Archive for April 8th, 2009

Thinking to broaden my teaching experiences, I decided yesterday to try substitute teaching music — after all, I reasoned, it would be fun, I like music, I am regarded a decent singer and it looked like there was a comprehensive lesson plan with the assignment

Little did I know that, my vision of myself as Maria in The Sound of Music notwithstanding, music teaching is not for the faint at heart or the amateur.

First, I discovered that the lesson plans were actually not as simple as they looked. The kids arrived for the first class, which was supposed to be on playing recorders, with no instruments. “Where are your recorders?” I asked.

“We never play recorders. Are we going to watch a movie?” I assumed they were trying to “put me on” as an ignorant substitute teacher. I couldn’t allow this to happen, so I whipped out my guitar and began to play for them. This worked well, up to a point, but then there was the number of hours of music instruction I had signed up for, about six in all, rotating through a number of different classes. By the time the day was done, my fingers on my left hand hurt from the guitar strings, my voice was starting to break, and I had learned the following:

1) In kindergarden, kids like to sing “Old McDonald,” but by fourth grade, they listen to rap, hip-hop and Hannah Montana.

2) Though you can get someone’s attention by saying you’re going to play an instrument in person, live, once you are “on stage” you’ve got to keep performing or lose control of the “crowd.”

3) The “real” music curriculum does not just involve singing and playing maracas, they’re actually supposed to learn to i.d. the instruments in the orchestra and how to read music, among other things.

4) Do not let a group of thirty kindergarteners play percussion instruments simultaneously.

I began, at some point, to feel like Jack Black in School of Rock, in the depth of a desperate improvisation, only with less equipment and musical ability then he had at his disposal. Meanwhile, the kids told me I should write my own songs. I promised I would do so before coming back. Now what should my song be about? I don’t know, because I haven’t written a song in about 25 years. Well, they do say that kids keep you young.