Why, You Ask, and Why I know it's Time for Break

I'm writing this while watching Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer. Why, you ask?  Because after receiving an email from my 12 year old principal demanding that all teachers teach up until the last minute before break,she decided that today would be a Rodeo day.  What's that you ask?  My school's mascot is a mustang.  Why, you ask,, do elementary schools need a mascot?  I guess it's for the football team that we don't have. (Football dominates the south and I firmly believe that the brain injuries sustained in this wholesome activity is the reason the south supported Trump.)The Rodeo is a reward for those little mustangs who have not bucked or bitten anyone too seriously.  Except that there were a few mustangs who ordinarily wouldn't have attended because they actually did bite someone (or kicked, or hit or whatever) but because this is just a babysitting venture, they got to attend the good behavior reward and brought their lovely manners with them.  Within 5 minutes, those little mustangs who had been bad all semester long were doing what they always do, so they were hauled off to a tent.  Why, you ask, is there a tent in the gym?  I don't know.  But the PE teacher gets to sit inside it and scan the audience looking for misbehaving and talkative mustangs and then makes them sit in the tent with him.  To me the tent looks like more fun than watching a movie, but at this point I'm tired of asking why.

 Anyway,, the specialists, who will be standing on sentry duty during while the classroom (real)  teachers go to An Important Meeting that will last exactly five extra minutes too long because that's the passing time allotted to specials so that we can get ready for the next class, which is next to impossible because the meetings don't end on time and one class ends as the other class' teacher is waiting impatiently for you to take over so she can go to An Important Meeting that will last five minutes too long.

A few weeks ago the 12 year old principal told the specialists that we would have 90 minute classes for 3 grade levels and the following week the same schedule for the 3 grade levels we missed)  Why, you ask?  So that the classroom (real) teachers could get 90 minutes to plan.  And of course, they were still 5 minutes late to pick up their students.  Specials classes are 45 minutes long, which for elementary grades is 15 minutes too long,Specials should be two 30 minute blocks a week, according to things like research and facts (which have been replaced by opinions masquerading as facts) but we're not here for children.  We're here for meetings.  And I don't know about you, but I am not a fan of extending my classes 30 extra seconds, let alone another 45 minutes.  90 minutes with kindergarteners who have a 3 minute attention span .

One teacher suggested switching classes after the 45 minute mark.  Even though I am only at that school one day a week and I would be teaching a class I didn't have, that seemed a better deal.  The baby Jesusette principal caught wind of it and was unhappy.  Why?  I don't know.  In her email she stressed that the specialists would be teaching engaging lessons for that block and the fact that we weren't going to show any movies should have been enough. Luckily, the AP, who isn't 12 years old, thought it was perfectly acceptable.

So this quarter I've missed 2 out of the 9 classes  That's like missing two weeks of curriculum.  I'm old school.  I care about teaching.  I actually do plan on teaching until the last day of the year.in April, even after the high stakes testing is over and teachers are generally involved in such educational activities as unpacking their room, stripping the walls of data and showing movies , Stupid me.  I'm doing a wrap up of the year's songs.  I'm finding it harder and harder to care when I'm just a glorified babysitter.   I was planning on teaching until the sides of my walker rusted or I thwacked a kid in the head with my three pronged cane, but I'm now hoping to last two more years.   I can't watch education go the way the rest of the country is going to go.  It was my salvation for so many years.  No matter what was going on the world, I could immerse myself in my profession.  I loved every minute of my day.   No more.  All these 12 year old principals and other nitwits in charge of anything more important than emptying a dustpan are systematically destroying a once rewarding profession   No wonder younger teachers are bailing.  Heavy sigh.

Other Fun Stuff:  When I was growing up, I used to watch a TV show hosted by Art Linklater called Kids Say the Darndest Thing. Mr. Linkater would interview wholesome, fresh-faced kids who would unwittingly say something with a double entendere or unintentional meaning. Change the word darndest to insane or really weird and we're now updated.

 Student:          I have a scratch on my gum and it hurts.
 Me:                What would yo like me to do about it?
 Student:         Shrugs and walks away
Student:          I cut my finger and I have to go to the nurse.

Me:                 I look at the finger and decide I need an electron microscope.  I rummage through 

                       my desk and bring out my(imaginary) electron microscope and peer through its

                       powerful lens.  I notice that yes, indeed, there is one red corpuscle that has gone

                       rogue and left its cohorts who were safely nestled under the skin.  I put the 

                       microscope away and say: I suggest we amputate so we can save the limb.

Student:          Blank stare

Me:                 Well, should I call the OR and schedule the surgery or just saw off the finger
                       off so we can save the limb.  I have a rusty pair of scissors right here.

Student:           Really?
Me:                 Now it's my turn to stare
Student:          Ohhhhh. You're kidding.  ....right?

Student:           upon entering my room:  I have to use it.
Me:                  Use what?  ( I know full well what the kid means. I just hate that expression. ) Do
                       you need to use a tissue?  Pen?  Paper?  What do you need to use?
Student:           The bathroom.
Me.                  Why didn't you ask your teacher on the way here.
Student:           She said to ask you.
Me:                  You can ask her when she comes to pick up your class.

Student.            My stomach hurts
Me:                   Do you need to use the restroom?
Student:            No.
Me:                   Do you feel sick?
Student:            No.
Me:                   Do you feel like you might throw up?
Student:             No.
Me:                   What do you want to do?
Student:             I don't know,
Me:                   Well that makes two of us.
                         Student turns around and deposits his recently consumed lunch on my carpet.
                         I'm guessing she did feel like throwing up.

Student:            My head hurts.
Me:                   Ok.  Take it off
Student:            Ms. J, then I couldn't see
Me:                   Or talk.

Me:                    Ok students. Let's get to our spots for story time. Today's story is about ...
Student:             Ms. J my sister's birthday is tomorrow.
Me:                    A child who gets bitten by a dinosaur for not raising his hand in class.
Student:             Are dinosaurs real?
Me:                    Yes.  And they bite.

Me:                      Fifth grade, let's make a sitting circle so I can teach you the dreydl game.
Student:               Ms. J you said we were going to play the dreydl game today.
Another student:  Ms. J, can we play that game with that clay thing you turn?
Me:                      I changed my mind. Today we're going to silent as a rock and still as a road
                            kill..

Me:                      Ok second grade.  Let's find our way to story time.  My story today is The Old
                             Woman Who Swallowed a Pie  (sung to the tune of the Old Woman Who
                             Swallowed a Fly.
Student:                Ms. J. My mother said I can't hear that story.
Me:                      What?  This story?  Your mother has read this story and has forbidden you to
                             hear it?
Student:                I can't hear it.  I can't be in the same room.
Me;                       (Wishing he would be in another room)...Fine.  Go put your head down
                             on the desk in  the back of the room and cover your ears.
                             When the teacher comes to pick up the class I ask her about this.
His teacher:          He's a pathological liar.  Don't listen to him.

