My position as a fifth grade band teacher at five elementary schools in a district in Massachusetts is now official! I have signed my contract and started apartment hunting, and the apartment hunt is now starting to feel like the job search: sending lots of requests for viewing appointments, only a handful of calls back. We'll see how that goes. My hope is to be moved down there and settled early in August, I'd very
much like to help with the high school band camp, which is the week of
August 13th, so if I can move the week before that I should be in good
shape for prepping and getting comfortable with the area.
In the meantime, I have had my first "task" as the new teacher. The assistant superintendent emailed me, the previous elementary band director (who is now the middle school band director), and the string teacher the registration forms for the instrumental program and the introductory letter that get sent to the parents at the beginning of the year, asking us to look them over and confirm the necessary dates for the informational nights, rental nights, etc... I am very lucky to have the previous director still in the district; he has taken care of so much for me already, and had the date for the rental night all set for her in advance. My first task came in on the registration form. In addition to the typical instruments you'd offer elementary students (flute, clarinet, trumpet, etc...), oboe, tenor sax, and french horn were listed as well. He had said that in the past he hasn't offered these three in the past few years, but I got to decide which ones, if any, I would like to reinstate this coming year. I decided to bring back the french horn but leave out the oboe and tenor saxophone. Tenor sax doesn't make much sense to me to teach to fifth graders unless the student is generally larger for their age since the instrument itself is rather hefty, and I wouldn't want to start a beginner instrumentalist on the oboe, rather waiting until they can establish a decent sense of pitch on another instrument first.
Come the beginning of school I am going to have to take care of all of the demos for the fifth grade classes to recruit more students for the spring. I'm looking forward to it but I expect it will be rather chaotic and a little intimidating to start. I need to make sure I find a way to make it fun and interesting for the students. Again, I'm so lucky to have the previous band director still working in the district, he and the high school director have already been extremely welcoming, friendly, helpful, and supportive of me so far. I am meeting with them both next Wednesday to go over things, get necessary files, get shown around, etc... I can't wait!
Alexis
Saturday, July 28, 2012
Sunday, July 15, 2012
Interviews and More
I've decided to start this blog with the encouragement of my good friend Dana, who is getting ready to start her first week of her school year of teaching in just a few days! (Check out her blog!: Chronicles of a First Year Music Teacher).
74 applications later I am happy to say that I have been offered a position teaching fifth grade band and assisting with the middle school jazz band and high school marching band in the district this fall. I go in soon to work out the paperwork, I cannot wait until it is official, I am thrilled to be able to start working with the staff and students.
The interview process has been fun, I must admit. My first and last interview were the most successful. Tip for future job hunters: be yourself in the interviews, and do your research and prep work about the district and sort of program you're interviewing for. The most successful interviews I had were the ones where I let my personality show a bit more. Be prepared for a wide variety of questions. Some examples of questions I had were (they were more or less worded as below):
-Tell us a little about yourself and why you are interested in this position
-Tell us about your student teaching experience
-What is your background/experience with teaching instruments/choral music/general music classes? (depending on what the interview was for)
-Questions about incorporating the National Standards into my curriculum
-What would I do to prepare my students for band at the middle school level?
-Scenario questions (you have a flute player with such and such a problem, etc...)
-The position is between two schools. How would you organize yourself for this?
-How would you structure a general music class that meets once a week for sixty minutes?
-You would have the students from k-8 in the general music classes. What is your philosophy on this/what would you do to keep them learning/interested?
-What sort of discipline do you use in your classrooms and what are some examples of some rules you would implement?
-You would have the combined students for full band rehearsals once a week after school. What would you do to control/avoid discipline/behavioral issues when you have over eighty fifth graders for an hour?
One of my interviews was like being at school all over again and I felt so comfortable; Ithaca did a great job to prep me for it. In addition to the typical round of questions, I had scenario questions ("you have a flute player who gets a great sound on the head joint, but not when the whole instrument is together. What do you do?" I'll tell you that woodwind repair material made its way into my answer for this one!) and had to be prepared to play a melody and scale on "a variety of band instruments" (I hoarded all of the instruments I could at home and practiced scales and the final exam pieces for my secondary classes). I thoroughly enjoyed this interview and the staff I met with, and this is the one that I was offered.
Once the position is official I will be meeting with the other band directors to get started and start prepping, and I get to start apartment hunting! I have also registered for some of the MTELs I will need to take, so here come another round of tests.
I hope to develop this blog into a tool that will help describe and explain my successes, failures, and experiences and share them with other musicians, educators, and friends in the future :) More to come once my position is official!
74 applications later I am happy to say that I have been offered a position teaching fifth grade band and assisting with the middle school jazz band and high school marching band in the district this fall. I go in soon to work out the paperwork, I cannot wait until it is official, I am thrilled to be able to start working with the staff and students.
The interview process has been fun, I must admit. My first and last interview were the most successful. Tip for future job hunters: be yourself in the interviews, and do your research and prep work about the district and sort of program you're interviewing for. The most successful interviews I had were the ones where I let my personality show a bit more. Be prepared for a wide variety of questions. Some examples of questions I had were (they were more or less worded as below):
-Tell us a little about yourself and why you are interested in this position
-Tell us about your student teaching experience
-What is your background/experience with teaching instruments/choral music/general music classes? (depending on what the interview was for)
-Questions about incorporating the National Standards into my curriculum
-What would I do to prepare my students for band at the middle school level?
-Scenario questions (you have a flute player with such and such a problem, etc...)
-The position is between two schools. How would you organize yourself for this?
-How would you structure a general music class that meets once a week for sixty minutes?
-You would have the students from k-8 in the general music classes. What is your philosophy on this/what would you do to keep them learning/interested?
-What sort of discipline do you use in your classrooms and what are some examples of some rules you would implement?
-You would have the combined students for full band rehearsals once a week after school. What would you do to control/avoid discipline/behavioral issues when you have over eighty fifth graders for an hour?
One of my interviews was like being at school all over again and I felt so comfortable; Ithaca did a great job to prep me for it. In addition to the typical round of questions, I had scenario questions ("you have a flute player who gets a great sound on the head joint, but not when the whole instrument is together. What do you do?" I'll tell you that woodwind repair material made its way into my answer for this one!) and had to be prepared to play a melody and scale on "a variety of band instruments" (I hoarded all of the instruments I could at home and practiced scales and the final exam pieces for my secondary classes). I thoroughly enjoyed this interview and the staff I met with, and this is the one that I was offered.
Once the position is official I will be meeting with the other band directors to get started and start prepping, and I get to start apartment hunting! I have also registered for some of the MTELs I will need to take, so here come another round of tests.
I hope to develop this blog into a tool that will help describe and explain my successes, failures, and experiences and share them with other musicians, educators, and friends in the future :) More to come once my position is official!
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