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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.

The Twelve Days Before The Winter Break

On the twelfth day before the winter break
My classes all played the dreydl game
On the eleventh day before the winter break
My classes still played the Dreydl game.
On the tenth day before the winter break
One of my little buggers stole my 15 year old chocolate gelt
On the ninth day before the winter break
I took a mental health holiday.
On the eighth day before the break
(See the ninth day)
On the seventh day before the break
My classes started watching the Nutcracker Ballet
On the sixth day before the winter break
My classes noticed McCauley Culkin was in the Nutcracker Ballet
(and that he can't dance)
On the fifth day before the break
My classes wanted to play the dreydl game again.
On the fourth day before the winter break
My classes wanted to go outside an play
(Thank you global warming for the 72 degree weather)
On the third day before the winter break
My classes figured out that ballet has no words
On the second day before the winter break
My crazy third grader decided to redecorate my room

He used Conan the Barbarian for decorating inspiration

On the day before the winter break

My classes watched The Wiz with the other music class

Calgon..........................Take me away

Another great lesson to pass on.

I did this lesson with grades 3-5.  It's based on a lesson from the third grade GAMEPLAN  that focuses on improvisation. Every class enjoyed it, and one of the classes who had previously been fed a heavy diet of Quaver said, "This is so much better than Quaver because we get to make music."

A little context for that comment. After the ten day count, I was switched to other schools.  The creative scheduling genie decided that it would be a great idea to give me the classes that the on site teacher had been teaching.  That same creative genie gave me six classes and the onsite teacher 4 because my job is to give her a lot of planning periods.  The onsite teacher uses Quaver a LOT and swears that the kids love it.  My personal feelings about Quaver notwithstanding, is that general music in elementary school should focus on making music.  The about part is not as important.  As John Feierabend wisely says, "Our job is make the students tuneful, beatful and artful."  I don't think Quaver does that at all and it leads to passive teaching.  I've walked by classes using Quaver and I see many of the students off task and disengaged from the lesson.  It's not as successful as the  teachers think it is.

Anyway, the fifth grade class that I had inherited from the onsite teacher wanted to know if I used Quaver. I said I didn't and about half the class looked like I had just eaten their first born.  Also, I don't use chairs for several reasons, but this year it's because I have small rooms and I need the space. The following week was like teaching the figures at Stonehenge.  The next week they rolled their terrible eyes and gnashed their terrible teeth, but then at the end of class a few kids came up and said they didn't hate music all that much anymore.  The week I did the Virginia Reel everyone participated and I couldn't detect any visible eye rolling.  Last week after this lesson, the entire class decided that this activity was much more fun that Quaver and.....they apologized for the way they had treated me.  

By the by, before I pass on a lesson idea, I have tried it out for a week and fine tuned it.  I also add the little problems that come up so you will be prepared.  I always want to apologize to my Monday classes because that's where I am fine tuning and dealing with unanticipated issues and questions. By mid week the lesson is humming along nicely.

Process:

1. I start each class with the game poison.  It's a game that the students love and it's the only way I can get the older ones to sing.  I have the students echo all the patterns I sing, except the poison one of the day.  I isolate a small melodic passage in the song I'll be teaching and use that pattern.  Kids get a point if they don't echo me; I get a point if they don't,  I have to make sure they understand that if someone makes a mistake that it's ok and if they call out the ones who make the mistake, I automatically win.
2. Rhythm reading.  I also isolate the rhythms we're working on that day.  This one included iterations of quarters, rests and eighth notes.  I ask the students if they can tell me how many beats in each one and caution them not to count the notes.  Some get it right, most don't, so we talk, once again, about beat and rhythm.
3. I ask the students to clap 4 steady beats.  Then I have them change one of the beats to eighths.  Then I have them change another and then I add rests to the mix until I get bored or they start acting antsy, which generally occurs at the same time.
4. I tell them we're going to learn a song from Jamaica and ask if there are students with family members from there and lots of hands shoot up.  We talk about the Jamaican accent and that although they speak English, they have some different expressions and sentence structure.  
5. I sing the song Hill and Gully Rider and ask them to find the grammatical error. (Be prepared that many won't know what that means).  
6. They isolate the phrase: and a nigh time come a tumblin down. I tell them that often I overhear people on their cell phones say, "Where you at?" and ask the students how to say that correctly.  Then we discuss when it's ok to use that type of speech.  I ask them if they can name another song we've done in class and they can--Ain't Gonna Rain No More.  
7. The song has four beats of rest after each phrase with just four steady beat that are patted with alternating hands.  I have to stress that they not echo me and join in the patting when they figure out the pattern.  I sing the song twice.  I changed the ending the second time so it ends on the do  and not mi, so it sounds like it actually ends.  
8. I play the accompaniment (( syncopa rest) on the drum and stress that they should not copy my rhythm because it's MY rhythm that I bought at the rhythm store and I don't want to share it.
9. Transfer the patting to the instruments.  After playing once or twice I ask them to try and create a small motif and not just hit any old bars.  I give them a minute or two to work it out.
10. For grades 4-5 I extend the playing to change one of the beats to eights, just like in the rhythm warm ups. 

