Yesterday night, Val and I were the speakers at the BW OCMEA meeting. It was so fun! We were given a list of prompts to talk about and people asked lots of questions too. I think we did a good job. Several people came up after and said they liked getting an informal perspective of life after college. It was really nice to see friends that are still at BW that we haven't necessarily kept up with too.
After a really fun Sunday, today was kind of a bummer. Four 5th graders have quit choir in the last two weeks. Two of them came up to me before last Monday's rehearsal and two more did today. Since I only have essentially 20 minutes a week to put together a middle school choir concert, I really didn't have time to talk with them much about it. The most I got today was "I really liked the songs for the Christmas concert, but I don't like these very much. I really like 'Build Me Up Buttercup' but when we sing it, it feels a lot harder than when I sing it with my American Idol CD at home." Grr. I guess my first mistake was letting the first two quit so easily, because then today I felt like I didn't have much of a choice. If I told them they couldn't quit, they would have sat there pissed off the whole class and then likely not shown up next time anyway and I wouldn't be able to do anything about it because choir isn't a class, it's an extracurricular. Whatever. I think I just take it too personally.
3 comments:
Megan,
Don't take it personally! Every year in the spring several kids in my class quit orchestra too.. I think it has to do with Spring. I also heard the the chorus director in my school complaining about the same thing. :)
That sucks about the kids, but they are only 5th graders. It is probably hard to see the affect quitting has on the rest of the choir and your planning. You are doing a great job, I am sure! Hang in there. I can't wait to hear more about your concert.
Oh, and cute picture of you and the boy!
Yeah, don't take the quitting personally. I've lost count of how many I've had quit, but I've noticed that the ones who quit generally come from lower-income homes and/or less-than-ideally supportive parents, which I guarantee played a role in them deciding not to stick with it. I've also had a handful move, which really sucks, cause they don't want to go, and they just break your heart when they leave their last class with you :-(
Oh, teaching.
Less than one weeeeeek!
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