Crazy B:               (from the pathological liar child) appropos of nothing: I can't talk to white people.
Me:                      Why?
Students:              My mother says I can't.
Me:                      Why?
Student:                Because
Me.                      Why?
Student:               Because they can take me away.
Me:                      (to myself)  If only
Me:                      I'm white.  You've been talking to me for five months now.
Student:               I know.
Me:                     You know, it's offensive to say things like that.
Another student:  That's racist
First student:       What's that mean?
Entire class:         It's when you don't like people because of how they look.
Crazy boy: :        I'm not racist.  I just can't talk to white people.
Me:                      Go to the back desk so that I can't talk to you. (hopefully never again)

My birthday is This Month and Other Non-Sequitors

Random thoughts.  It's testing week at one of my schools.  I have to teach my music classes and not make any noise.  Seems like a reasonable request.  38 six year olds in my tiny hamster cage sized room sitting in total silence for 45 minutes.   There isn't nuch in my rom except a wonderful set of Orff instruments that the onsite teacher doesn't use because she does QUAVER all the time. ( I am going to resist the opportunity to fulminate about that idiotiic,  hypercaphenated, annoying Brit who has  developed a cartoon-based  instructional music program)   My xylophones look so sad; I think they know they can't be manhandled today.  Or maybe they're just relived that no one will dig mallets in between the bars or lean their entire body strength on top of the bars and bend the pins.

Because the entire building had testing going on, I couldn't even roll into the classrooms and do the fun, but noisy, Halloween activities I always do  (don't worry.  I always check to make sure that I donb't have any religious objections.  If I do, I call it a fun fall activity)  I'm bored.  I can only watch Peter and the Wolf so many times, eveb if I rotate all six versions.  To combat my boredom and fill the FOUR  second voids in between telling my students to BE QUIET I thought Id jot down some of the things that make my job so rewarding.

1.  Every week one of my principals sends out at least 3 emails like these

Greetings:
Please keep Mr. Roberts and his family in your thoughts and prayers.  His uncle was funeralized (sic) on yesterday (sic again)

Greetings,

Please keep Mrs. Russell and her family in your thoughts and prayers. Mrs. Russell recently lost a cousin. We ask you keep her lifted at this time.  

This has inspired the poet in me (please sing it to the tune of 99 Bottles of Beer, and better still, drink all of them bottles.)

99 people have died on her watch

99 people in all

Turn around

One more in the ground

99 people have died on her watch

2.  Got this gem of an announcement today

.....School Fine Arts Program presents…. THE WIZ’LAKE!!   
 Really?  Wiz Lake? (The two exclamations points came with the message. )  Did the Swans pee into the lake?  

3.  Last week I was reading a book to kindergarten called Noises.  Three pages into the story a hand goes up.  I say, "Is this a question about something in the story you don't understand or do you just want to share?"  Stupid me.  I forgot you can't ask kindergarten children a compound question.  Child says, "It's a question."  I signed and asked her the question. "My birthday is next month."

4.  Why my job is so fulfilling

Future refrigerator repairman who apparently doesn't like my class

Class must have been too strenuous

I think I'll just sit this one out

Inspecting the carpet for unknown reasons

Mork from Ork joins the class

5.  Its time to start drinking heavily while operating heavy machinery,

Whad I do? and I Dint Do Nothing

Since this is a blog about teaching music I have refrained from posting about anything political. I couldn't help myself today. Teachers are trying to help students make connections about what they're learning to real world applications.  Here's my connection.

Whenever I discipline a student, I can usually count on one of four responses: 1.  a shrug with arms held out and an open mouth  2. "I dint do nothing " 3. "Whad I do?"  4." But ______ (insert another student's name) did it, too."  My answers: 1. Close your mouth please and use some words.  My mind reading abilities, like my cell phone, don't work inside the building. 2.  Use correct grammar please   It's I didn't do anything.  And yes, you DID do something. .3. If you don't know what you did, please go to time out until you can figure it out.  4. Yes, it's true, ____ (insert another student's name)  was doing it, too.  But if you and a buddy rob a bank  and only you get caught, do you think you will not be convicted because your buddy didn't get caught?  Go to timeout please and you can take ____ (insert another student's name)  with you.  I hope _____  (insert  other student's name who is now visibly angry) is happy that you tattled on him. 

These are the responses I get from students ranging from 5 to 9 years old.  Here's the thing-- all of those responses are remarkably similar to the way Trump and his supporters responded to the newly leaked video of his (no shock here)  hot mic comments about women.  He and the people that support him are clearly not even as smart as my fifth graders.  And many of my fifth graders read at or below a third grade level.


sigh.

My Oter Car Is Pnis

Our county's newest mandate is to promote literacy in the music classroom.  I've been doing that for many years and after I got my Orff certification, I realized that this idea has been around for more than a hundred years (thanks Karl) so once again, music has been way ahead of the educational curve.

This year one of my five schools is in an achievement zone (yay), which is referred to as an AZ school because, as I've said before, educators are addicted to acronyms. (As a side bar,  I've noticed that this country has a habit of calling unpleasant things by misleading, more pleasant sounding names, e.g. The Clean Air Act, which one would think is a mandate to clean up air pollution,  but it turned out to be a bill designed to allow companies to continue polluting the environment  Or the Patriot act, which was anything but patriotic because, in the name of fighting terrorism, it allowed the government to perform illegal wire taps and search business records.)  So it's no surprise that the  AZ is the part of the county with the lowest performing schools. It's unclear what, if anything, they're achieving, unless you count high teacher turnover as a positive outcome.  As I've said many times before, schools can not be expected to fix what is wrong with the community at large. If we don't address the larger issues like poverty, unwanted and too many teenage pregnancies, drugs and crime, then schools will only be a band-aid applied to a gaping wound

The schools in the AZ community wisely decided to extend the school day because elementary students are so good at staying on task for 8 hours a day.  By the time the last class comes they are either in a super- charged caffeinated state or comatose, sort of like having Donald Trump and Ben Carson together in one room.   The longer and more productive fun-filled days allow the schools to have a professional development day one Friday a month while the students are at home trying to recover.  (I have a suspicion that the parents are not very happy to have their kids home one more day a month.)  Not surprisingly no one stopped to take into account that if you are a specialist, one third or more of your curriculum is not going to being taught on those classless that fall on Friday., especially when you factor in the award assemblies that many schools hold on one Friday a month.

