Well, Why Did I Not Think Of That?!

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Day One on the San Francisco Level I Orff Schulwerk Course completed and I feel tired (I blame the remnants of jet lag) and stiff from having used muscles that I have forgotten about for a while.  I have clapped, stamped, jumped up and down, realised Scottish ceilidh is very similar to folk dances from other parts of the world, and dad danced like there was no tomorrow.



While we did cover an awful lot of new material, it was actually the fresh perspectives on the basics of teaching that possibly had the greatest effect on me.  These included:
  • I must admit that only seeing a class once a week sometimes means I get to the end of the year still not too sure on one or two kids names.  I take the register every lesson and even try to make it interesting through clapping it, rapping it, singing it etc.  Today we were shown games in which we repeat the names of the students several times, or get the students to talk to one another before presenting information about their partner to the class.  Simple, effective, very C21st Competent and why the flipping heck have I not thought of these before!!!!!?  
  • We also looked at how we can start students off learning the recorder.  We did not even play a 'proper' note on the instrument until 3/4 the way through the lesson, but hell it was fun (I especially liked the blow football)!  We were also shown a method to teach the students how to use the right (lower) hand without having to ensure that the left (higher) hand is in the correct position.  As soon as we were shown this I was like:
Image result for homer simpson doh

Another thing I realised is that underneath my tough, man of the world exterior I am actually quite shy - in a couple of the exercises we had to make eye contact with all the people we had contact with, which was possibly the most difficult thing I had to do today.  Hopefully by the end of the two weeks this might have changed...  I now need to go off and stretch out all these tight muscles before bed all there will be hell to pay tomorrow.
Image result for cramps in legs

Comments

Anonymous said…
Good stuff, Al, keep up the blogging!
18 July 2017 at 13:03
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