and packing up our stuff and I heard at LEAST two girls singing our "Goodbye Everyone" song. It was SO validating to me! LOVED it :D

K now seriously.... here's the video finally :) ENJOY!!