 I attended my first professional development today. Luckily it was just music teachers because other schools frequently make the specialists attend professional development that has no earthly relevance to our subject area, but does allow some of the younger teachers to sit in the back and play on facebook or pay their bills.   Most of the teachers  in the AZ group are young and eager to do a good job, but I bet that in 3 years none of them will still be teaching.  One teacher said that 7 teachers quit last week.  I told her that 8 quit at the beginning of the year last year so that's a positive trend. 

Back to the meeting.  It's always nice to feel the shared pain. Everyone had war stories.   We traded funny student names.  I won again this year: Antonin Dvorjak Carter III (and his name is pronounced exactly the way you would pronounce the composer's name, minus the Carter.  I'm guessing the  familial lineage is probably a bit faulty at best.)  But that name still doesn't come close to this beauty: NVMeMzBerthaMae Jones.  When our coordinator walked in we'd return to one of our assignments, which was to share student work  I don't make my students do much writing.  I'm too busy trying to make music.  But sometimes I have them write a reflection when I send them to time out.  Here's what I go t from a third grader.  If you can decipher it, then I think it's possibly a love note to me.

 

The art teacher, who I share the room with, said I should make it a bumper sticker. I thought that was a great idea, but I'd add to it: My oter car is pnis.

*translation" You are a vagina.  I don't care.

Hickety Tickety Bumble Bee

I am welcoming myself back to my 87th year of teaching.  Summer vacation came to a screeching halt the second day of August.  I don't know why we start in August.  It's summer, damn it!   At least half of the population in my part of the county doesn't show up until after Labor Day because it's summer, damn it!   And wisely,  the county has a 10 day count so that it can play fruit basket turnover and move teachers from school to school because, God forbid, there might be classes with less than a zillion children in a room.   So after Labor Day, which is THE END OF SUMMER VACATION, DAMN IT!®   the numbers go up and there are now a zillion children in a class.  Yay.

But I do like the first week of school, or honeymoon season.  The kids are in sussing out mode and they're not going to misbehave because it isn't safe yet.  So I get to play lots of fun getting to know you activities without having to stop children from saying, "You nasty" or "Stop breathing on me" to each other.   Pure bliss.  

But kindergarten--that's a different story.   They don't know how to suss out the situation.  They're in a state of perpetual confusion. I'm positive that if you took an MRI of a kindergarten brain it would look like a ball of yarn that the cat got into.  I greet them at the door and say, "Follow me in."  Half way into the room I look back and they're still standing at the door staring at me.  I go back and say, "Let's play follow the leader.  I'm the leader.  Follow me into the room."  They stare at me, blink a few times and finally the line leader, whom I assumed was crowned line leader because he could lead the line out of troubled waters, realizes his call to duty has come, and finally follows me in.  Half way into the room I turn and the line leader is behind me, but the other children are walking around aimlessly looking for their mother ship.  I remind them to follow the leader, so they all return back to where the line is, but now they're not in the same order as when they came in so they cry.  

10 minutes later line order is restored and we make a standing circle.   I say, "Sit down where your feet are, please."  What they heard me say was, "Flop onto your belly like a baby seal or do a nose dive onto the carpet"  I stand them up and show them how to sit down.  "Excuse me.," one pipes up.  "I have to use it."  I have to use it is the odd way these kids ask to use the bathroom.  I explain the rules about specials and the bathroom.  And besides, right before this class I saw this bunch lined up outside the restroom.  Apparently they were as confused about the what the restroom is for as they are about follow the leader.  When tears appear, I allow the child to go to the restroom.  But of course, that sent a signal to the other children that right now they all had to use it.  I said to them, "If you go now, you won't be able to play my fun games today."  That seemed to satisfy their restroom need until 15 minutes later when a child who hadn't asked to go to the bathroom stood up and peed onto the floor.  Sigh.

The next game we played after follow the leader and pee on the floor, was Hickety Tickety Bumble Bee.  Will you say your name for me?  The child says his/her name and the class echoes.  I model for the students.  The first few say their names and all is going well until  one girl answers, "Bzzzz."  I said, "What's your name?  "Bzzzz," she says again.  I asked, "What does your mother call you/?"  No answer.  "What does your teacher call you?"  No answer.  I move on.  Two students later I get another "Bzzzz."  I skip over her.  A few more get the idea that Bzzz is a lovely name and they try it on for size.  I skip over them.  One bzzzzzer cries because she didn't get to tell me her name.  I said, "Then perhaps you should say your name and not tell me it's Bzzz. I decide to give her another chance.  The class sings Hickety Tickety Bumble Bee.  Will you say your name for me.  We wait  And wait.  No answer.  I say,  "I'm giving you another chance to tell me your name.  What is it?"   I never did get a response. A few more kids actually say their name until one of them tells me his first name, three middle names and last name, which of course, is hyphenated.  I ask him to just tell me his first name.  He repeats the whole deal again.  I ask him again for just his FIRST name.  I get the whole string of names again and decide to cut my losses and move on.  Two more correct answer until I get to one kid  who says, "Bee." I said, "Bee is your name?"  He shakes his head no.  I said what's your name.  Again he says, "Bee."  "I said, "What does your teacher call you? " He said, "Sir."  I was about to laugh, but I noticed that on my student roster, sure enough, there was a kid named Syr.  Thank goodness he was the last one in the circle because at this point the only name I wanted to call each one of them is not very nice.

The next game we played goes like this: Apples, peaches plears and plums.  Tell me the month your birthday comes.  First child says, "I don't know."  I ask, "When is your birthday?"  "He says, "March."   I said, Well, that's the month your birthday comes."  "Oh, " he says and then stares at me.  The next child says, "Wednesday."  I said, "Is Wednesday a month or a day of the week?"  Answer, "Wednesday." " Is your birthday this Wednesday?" I ask.  She says, "Wednesday."  I move on.  Another child says he doesn't know.  I ask when he celebrates his birthday. He cries.  I ask why he's crying.  He doesn't know.  Out of 28 students, 21 stared, 3 cried, and four answered an actual month,  even though they all told me the same month, so I can't swear that it's really the month they were born, or they just liked the way Febary sounds.

I decide to ask them their favorite color.  Surely they can give me a reasonable answer.. I ask them to think of ONE favorite color.  ONE, not two three, four, a zillion. . I ask them to touch their noses when they have ONE answer.  He are a couple of answers I got: Rainbow.  Light, light pink.  I don't know.  Green, Orange, Blue ... I stop the child.  I say, "One color, please."  She says, "Green, orange, blue."

 I should've let them all go to the bathroom because they weren't missing any fun games.

Testing First Graders in Music. Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

I am in the processing of administering post-test  SLOs ( motto: Education.  We generate new acronyms for the same old ideas.  SLO stands for student learning objectives)  to first graders. The test has two parts and takes 2 weeks to administer. This means that four weeks of curriculum are taken up with testing.  Factoring in field trips, assemblies, days when  there is a .01% chance of snow within 500 miles, and the last two weeks of school because of field days, awards days and days when the teachers take the kids outside until specials and bring them to you smelling like wet sheep that had just rolled in their own poo  and you have to spend half the class period getting them to stop bleating, means that if you teach each class only once a week, that can be a loss of 12 out of 36 lessons--a third of the curriculum!