Another extension from the book is to change the words to :Everybody play now.  Then each instrument family separately, eg. Xylophones will play now.  At this point they all are looking over their instruments to read the names on the other side so I stop and hold up the bars and review that wooden bars are on the xylophones, etc.  But even after that, one or two will still look over to see what they are playing.  Sigh.

here's the song.  It's a call and response song, but instead of the response,  there  is the four beat space for improvising.

What I thought; What I actually said.

I can't believe it's the first week back after Thanksgiving and I already feel like a need a break.  Good news, though.  The next break is just two weeks away.  But after that there's a long time before the Spring break.  School calendar years are really poorly thought out.  Several years ago my county tried the whole year approach: Nine weeks on, three weeks off.  It's a great idea, but because there was no test score gains that year the calendar was nixed.  (And I think Six Flags might've also played a role.) Whoever expects to see test score gains in one year is probably from the same school of thought that says that data drives everything.  Sigh.  At what point will we really think about what's in the best interest of the students?

This week was typical.  Kids were squirrely  Teachers looked beleaguered.  PBIS (PEE-buhs) was rolled out at one of my schools. PBIS is a state-wide initiative to teach and reinforce positive behavior.  I'm trying to picture the meeting where this acronym was said out loud and no one snickered.  If a student said this: Nyah nyah nyah nyah nyah.  You are a PBIS,  it would be a free pass to call someone something that sounds like the male organ. It was such a resounding non-success in my other school.

Today there was an assembly for the kids to roll out the PBIS.  (hee hee).   There were skits that were inaudible acted out by students with the acting ability of a bramble bush. Cheerleaders from the feeder high school performed cheers that had nothing to do with positive behavior, unless you count the boys in the front row trying to get glimpses of the girl's undergarments.  One or two of their moves had a good deal of heavy gyration and maybe I'm an old fuddy duddy, but I find it offensive to see young girls move like that.  I don't mind when adults do it for an adult audience, but to me it's teen porn.  The cheerleaders threw out some plastic balls to the kids and there was a mad dive for the booty (hee hee) with lots of fighting and tugging to get those fabulous prizes.  You'd think they were throwing out 100 dollar bills.

All this positive behavior made me think about how I have to make an effort to remain positive.  One of my classes was a bit unrulier than usual (see calendar lament above) and I had to really fight back the impulse to say what was in my head, so I compiled a list of what I'm thinking and what I actually say.
T= think
S= say

1.  T: Why are you staring at the ceiling tiles/floor/door/Pluto instead of paying attention?
     S:  Sweetheart, can you please turn around and face me? If I taught the class like this
          (I turn and show them my profile), you would think I am sort of strange.  Pause.  Well,
         stranger than you already think I am.
2.  T:  Why are you sucking your fingers?  You're in second grade.  That's ridiculous.
     S:  Class, all hands in lap, please.
3.  T:  Seriously?  How do you NOT know that?  What special kind of idiot are you?  And stop
           throwing out answers to see which one will stick to the wall.  STOP GUESSING!
     S:  It's ok to say you don't know something.
4.  T: Why do you find the worst possible way to execute my directions?  Did I say to     
          stomp/hop/jump/jiggle/fly when we walk around the circle?
     S:  Please follow my directions exactly the way I tell you to.
5.  T:  Only an idiot sucks his/her teeth. it's one of the stupidest sounds you can make.
     S:  Please don't suck your teeth.  (Class joins in with more teeth sucking.)  Boys and girls,
          if you can think of a job that requires you to suck your teeth, raise your hand.  Teeth
          sucking finally ceases.
6.  T:  Stop hitting your neighbor, you anti-social crazy loon.  Did your Ritalin wear off already?
     S:  Class, all hands in laps please.  Hitting each other is not socially acceptable.  And except
           for boxing, I don't know a job that requires you to hit your co-worker.          
7.  T:  How is it that you can insult each other using a wide array of adjectives, yet you can't
          speak in complete sentences any other time?
     S:   Please use your kind words.  I don't know any job that requires you to insult your
            co-workers.
8.  T:  Why are you looking over your instrument to see what you are playing?  I have told you
           a bazillion times that the wooden bars are on the xylophones.  I have told you a bazillion
           and a half times what a bar is.   Is there a wind tunnel between your ears? .  The hell
           with  higher order thinking.  I'd be happy with just a little bit of factual recall. 
       S: Wooden bars are on the xylophone......
9.  T:  What kind of parent sends a child to school with such smelly/torn/too short/disgusting
           clothing?
      S:  Nothing.  I am speechless.

