Aloha to HXB Elementary

I interviewed for my new old job at HPMS the last day of school of the 2011-2012 school year.  While I was fairly certain that the job was mine, I couldn't say goodbye to my students knowing that there was still a chance that HPMS could offer the position to any of the other 3 candidates that interviewed.

At the end of the year assembly my marimba band performed and they all got a chance to say thank you to me, but they didn't know that were also saying goodbye.  During the assembly, the principal announced the departures of certain staff members due to transfers and retirements (including his own), and although he knew it was likely I was leaving, couldn't say anything to me either.

I wrote a farewell message to the HXB community one evening (before the job offer call) and it felt very cathartic, but I never did publish it in any way (and it is a bit long winded).

Dear HXB Elementary Community,

I came to Hot Cross Buns four years ago after being let go from a full time position as a middle school band teacher at the Hokey Pokey School District in a reduction in force.  At the time, I had little experience teaching elementary school music, but was optimistic that I would rise to the challenge and learn something new.  At the outset I made several goals for myself and my students.  Most important among those goals was to teach students to be musically literate: to be able to read, write, and create their own music. 

My first year at HXB was as much a learning experience for me as it was for my students.  I learned that some techniques that work for middle school students do not work the same way for younger students.  I learned that pacing a lesson or a unit for 6 year olds is much different than pacing a lesson for 13 year olds.  I also learned how important it is to be aware of the “long term” and developing new concepts slowly over the long term.

After the first year was under my belt I hit my stride and had more structure and form to my lessons and to the entire year in general.  Form is an important musical element which some of my students started to pick up on in my lesson planning.  “Maestro, what about today's new song, you're supposed to teach us that right after the warm-up song,” said a third grader to me one day earlier this year.

My first graders are now able to ready rhythms and complete songs within their limited tone set.  Sometimes it is hard to tell whether students are actually reading the notation off the page, or merely recalling a memorized song while looking at the notation.  Recently I put a song up on the projector and asked the first graders to read it first in their head, and then aloud using just the names of the notes (do, mi, so, and la).  The students sang the song correctly, but were unable to recall what song it actually was (we had learned it many months ago and had not sung it since).   These students were clearly singing the notation and not a song from memory.

I remember a conversation I had with Mr. Shortz, our PE teacher before my first year.  I told him how I wanted to teach my students to be more that consumers of music created by others, but creators of their own music. I often have the music room open at lunch for marimba students who want some extra practice.  This year I was very impressed with a number of students who worked hard to compose their own original music in the style of our Shona marimba music.  In the last few months all of the students in the fifth grade classes completed four composition assignments each more complex than the last.  Our year culminated as they performed their compositions for each other.  I am so pleased that I set out to accomplish much of what I set out to do.

In my first year at HXB, particularly amongst the older children, it was not uncommon for students to groan inwardly (if not outwardly) that the day was a music day.  Recently it is far more common to hear students groan that the music lesson is already over, or occasionally when a teacher would accidentally bring her students to music when they were supposed to go to a different specialist.

After four years of part time work at HXB with so much accomplished, it is time for me to say good-bye.  The middle school at which I spent the greater part of my first thirteen years of teaching has recently offered to me and I have accepted a full-time position as band director.  I will return to Hokey Pokey Middle school next fall as a different teacher than I was when I left.  The things I have learned by teaching your children here at HXB these past four years will help me teacher the middle school students of Hokey Pokey in new and creative ways to be performers and creators of music. I know that there are children that will be sad to see me go.  Please know that it is sad for me to say good bye to them as well.  I hope that things they have learned about music from me will serve them well not only in their future studies of music, but other aspects of life as well.

Musically Yours,

Maestro