So just because the core subjects are forced to administer high stakes testing round the clock, the specials classes need to share in this joy, too.  Our fun test is given to the first graders because I don't know why.   The first part of the test  uses a scantron form and is in multiple guess format. The second part is an oral and written assessment that has to be administered one on one.  When it comes to the one on one part, no one thought about what to do with students who are not taking the test.  First graders can entertain themselves for about 3 minutes before finding ways to amuse each other, i.e. throwing crayons, eating erasers, playing chase the dust motes or shrieking.

It's hard to decide which part is the most fun.  Some first graders have mastered the fine art of bubbling in answers. (This is even more fun in the beginning of the year when these little guys have no idea what bubbling in an answer means, nor do they have the fine motor skills to accomplish this.  I was told to bubble in the answers for them, which I can't believe is not a testing violation.) I use this activity to find out who has OCD--those are the kids that color in the circle, erase the microscopic stray lines, color in some  more, erase some more, and then cry when they have made a hole in the  answer sheet or they can still see remnants of that microscopic stray lines that are only visible with an electron microscope.  And then you get the kids that have just transferred in from a galaxy far ,far away, and are clueless about what you do with a bubble sheet, unless you consider making pretty patterns a viable use.   I got two aliens this week.  One of them thought that he should only use question 1 to record all his answers, so he colored in A, for question 1, B for question 2 and then on the 3rd question he thought the answers was A  and he tried to color in the A bubble again.  After amusing myself by watching him try to puzzle out what to do,  I decided to stop torturing him and explained, for the third time,  how bubble sheets work. . The other student decided not to record his answers on the bubble portion and wrote them on the top of the paper, even after I pointed to the letters on the bubble sheet and showed him what to do  Somewhere on Mars a mother is worrying about her missing child.

 Part One's Fun
The first question asks the student to identify the rhythm pattern that was clapped.  It's pretty easy because there's a rest in the  example and if the student has any visual ability, he can see that I touch my shoulders on the rest.  Some teachers hold both hands out to indicate a rest and I've seen a few people say, "shh," which I think isn't that great an idea because a rest is supposed to indicate a silence and "shhhh" isn't silent. .At any rate, there's a visual cue.

The second question asks the student to identify which pattern was sung. This requires the student be able to read simple solfege patterns on the staff.. That means I am forced to teach reading notes on the staff,  something which I t would rather do in second grade because the research shows that younger children should be aurally identifying and decoding music patterns--in other words, developing their musical ear The note reading,  which  John Feierabend calls, "paper training" is more developmentally appropriate to start in second grade so I compromise and start teaching note reading a week before the test because that's as close to second grade as I can get.  Anyone can be taught to read music but f musicality hasn't been developed, the reading part is useless.  I remember when many high school students would tell me they studied piano for elebenty thousand years and I would expect to hear the great great great grandchild of Liszt but instead would get a sonatina that was played by Pinocchio.

When I do start note reading on the staff, I use five lines.  The test uses a two line staff;  I redraw it and make it a five line staff. . Many Kodaly teachers use a laborious process of going from a two line, then a three line staff and I assume somewhere after post doctorate work, the five line staff is introduced.  I can find no research anywhere that shows that reading a two and then three line staff is necessary.  We aren't taught to read half a word in first grade and then the second half in third grade.  Many students find it confusing, as do I, to go from 2, 3 and the 5 lines. And if you have any students who study an instrument, then they really are confused  (Those who struggle with note reading, I am willing to bet, have some form of dysgraphia. or learning disability and probably wouldn't do any better with fewer lines on the staff.  To many students mapping the concept of up and down or higher and lower is difficult to not only aurally identify, but visually as well.  I haven't done any scientific research, so this is anecdotal evidence, but every time I have a student who struggles reading notes on the staff, I ask the teacher about his reading skills  and 11 out of 10 times, that student struggles with reading as well as other types of symbolic decoding).

After  I sing so la mi mi,  I ask the student to point to the example that I sang. When the student has pointed to his  answer , I ask him to check his response and point to each note as I sing it.  Sometimes if the student has pointed to the wrong answer, he will correct it.  Sometimes he will stick to his guns.   Then I ask follow-up questions: Can the student aurally identify if the pitches are going up (higher) or down (lower)?  Can the student  show me which pitches on the staff represent upward or downward movement? Can the student show me repeated (same) notes?

I  ask the students several follow-up questions because I want to know how much the student understands about staff reading. Getting the answer wrong or right doesn't tell me much .  For example, today a student pointed to the correct answer the first time I sang it.  I asked her to point to the notes that were the same or repeated.   She pointed to the first two notes, which are not the same.  One is on the line of the staff and one is on a space.  One is higher than the other one.  I asked her if the second note was higher or lower than the first one.  She couldn't tell me. Then I asked her if the last two notes, which are the same pitches,  were the same . She said no. I asked her if they were repeated notes. " No,"  she said,   Clearly she didn't understand same and different when it came to repeated notes or notes on different lines and spaces.  It was a student who had just enrolled a few days ago---yeah--two weeks left until the end of the year and we're still getting transfers.  I gave her credit for the right answer, even though I'm not at all convinced she knew what she was doing.  I'm not sure what she was confused about, but I do know that I need to work with her a little more.  And I also know that I would not have known any of this if I had given the test without interviewing the students.

Part whoopdee doo two
This part of the test requires the students to write a four beat pattern using a combination of quarters, eighths and quarter rests and then echo me as I sing  so la mi mi, which is now really starting to grate on my nerves.

After the students write their four beat masterpiece they have to say  it using rhythm syllables such as ta and ta ti as well as clap it,  and I grade them based on a rubric that I believe  was possibly translated from Aramaic to English and then run through Google translate. It goes something like this: If the student can clap and say the rhythm and keep a consistent tempo while standing on one leg and swatting flies, then he gets a perfect score of 10.  If the student makes one mistake and finishes his opus before lunch that's a 7.  If the student writes hieroglyphics or  claps something completely different from what he wrote and you can not detect a steady beat at any time,, or speaks in tongues but maintains a steady beat, that's a 3.  If the student stares at you and doesn't move, that's a 0.   

  That is why multiple guess tests and data give an incomplete picture.  The SLOs are just SLAs (S**hitty Little Assessments) That plus the fact that we are also asked to assess whether a student can echo sing correctly using  head tone.  Ok, I don't mind assessing that, but some students for reasons both physical and/or developmental can't do that.  But why should the teacher be accountable for that assessment?  I have a kid who has some congenital larynx malformation and can not use his head tone. His score from pre to post did not improve, yet conceivably,  if the county decided to tie teacher compensation to test results, that would count against me.  That just .....

