Here we are again: Another school year. My seventeenth to be exact. Surely, I am not old enough to have been teaching for this long.
I have a poster hanging in my classroom that says, "Music keeps you young." Maybe that explains why I feel like I can't possibly be going in to my seventeenth year.
That and I am still not always sure what I am doing . . .
However, the students and I are up to our old shenanigans, no matter what our age.
PRESCHOOL
Out of the blue, one little boy in my music class announced, "Don't call me Ty. Call me Batman!"
Another girl started babbling about Copy Cat (the feline puppet I bring out for a song or two every week). I didn't catch most of what she said, but I am pretty sure it had something to do with Copy Cat having puppies.
In a different class, one boy yelled out, "Honestly? l wanna do Itsy Bitsy Spider!"
When we sang the "Itsy Bitsy Spider" a few minutes later, he belted it out at the top of his lungs.
The preschoolers have started sitting by me when they come to music, and they leave me enough room for a four-year-old's body.
"Miss Becky needs more room than you!" I always say to them.
About halfway through class this week, one little girl looked up at me with sad eyes and said, "I will miss you."
KINDERGARTEN
Have you ever tried to explain to kindergartners where to go for a lockdown drill? It's not the easiest thing to do.
Mostly the kids just stared at me blankly until one little girl asked, "What if we need a hug?"
Another day, we were getting ready to line up and one kindergartner sighed, "I wish I could spend a little more time with you."
FIRST GRADE
We have a lot of new students at my school this year, and I am still getting to know their names.
I called one of my first graders by a name, then second guessed myself and asked her, "Is that your name?"
She shook her head. I checked my roster. From what I could tell, I had called her the correct name.
"Is that your name?" I asked her again.
This time, she nodded.
Yesterday, one of the first grade boys barked all the way through our steady beat song.
SECOND GRADE
I have a second grader who gets very emotional about music.
Once he told me, "I heard you playing the piano today. I really liked that."
He also cried the first time I sang his class opera last year . . . and not because it was terrible. He thought it sounded beautiful and was moved by it.
Speaking of opera . . . One of our faculty members said the kids were out at recess talking about opera and they took on a very serious tone.
"And we are NOT allowed to laugh at it!" they told her.
THIRD GRADE
One girl entered my room with puffy eyes. It was after recess, and she was holding a broken pink and white polka dot umbrella.
"Is there someplace I can put this?" She started to cry, "Like in the trash?"
The umbrella was broken and so was my heart. (P.S. We didn't put it in the trash. She took it home to see if it could be fixed.)
CHOIR
"Choir puts me in a good mood," a sixth grade boy told me while he was waiting in line for music class. "It makes me have a good day."
My fifth grade choir members kept on whispering, "SLIP AND SLIDE!" every time a student would sneak in to put a contract in the bin during their class.
"No one is doing it!" one fifth grade girl said.
"Doing what?" I asked.
"You told us to 'slip and slide' into the room to turn in our contracts if you had class. No one is slipping and sliding," and she and a few of the other choir kids did some kind of '80s dance move that they had collectively decided was the "Slip and Slide."
"Did I actually say that, slip and slide?" I asked them.
"YES!" they said in unison.
"Huh, that's kind of clever."
I guess they really do pay attention to what I am saying . . . even if I don't.
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