My week in WtFville

I spend a fair amount of time reading elementary music blogs and I am always impressed with the creativity and passion for teaching music that comes across.  I also note that their classes have about 12 upper middle class white children, with perhaps one Asian or person of color thrown into the mix.  One or two refer to their population as "urban," but urban in Colorado isn't the urban I experience.    Their students are children, not miniature adults.  They play well with each other.  They speak sentences with verbs and those verbs are conjugated correctly, including the infinitive to be.  I grew up in that type of community.  My first grade picture shows 7 rows with six children per row, hands folded on desks, smiling at the camera.  I don't remember a discipline problem worse than Linda Stetson peeing herself while waiting to go to lunch because she was too timid to raise her hand and ask to go to the bathroom.  Not like my kids who call out, "I have to use it."  My response to that is, "Use what?  A pen?  Some paper?  My coat? "  NO, I have to USE it," as if saying it louder will make the meaning clearer.  Finally I will ask the student to say, "Please may I use the restroom?"  And then I say, "No, you know we don't go to the restroom during specials."   A little sadistic sang froid helps the medicine go down.

Back to those lovely classrooms where children behave like children.  Must be nice.  I wonder what it's like.  I call my alternate universe WTFville.  Here's what this week in WTFville was like.

It was the week before Thanksgiving, or as it's sometimes called, I am thankful that this break is finally here because I was about to commit a senseless act of mayhem.  I decided to teach a modified Virginia Reel to my students in all the grades and used several wonderful recordings of Turkey in the Straw.   For kindergarten I used the Bram and Lois version.  For grades 4-5 I used the Erich Kunzel (From the 1991 Cincinnati Pops Down on the Farm recording) and for grades 2-3 I used The Merry Singers version. One of the perks of my job is listening to really fun music that I could not play at home within earshot of  my professorial husband.   He once saw me do the chicken dance at school and I think that image seared his corneas and if he hears any type of music that reminds him of that day, he would probably have to relive that trauma.

In Kindergarten and 1st grade we did the dance in a circle.  Four steps in and clap.  Four steps out and clap.  Walk counterclockwise on the refrain. There's a four beat interlude between the refrain so we do a turkey move, i.e. in a bent knee position, knuckles facing each other, move arms out and in at the same time moving knees pointing out and then in. The kids get a kick out of it  Oh, and I wear a flying turkey hat with legs, which renders another cornea searing moment.  There is another interlude that interrupts the AB form that goes "Shave and a haircut, 2 bits...."  so we stand still and clap on the two bits and and then continue when the refrain returns.  Each class asked to do it several times.  Five and six year olds are easy to please.  Would the older kids like it to?  Emboldened by my success I forged on to grades 2 and 3

For second and third grade I did the dance in an alley formation and added a sashay up and down by the last couple who then led the rest of the group to the front of the alley.  They form an arch and everyone walks under the arch.. And that's when the fun began because it didn't occur to me that the kids would come up with their own fanciful interpretations of walk through the arch.  Par example: The first time the kids go under the arch they are somewhat confused and walk through slowly and cautiously but as soon as they get the hang of it, it's like the end of a soccer match between Italy and Brazil.   Once I get them to stop running, they decide that it would be hilarious to limbo through the arch.  I stop again.  This time the kids making the arch think it would be fun to play London Bridge is falling down and they try to trap students as they go through.   One third grader thought it would be hilarious to stick his foot out while he was holding up his end of the arch and trip as many students as possible.  Luckily I've learned to turn my head around 360 degrees like a barn owl and caught him in the act.  I also added a do-si-do to the mix, but nixed the idea after the first class kept body slamming into each other.  I thought it was because of my limited space, so I took them out in the hall.  They switched over from body slamming to head on tackling.

I went home that night and watched the video of those sweet little children from Hooterville doing the dance, and they did such a nice job that I developed amnesia and decided to do the dance again the next day.

In fourth and fifth grade I cut out the holding hands on the sashay part because it's not worth the fight. I don't do girls on one side and boys on the other because the classes are leveled academically so that means that there are  twice as many girls in the higher performing classes and almost all boys in the lower classes.  I allow them to choose partners because by this time of the year they are truly committing to forging fierce bonds of hatred with each other and it's hard to find more than two kids that like each other.  I show them what a sashay looks like and then I give them the opportunity to hold hands or just do the step.  Some battles aren't worth fighting.  I nix the do-so-do until I go to one of my other schools where I have more room.