S**tty Little Objectionable tests.

Me Want Spring Break NOW!

Lisa: This post's for you.

The majority of my career was spent at the secondary and college level.  Most of my students were on a pretty even keel for the majority of the year.  Sometimes I would notice senioritis when graduation was approaching, but for the most parts my students' behaviors remained consistent. At the elementary level, it's quite different.  Around March the kids start to behave like wolves with PTSD.

 At first I thought that perhaps the children had been left out in the sun and baked too long.  Then I thought that maybe their brains were infected by ninja larvae warriors.  Teachers would ascribe the behavior changes to full moons, but they're only full for a day, so that didn't seem like the correct explanation.  Other teachers said the kids needed a break, but there are several breaks for them after the winter one and they return to school squirrelier and squirrelier each time.

Finally I think I know the reason: The kids have sussed out the situation  and have learned that they are the ones in control.  Yesterday a fourth grade teacher told me that one of her students punched another student square in the face. leaving a crater large enough to hold a coffee cup.  The AP said she wasn't going to suspend anyone right now because that all important Critical Multiple Guess Test that measures how good your test taking skills are, is coming up in April. These are the students that wouldn't pass the test anyway.,and their presence in the classroom prevents other students from learning.  Seems like suspension would be a less worse option.  On the days that certain crazy bugs are absent from a class, it's like teaching in Nirvana.  You don't have to spend 98% of the class time keeping that child from calling out, thumping on the floor, jumping off chairs, or any other behavior that sucks the life force out of the room.

Schools don't like their suspension rates to look bad so they allow these little terrorists to commandeer their classes,.  So if suspension isn't going to be an option, then there should be an opportunity room or holding pen or whatever you want to call it, where the students sit in little desks with blinders on each side, doing the work they are keeping the other students from doing.  Apparently you have to have a certified teacher to monitor them, and I'm not sure why because substitute teachers are not certified teachers , so instead of hiring an extra level of ridiculously overpaid administrators at the county level whose only function, as best as I can discern, is to generate new acronyms, why not hire a few certified personnel to do this job? The kids in my community don't care if they get suspended.  Most of their parents don't seem to  care either, unless it's an inconvenience for them.  One day one of my second graders came up to me while I was on cafeteria sentry patrol to ask me if I had missed seeing him the other day.  I said I did and asked why he was out.  He said, "I had to take care of my baby brother."  I asked how old his baby brother was. He said, "He was just borned (sic) a few months ago." I asked where his parents were.  He said, "My mother went in the car and I think my father is at work.  These are the kinds of parents that wouldn't notice whether their child was suspended or was playing in traffic.

The other thing I noticed about the kids at this time of year is that they have now formed mini gangs that excel in varying levels of hating each other.  Doing activities is like an exercise in logic; Student A can only sit next to Student B, but Student B is only allowed to sit near Student A if Student C is in the middle, except on alternate days of the week.  But if Student A is absent, then student B has to sit with Student D unless Student D consumed food that was within 500 miles of a peanut. No one can partner up without this refrain, "But my teacher said I can't be by him."  Here's what I say, "Fine, then he will be your partner the rest of the year, including lunch, and then I  will come into the cafeteria and sit with you two.to make sure you're still partners. Word got out that I will actually do this, so they don't mess with me on that one.

Back to post- January behavior disorders  Ooooh PJBD. I can generate acronyms, too!  Maybe I can move into an administrative position at the county level now.

 On Tuesdays I have a class of the future criminally insane. One of them is Kenny from South Park's doppelganger, except that he is alive at the end of every class, although he seems to be working on changing that.  .  He was in a self-contained BD class up north, but for some reason at our school he is free to roam around screaming and cursing and jumping off of furniture, especially if it's really high off the floor.  Yesterday he called me a "son of a bitch," in front of the class.   I so wanted to correct him and say "daughter," but I ignored him.  I rang the buzzer.  No one came. When he saw that no one was coming to get him, he started playing billy goat gruff and jumped from chair to chair.  I saw him today in the hallway the next day  Apparently his IEP allows him to call teachers bitches and do mountain goat imitations.  Either that or has reached the maximum number of suspensions for a child with an IEP, which I think is 179, one less than the total number of instructional days.

Aside from Kenny and his three cohorts that follow him around like he's Jim Jones, there are about 7 really, really mean girls and they don't seem too fond of me.  At least, that's what I surmised when one of them said, "I hate you."   They argue all day long about important topics such as who said what about whom.  I told them last week to solve their problems before class, so this week they came into the room and solved it over a 10 minute period while I sat with my arms folded and waited.   They said, "But you told us to not bring our issues into the classroom and we were trying to solve them and now we're mad at you because you told us to not do that."  I breathed slowly and thought about what I could say that would make any sense I mean, they had just come from lunch and recess.  Couldn't they have solved it then? . I softly said to the rest of the class, "If you want to join me fine.  If not, that's fine, too." I started my activity and the 5 normal ones joined me.  But gradually the rest of the class joined and I was thinking that finally things were going well, but then  crazy Kenny started doing his lion tamer routine and the rest of the class couldn't focus any more.

 When I got home I cried for about an hour.  I told my husband I wanted to quit.  I take it personally when a class doesn't go well.  I will beat myself up until I figure out what things I could have done differently.  If I were younger, I wonder if I would quit and looked for a job as a mime or anything where I wouldn't have to talk or worry about anyone liking me.   But I hate feeling like a failure, so I I decided to do some critical self-examination.  A little self-flagellation helps the medicine go down.... in the most delightful way.  Sorry. Sometimes being a music teacher means that you have to get that little bit of song out of your head lest it become an ear worm.

On Wednesdays I have my present day criminally insane children.  I don't have any Kennys, but these kids were clearly created on a Monday morning after a weekend of partying with Class I drugs.*.  What I had decided was that I was going to make a deal with them.  If they got through my lesson without their usual hi-jinks (stuff like screaming at each other, throwing things, forcing foreign objects into their neighbor's body parts, laughing at words that have a similar phoneme to a curse word and/or sexual act like the word vibraslap), then the next week I would take them outside for the whole class period and do some playground games. The previous week I noticed that one of the ring leaders was actually doing a fairly decent job playing xylophone ( he was not making dents in the instruments; my bar is admittedly fairly low) .  I made a huge deal about it.  I took him up to the other music teacher and bragged about him.  This week when he came to class, he had a different attitude--the belligerent what did I dog gesture and whine routine had been replaced with a teacher pleaser. All I had to do was look at him and he knew to stop that behavior.   It served as a reminder that  if I can find just one complementary thing to say, it really means a lot.  It says that there's an adult who cares about them. Sometimes I forget to do this because I am so frustrated, so maybe the  previous night's crying jag helped me get back on track.

