It's hard to believe, but my time here is halfway done. I looked at the calendar today and couldn't believe that I've been here for a month already. What a wonderful month it has been!
I have been teaching more and more. Most lessons I end up team teaching with Kerry, but I've gotten to lead quite a few lessons by myself this week as well. Since most of his classes are doing projects, it's a little bit harder to plan for teaching, since they have work time for all or most of class.
Today I was in charge of the choir for the whole time. We will have another half hour rehearsal during lunch tomorrow. I can't believe they only rehearse twice a week. I thought it was unfortunate when my 7th and 8th grade choirs in Burnsville only rehearsed every other day, and now I only get twice a week. Also since it's not curricular, students have to miss rehearsal often for other school activities. At a school with so many talented musicians, I am shocked that they do not have a curricular secondary choir. I was met with some resistance today when I introduced *gasp* four part harmony. Carol of the Bells is written in four parts. Now, we don't have any true basses in choir so the bass line is modified. However, the students here are not used to a) reading their parts from sheet music and b) singing complicated harmonic lines. They can sing in harmony, but it's usually not too hard. They at first said, "we can't do this!" but I assured them they could. By the end of the first page, however, I think I had swayed some of their opinions and I heard some saying how "cool" it sounded. If they can pull it off, I will be happy and impressed. I'm also planning a lesson for Friday for the M4 students to compare and contrast contemporary and classical music.
Kate and I are hammering out plans tomorrow to go to Morocco for the weekend. I'm really hoping it works out, because we only have three weekends left and I do not feel like I have traveled enough at all.
Other than that, my birthday is in a week and I'm looking forward to London the following weekend. Also, Yvon and Tina, two American teachers from Boston at the school were talking about maybe having a Thanksgiving on that Sunday, so we might all go over there to enjoy.
Have a great rest of the day everyone!
1 comments:
So happy to read your update! Wow! A month already?? I'm so glad you're going to Morocco and London--what a great treat for you. I have the travel bug again. I would LOVE to go to London this year. Carina got accepted to Augsburg last Friday and awarded an $11,500 PER YEAR merit scholarship. She's psyched. The Gustavus acceptance came yesterday, too, but no offer yet. Gotta go correct papers. I wonder how you'll celebrate your birthday?
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