Here's what surprised me.  I was reluctant to do this activity with some classes, like my third grade EIP/Special Ed combination.  On the first day teaching this class one child kindly offered to "Beat my ass," because I asked him to sit down and then he rain out the door.   The next week he decided to share this mantra over and over again,  "It smells like f**ken s**t in your booty."  I don't know whom this was directed at, but I was wondering why he used the word booty and not gone whole hog and said ass.  It's like saying  "Pee pee you," instead of the real FU deal.   The best part of it was getting to repeat his words when I wrote him up.  It was like having a license to curse at school, which I want to do many, many times a day.

What saddens me, though, is that this particular special ed class is the sweetest, most wonderful class and I just adore them.   They work really hard and they usually are able to accomplish my lessons with very little, if any modifications.  Because this nutcase's mother refuses to medicate him and because he has an IEP, he gets to expose these kids to language they don't need to hear. Most of the time he sits apart from them while his interior monologues fall out of his head.

As soon as I told this class how to line up to make an alley, crazy boy starts his mantra of the day:  "You're all gay." Fortunately he was standing apart from the class so only I got to hear him, and I decided to shield him in an invisible cloak.  Interestingly, he joined in the dance and kept trying to go back to the end of the line to do the sashay, HOLDING HANDS with his male partner. Me thinks he doth protest too much,

I have two fifth grade classes at my home school.  One is fairly high-functioning but there are a lot of discipline issues.  Five are mainstreamed in and they have behavior disorders.  Several of the girls have really awful attitudes and there's a permanent sneer etched into their faces.  Teeth sucking is de rigeur.  I told them ahead of time what I planned to do and allowed them to choose whether to participate.  If they chose not to, I would give them paper and crayons, and reassured them that there would be no negative consequence.  I felt sure that most of them would chose to do the dance.  Out of 28, 6 chose to do the dance, meaning that I had 22 noisy children sitting in the small hallway off my room coloring.  But then....

I put the music on and a few heads peaked n.  "Can I join in?" some asked.   I allowed them in.  A few more heads peaked in and asked to join in.  Only three didn't want to join, and those were the three I had expected would not want to do the dance.  At the end of the lesson, I asked them what made them join.  A girl said, "We felt bad that we didn't want to do the dance."  I asked, "Did you enjoy the activity?"  "Oh yes!"

My other fifth grade class at my home school is populated with I just don't know what to say.  Each week several are held back from coming to class because they are in trouble for various kinds of creative derring do    This week the entire bunch came.  I hadn't decided whether or not to do the dance until they walked in the door.  They were sitting on the floor and I went to get something off my desk , which is located in the front of my hamster cage-sized  room.  I forgot to use my owl swivel neck so when I turned around, one of the boys, a slight, mild-mannered bespectacled kid, had his fists balled up and was huffing up a storm.  Apparently he had touched another kid's back when he was stretching his legs, so that kid decided he had every right to punch this child in retaliation for such a heinous act.   The other kid started screaming and ran out of my room slamming the door just for good measure.  I buzzed the front office and  the AP came in.  I told her that there were  4 kids in this class that were making this boy's life unbearable.  Whatever had started in their classroom culminated later in mine.  She  put on her serious face and used her stern voice to tell them that they they treat bullying very seriously and that the consequence for bullying is to be suspended.  Well, she sure told them what's what.  Then she turned around and walked out.

I waited a while to see if any of the kids would be called to the office to be suspended.  Nothing happened.  I decided to continue with my activity.  We talked a little bit about their behavior and bullying and after they seemed calm enough,  I told them what we were going to do. Of all the classes-these kids did the dance without any sort of mischief.  They walked through the arch.  They did a do-si-do without chest bumping.  They clapped hands without causing any welts. They HELD HANDS when they sashayed.  At the end of the dance one of them asked, "Can we do more dances like this?"  Go figure.

Last day of the week is a fifth grade that is so awful that their teacher walked out.  They had just been told she left and the thoughtful sub sent me 24 sobbing children.  I gave them some time to talk to me but within minutes a few of them started yelling at one girl.  She got so angry that she threw a chair across the room.  I walked her over to the door (I'm in a portable and the doors to the school are always locked so it's hard to use the option of sending a kid to another teacher's room because I'm out there by my lonesome.)  to calm her down, but she decided to run outside and several more followed behind her.  Luckily there was  a teacher outdoors who corralled them in and took them with her.

I told the remaining kids that if they wanted to do a music activity with me, that would be fine and if they needed to sit out, that would also be fine.  A few came up to join me and, as had previously happened, the rest joined in at various times.

Here's what I learned.  Sometimes you have to be brave and stick to your guns ad not be afraid to fall on your face. Many kids and adults, too, don't like things that are so different from their own experiences  I didn't force any of them to participate.  I can't say I was confident that I'd win them over, but I hoped I would and decided that I would be ok if I failed.  At least I had tried.  I also remind myself that despite their rough exteriors, most of them still have an inner kid in there somewhere. So aside from the chair hurling, it was a good way to end the week in WTFville.