 Can't do that with the mean girls, though .They don't fall for flattery.  I'm still thinking about how to deal with them.  But this class is mostly boys so I will become the queen of compliments. . I was feeling pretty good after class, but wouldn't you know,, as we were leaving two lunkheads sneaked into the music storage closet and stole some tennis balls.  I wouldn't have known except one of the balls fell out of a boy's pocket.  Then that boy pointed at the other boy and said he had stolen some and two more balls go bouncing down the hallway The first boy, being as bad a liar as he is a thief, said he brought them to class with him.  I tend to doubt it because his pants are rather tight and he wears them around his nether region and there's not even enough room for an inchworm, let alone a tennis ball.. It was kind of funny because they both ratted each other out while denying culpability, even as the tennis balls went bouncing by. . Oh,, and of course, to make it even a more special day, one of the boys made the international sign for oral sex.  His teacher said to write it up, but I really wrestled with how to describe it.  I ended up writing, "He made a V sign with his fingers and thrust his tongue in and out between them."

Spring break. Spring break. Spring break. Spring break. Spring break. Spring break. Spring break.

SCHEDULE 1 (CLASS I) DRUGS  are illegal because they have high abuse potential, no medical use, and severe safety concerns; for example, narcotics such as Heroin, LSD, and cocaine. Marijuana is also included as a Class 1 drug despite it being legal in some states and it being used as a medicinal drug in some states. 

My Student Who Mastered the Recorder

I am continuously amazed at the deep and profound knowledge about sexual acts that elementary children know about. Back in the dark ages, c. 1963, when I was in fifth grade (not sure if that year is correct, but it's in the ballpark. My math skills rival those of my 2nd graders). But anyway, in fifth grade we, the girls, were asked to go to a special assembly to see a movie with our mothers. I can't swear it was a Disney film, but if not, it would've been the way Disney would've handled the topic. The topic was "THE PERIOD." I learned about what happens when you get YOUR PERIOD, which wouldn't be until five years later, when I was 14.  Today the age of puberty has been pushed back a LOT.  I have 2nd (SECOND!) graders who have started to menstruate and I've seen mustaches on  boys in Kindergarten (double exclamation point)

 I don't remember anything romantically sexual about the film; just the facts, ma'am about what happens during The Fenine Cycle. When I got back to the classroom, the boys were busy looking in the dictionaries to see what they could find about PERIODS. They were disappointed to find only definitions reflating to grammar or measurements of time. One boy asked aloud, "Why did the girls see a film about punctuation?"

 Yesterday during my fifth grade clown college class, one of the boys who was sitting on the carpet turned around to face the girls, who were sitting on chairs. They kept giggling and I realized that this boy was not facing me. You'd think I'd have noticed him sooner, but my class is like whack-a-mole. I put out one brush fire and another pops up in its place. After class the girls came up to me to tell me that this boy was rubbing the recorder as if he were masturbating. Yup, they used that word to describe what he was doing. I asked them why they didn't tell me immediately and one girl said,"Because it was funny." Yeah, I guess it's funny if you're an adult in the Catskills listening to
                                               \
                                                           Buddy Hackett

 I try not to be curmudgeonly and yearn for the good old days. But yesterday I wanted to turn back the clocks to a time when children didn't know about adult sexual activities until they were at least pimply faced and were half-way through puberty. I am wondering, how does knowledge about sex affect the children's emotional well-being? Back in the Victorian ages, a mere ankle viewing would set males swooning. I don't want to go back that far, but if 9 year olds are exposed to oral sex, then what will it take to set them swooning? The bar is set kind of high.

 It's difficult to teach children who are not children. I am no longer am able to read Puss and Boots to my kindergartners. I can not say booty or booties when referring to shoes. Ok, I can live with that. But I can't say vibraslap or vibrate without getting hysterical reactions. A few years ago I saw one boy turn around and make the international sign for oral sex with a woman. All this information without any emotional or social context can not be good. And just because yesterday was master your recorder day, when I walked into my room to get something, the AP was taking a deposition from a 4th grader and I overheard him say that another child was touching the penis of his classmate in the bathroom.

It is difficult to teach children who are so street savvy.  Because they lack so many fundamental music skills and knowledge, it's a challenge to find literature that teaches the basics without being cute or sweet.  I was doing a lesson from Artie Almeida's book called IMPROVISATION.  There's an echo section to introduce each instrument, like, "Xylophones are in the zone, let's hear from metalophones"  I allowed my fifth grade boys to modify the text and for awhile they did some fun things, but then sexual innuendos starting  creeping in--something to do with big booties, which, I admit, does not rhythm with wood or glockenspiel, but somehow the boys decided that they had won poetic license to go completely into after dark HBO hours.

And that's why I'm home on a mental health day.  Also, I think I woke up with a hangover.

A Must Read

http://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/stop-humiliating-teachers

An Ordinate Number List of Stuff You Could Never Have Known When You Became an Elementary Music Teacher

I just read this adorable blog post about the 10 things they don't tell you about being an elementary music teacher The blogger noted that after 17 years she had some super keen insights such as:  You have to switch gears because teaching fifth grade isn't like teaching kindergarten.  Really?  You didn't know that before you went into this profession?  Here's another of her observations: People assume they know what you do in your classroom.   Well, ok.  Let's alert the Channel 10 News Team.   I know that teaching, and teaching music in particular, is a lot of on the job training and that many college programs, and again, music in particular, do not adequately train or prepare teachers,  but I think there are a lot more surprises out there than the ones she mentioned. 

 So I thought about the 10 things I didn't know before I stepped into the elementary music room.  I have an intense, almost visceral, dislike for articles and books that have numbers in the title  I think I developed this pet peeve when we were forced to read that idiot Stephen Covey whose popular 7 Habits of Highly Effective People was forced upon us in my specialist degree that I earned from P.U.University in Firecrackerville, Tennessee. The book was a facile, over simplified compendium of useless information.   So unless the titles are something like: The 5 Things You Should Know Before Becoming a Prostitute ; 10 Reasons Not to Have a Baby, or 15  Reasons You Should Not Own a Pet Rat then I'm not interested  And while 5, 10 and 15 seem like very nice numbers and I really have no personal vendetta with most any number, using a number in a title forces you to either pad your list or winnow away good ideas.   Therefore, I will call mine, "An Ordinate Number List of Stuff You Could Never Have Known When You Became an Elementary Music Teacher."  When I finish my list, that will be the number of things I wanted to say.

I didn't know that:

1. I would have kids tell me that they would "beat my ass," because I asked them to sit down, and not even be tall enough to reach my ass.
2. Chairs would hurl across the room just because, I don't know, it was a full moon.
3. Teaching music would take a back seat to have to deal with things like defiant behavior disorder or bat shit crazy disease and that each and every class would be required to have a minimum of one (with no maximum limit) of these delightful little buggers, and that these were also the kids who had perfect attendance, including coming to school when there wasn't any.
4. That there would be SO MANY behavioral disorders.
5. Students would tell me my class was lame because I didn't want to do the kind of music they liked and made them doing evil hings like reading music, or even worse, holding hands with their partner, but that's why cootie shots were invented, no?
6. That a child looking at another child is a violation of rule 64, subsection B, article 38 in the  children's code of ethics manual, and is an actionable offense. Punishment should be swift,  and the perpetrators made to suffer a similar torture such as being burned by a magnifying glass  or hung from a tree limb as buzzard feed, which ever method is legal in the state.  I believe both are legal in Texas.
7. I would see a mobility rate of 85%.
8. Parents would come to school in their pajamas.
9. A first grader would appear in HER pajamas, not know any letter of the alphabet, and move after being there exactly one week.
10. Students would be enrolled the LAST F**IN day of the year.
11. Classes would be leveled so that the higher performing class had 12 students and the academically challenged would have one less student that the state limit, which I think now has a teacher student ratio of 1 : 163
12. Politicians, Bill Gates, economists and other self-anointed gurus, who think they can fix education because they know more than the people who actually do the teaching ,would try to improve the  schools with their data obsession, high stakes testing, and tying student test scores to teacher pay, while making sure that teachers were vilified and demand that  their compensation rate of approximately 4 cents an hour be cut even further because they pull up to school in their Bentleys at 8 am, leave at 2pm  and munch on bon bons all day long, be required to work longer and harder than most any other profession and then expect the schools to fix the problems brought on by the larger societal issues of crippling poverty, unstable home life, and various other pathology , because what's needed are long-term fixes and that's too complicated and costs money and many Americans don't want to give money to people who don't look like them, although they're perfectly happy to take the tax money that comes from all people (with an even larger tax burden placed on the ones that didn't create the financial melt-down of 2008 or reside in 1% land)  that the government puts aside for them when they are old, cranky and sick and trying to convince everyone to return life back to the good old days when women were forced into back alley abortions, people of color were discriminated against,  gays, lesbians and transgenders were in the closet and smoking cigarettes was a god idea. Whew.  I wonder if there's a run-on in there?  IF not, I'm giving James Joyce a run for his money.  But I digress.
13. School systems would become bloated with administrators always looking to spray their territory and move up the career ladder, leaving the teachers to pick up the mess they've created and ready themselves for a new leader every few years so the pattern can be repeated.
14. We would receive emails that must start with one of these salutations: Greetings Lemur Family or Hello Llama Team Members.  I already have a family and I don't play sports.    I find  it patronizing and idiotic.  I am a professional;  I don't need to be a member of either group to do the right thing.  If someone asks for me help I will gladly give it.  If we all need to pitch in for the common good, I will do it because that's what you're supposed to do.   Some management moron probably wrote a book  (The Seven Hundred Most Annoying Things to Do in Order to Tell Other People What to Do) and has forever changed the landscape. I'd almost rather be addressed as Dear Pod Seed Member.
15. Parents would call all the shots and the inmates would run the asylum.

hunh.  I ended up with one of those nice numbers.  So be it.

Vacations Are Like Moving Sidewalks

School started on Monday; kids came on Wednesday. I started craving vodka on Friday.

Actually, some of the classes weren't too bad.  I finally got to teach my second grade class again.  I hadn't taught them since October because the onsite music teacher wanted them to learn 12 minutes of music for a 36 minute play about an out of tune Christmas bell.  (In my part of the county, you can have all the Christmas you want, so all you whiny birds that hate Christmas having to be called winter holiday, have no fear.  Christmas is definitely here in my neck of the woods.  Big time.  And for the students that are Muslim, Jehova's Witnesses or another group that does not celebrate Christmas, nyah nyah on you.  I'm sure those kids feel really included at this time of year, much the same way I was in elementary school, a Jewish kid forced to sing Christ the Savior is bo-rrrrnnn along with the zillion other carols and one Dreydl song-- I think there is only one-- for good measure.) Anyway, I lost about 8 weeks of curriculum for a musical that was A. stupid B. had silly, inane music and C. was really, really stupid.  I know the parents thought it was cute and loved seeing their little ones on stage, some staring at the ceiling lights, others engaged in finger play,  and a few reciting lines in a monotone whisper.  But to me, cute isn't as important as what they could have been learning from the curriculum.  Oh well.  When in Rome.

I sat down with each class and reviewed the rules and expectations.  I am a firm believer that it is better to give up a few minutes of curriculum to reinforce rules and expectations.  Two years ago a wonderful teacher was late to my class because he was marching his kids up and down the hall  They were excited to come to my class and had made a beeline to my room.( I was lucky that he was able to use my class as an incentive.) He made them come back and walk to my room several times.  If he hadn't done that, it would've taken me a while to calm them down.  Even though they were 10 minutes late, we sailed through the lesson because he had helped them to become focused and primed to learn. Thanks Mr. Monroe if you ever read this blog.

On Friday I have the most difficult class--fifth grade, last class of the day.  They have been without a teacher since October because she was fired.  The last time I saw this class a girl threw a chair across the room because, well, just because. I'm guessing she was angry at something/someone?  No sub will stay longer than a week.  As sub number 35 walked them to my door today,  I recognized her.  She's a retired teacher and had subbed for me previously and was pretty good with the kids.  I asked her if she was going to be a long term sub.  She said, and I am paraphrasing a bit, that she would rather have her face pulled off by a falcon then stay with this group.

I asked the students to come in quietly and they actually did.  I talked to them for awhile and let them air their concerns and grievances and they were actually saying some meaningful things. One girl said, rather articulately, that she was worried about passing the end of the year test.  Most of them said that it didn't feel good to have everyone say they were awful. Some kids are really difficult to like.  I can't say that I love them all, but I will say I love some more than others and this class makes me work overtime.  I have to remind myself that deep inside almost every kid, no matter how rough around the edges, is a tiny core of kid-dom.  This core fades as time goes on, but in elementary school it's still there.  You just have to dig to find it.  I'm not always successful at it, but this belief keeps me showing up to work every day.  Yes, I blog about how tough it is.  That's my release valve.  And there are days I think I don't want to go back.  But I always do, although I am a practitioner of take a mental health holiday when need be.  I just wish the adults would not share this with the children. It does hurt and it does do long-term damage.

 The class really wanted to play musical chairs for reasons I can not fathom. To me it's like human bumper cars hopped up on meth, with each little car trying to commit heinous acts of road rage.   Instead of saying what I thought, i.e. Are you F**N KIDDING ME, NO F**N WAY! I decided to negotiate and we struck a bargain.  If I could get through my lesson, we would stop  a few minutes early and play musical chairs.  I am a firm believer in rigor and all that razzmatazz, but sometimes you have to let go a little and be flexible.  Remember, this class has had dozens of subs waltz through this year and their teacher, who said she would never leave them, left.   I don't want the students to be my friends,  but I do want them to trust me and like me....not because I need to be liked, but children want to please adults and they really want to please adults who show them that they are cared about.  That doesn't mean I have to placate them or do things that they want to do.  As a matter of fact, a student came in one day and asked me if I was going to do rap music.  I said, "Don't you already know how to do that?"  He said, "Yes."  I said, "Well, do you want to be a better rapper?"  "Un hunh," he replied.  I said, "I don't need to teach you what you already know.  I am going to expand your tool box so that you can be a better rapper, or, even better than that, maybe  develop a new and different style of music, something all your own."  I don't know if that convinced him, but he did stop asking me.

Back to body bumper cars.   I know these kids well enough to predict that the musical chairs game would end up in a fiasco, but I struck a bargain with them and I wanted to show them I would keep my word.  I also wanted something else.  We got through the lesson (which I will share below because it was pretty successful. )  The game began.  Predictably, the pushing and shoving started with the first musical pause.  As the game progressed, the craziness increased until I saw plumes of flames emanating from some of them.   I sat them down and  asked them what had happened, with one rule--no one's name could be mentioned, as in "But XYZ said this and PGH said that."

And this is the something else I had wanted: They were able to understand that it was not a great game at all, and that in the future they would allow me to choose a game that did not require them to become human canon balls or scream until their lungs fell out on the floor. The promise of a fun activity, (albeit with my ulterior motive) forced them to work as a group to get what they wanted, allowed them to have a small say in what went on in their music class. and most importantly, now they trusted me because I kept my word.  Maybe this doesn't sound like a big deal, but believe me, when you work with difficult kids, trust is a BIG deal. Come to think of it, trust is a big deal for all kids.

And that's why vacations are like moving sidewalks.  Walking on the moving sidewalk feels really good and relaxing, but as soon as you hit the stationary floor, the relaxed feeling abruptly ends and your feet experience a sudden jolt as they resume their less relaxed walk on the hard surface.  Welcome back from vacation. 

Here's the lesson
Pease porridge
I did this lesson with grades 2-5 with modifications and adaptations.  I will include all the things to watch out for.
Focus: improvisation, tone color, form (ABA)*
Process:

1. Standing in a circle, I ask the students to watch me THEN copy what I do.  I have to reinforce this.  Several always try to do it with me.  (Then I have to stop them from correcting each other, but that's another topic) 
2. I step the beat for each phrase and touch my shoulders on the rest. (I always teach rests that way.  I hate saying "shh."  If you vocalize the rest, it's not a rest)
3. I talk a bit about the poem, where it came from, what porridge is, how spelling and languages are not static, and whatever else I can think of until they start staring at the ceiling)
4. After I get through both verses I step the rhythm of the words.  We talk about the difference between beat and rhythm, an ongoing concept for their entire elementary school career, unfortunately.  
5. I ask them to figure out where the rests are and then I add a snap on the rests and in the upper grades I will talk a little bit (remember, my kids will stare at the ceiling very quickly) about complementary rhythms.  
6. I send my class helpers (I pick 3-4 every month based on lots of things (if you're interested, I've blogged about how I pick helpers, but I will say it's the best incentive I know) to the glocks or triangles if melody instruments are not available and transfer that part.
7. In the upper grades I teach them a simple pat, clap, partner clap, clap pattern and I turn to my neighbor and demonstrate.  They quickly catch on and copy me.
8. Now I add a B section.  I will pat the rhythm to : How do you like your porridge?  (How do you is an eighth and two sixteenths, otherwise you will end up with 2 eight notes on the last beat and sometimes that's makes the question harder to answer because there is no space at the end of the question) I will swing the rhythm a little because my kids don't love straight eighths and quarters.  Sometimes I don't either.  
9. I demonstrate some answers to my question, like: I like it hot rest; I like it mushy; I like it in my car--whatever I think and then I will go around the circle and invite them to give me an answer individually if they want to.  
10. Now I ask the group to whisper---I have to R E I N F O R C E whisper or they will shout.  Believe me.  They will shout and I don't want to hear any kids shouting, "I like it in my butt," which is an answer I got today.  If they want to say something stupid,  this way I don't have to hear it.  The next time I ask them to think their stupid answers.  I don't say stupid, though.
11. I will do the question/answer section 4 times.
12. With the younger kids I will have them partner up and change partners on the B section, stepping the beat to find the new partner.  I ALWAYS have to reinforce partner rules--no one can say no or they march off to rudeville (a desk facing a corner), always use walking feet to the beat, etc.  For the ones that balk at, GASP, touching another human's palms, I say, "I did not ask anyone to run off into the sunset and get married.  Just touch someone's palms for less than .02 seconds." If I can't humor them into it, I let it go.  There are bigger battles to fight.  
13. With grades 2-3 I stop the lesson here and transfer to instruments the following week.  Grades 4-5 can transfer to instruments the same day.
14. If drums are available, they do the B question and answer session.  If not, the instruments can perform. In once class the xylophones did the questions and the metallophones answered, then the glocks did the questions (poor glocks.  they usually just play on the snap parts, so why not give them something else for a change?).  If no orff instruments, then use whatever classroom instruments you have and play the melody on a recorder, piano, harmonica, jews harp, whatever.  Oh--the melody--I use so and mi and on the second verse I end on do.  You might think your fifth graders will scoff at the simple melody, but when the instruments are playing, they sing along.  And I do swing the rhythm a little so it's not so white bread-y.
15. It is performed ABA.  * When I told the class we were going to perform it in ABA, several of the students looked for the B bars I had taken off the instruments and were putting it back on.  That was a rather blatant clue that they had no idea what ABA form was.  (I'm not to blame.  I'm itinerant and have not worked with any of these kids before)
16. I have different arrangements for different classes.  Some classes can only handle a steady beat bordun and the glock part.  Others can do a crossover bordun, along with a soprano and alto part.  Before I add parts I always ask them if they are ready for a challenge.  Unless the kids are drooling dolts, they all like to be challenged.  This way they are primed to succeed. Sometimes I stack the deck by putting better players on instruments that will have the trickier parts.  But I've been surprised enough times by kids whom I thought couldn't keep a steady beat with a metronome tied to their heads, do some amazing things, so now I am a little less controlling....unless I'm being evaluated.  Then I stack the deck.