Reflection on Week 3

Reflection on Week 3 in New Zealand

 A view of Hawke's Bay from up on Napier Hill

            What a busy week this was! From John with EA coming to visit on Tuesday, to the Orchestra Festival in Napier all day Wednesday, to HNHS Open Evening all night Thursday, it was a hectic yet exciting week in Hawke’s Bay. My teaching load is starting to fill up pretty quickly already, but each day brings new experiences, new challenges, and new rewards. Before I get into the details of the week though, allow me to explain a bit about the schedule here at HNHS, something I neglected to talk about last time.

            The schools that I’ve attended in Wisconsin have all operated pretty much the same as far as scheduling goes. The same classes at the same time in the same place, every day or every other day. Well, that’s not the way it works here at HNHS. The school operates on a 9-day turntable, and each day is a completely different schedule of classes. However, each time a specific numbered day comes around, the schedule for that day is always the same. Days are numbered 1 through 9, and a specific day will not repeat until all the others have passed. Every time it’s Day 1, the schedule will be the same. Every time it’s Day 5, the schedule will be the same. But as if that’s not confusing enough, the days are never in a set order. I’m sure there is logic behind the order they put the days in, but to me as an outsider it seems completely random. Here’s what I’m talking about (the actual schedule from the last few weeks):

Monday, March 5: Day 7                        Monday, March 12: Day 1

Tuesday, March 6: Day 8                        Tuesday, March 13: Day 5

Wednesday, March 7: Day 6                        Wednesday, March 14: Day 9

Thursday, March 8: Day 2                        Thursday, March 15: Day 7

Friday, March 9: Day 3                        Friday, March 16: Day 4

Monday, March 19: Day 6                        Monday, March 26: Day 9

Tuesday, March 20: Day 2                        Tuesday, March 27: Day 7

Wednesday, March 21: Day 8            Wednesday, March 28: Day 5

Thursday, March 22: Day 1                        Thursday, March 29: Day 8

Friday, March 23: Day 3                        Friday, March 30: Day 4

Confused yet? =P

            Actually, I’ve found that once I figured it out, it’s actually nice having a different schedule every day. It makes for a nice change of pace. Not every day is franticly busy, nor is it a day to laze around. There are busier and lighter days, but I think it makes for a much less stressful schedule over all when you don’t have to worry about teaching every hour of every day.

            Speaking of hours, here’s how the everyday class periods break down:

Staff Briefing: 8:30-8:40am

Period 1: 8:45-9:45am

Period 2: 9:50-10:50am

Interval/Morning Tea: 10:50-11:10am

Period 3: 11:15am-12:10pm

Period 4: 12:15-1:10pm

Form Time: 1:15-1:30pm

Lunch: 1:30-2:25pm

Period 5: 2:30-3:25pm

            Every teacher that has a class during Period 1 is asked to read the daily notices regarding all school events for the students. During the Interval there is coffee and tea available for the staff at no charge. Form Time is the equivalent of a high school homeroom back in the States. I’m sure you’ve also noticed that lunch is rather late in the day. During my first placement in Oshkosh at the elementary schools, we were eating lunch at 11am. Here, it’s over 2 hours later. I don’t mind that so much, but it does force me to shove down lunch during Form Time on Mondays and Wednesdays when we have concert band and orchestra rehearsals during lunch on those days respectively. Overall, it’s a pretty decent schedule and it hasn’t been that difficult to adapt.

            Now, finally on to the details from this week. Monday, personally, was a bit of a rough day. The two classes I taught, Year 9s and Year 10s, simply listened to me lecture and took notes for the duration of their classes. At times, I felt unorganized and felt like I was fumbling for words to say. Mr. Cargill and I evaluated the day after the last class and he agreed with me when I told him those previous thoughts. He suggested creating an outline for both me and the class to follow, and to write it up on the board ahead of time. Another suggestion was to think of activities that the students can do that don’t involve sitting in a chair and taking notes, i.e. performing on instruments or getting up and moving around somehow. “It’s a music class, let them play some music!” is something that Mr. Cargill said to me that really stuck. So, knowing that I was to be observed on Tuesday, I really decided to kick my planning into high gear and came up with some wonderful things for the students to do. I arranged the famous Bach Minuet in G for the Year 10 class to play on their major instruments to help study the concept of form. I had the Year 11s being their Video Game Music and Composition lesson, for which I borrowed a resource on Programmatic/Film Music from Mr. Cargill and adapted it for our study of video game music. The class, while they were sitting and listening, were actively engaged in the process and were thinking about what the music meant and the images it put in their heads. The Year 9s rehearsed their class arrangement of As Long As You’re Mine from “Wicked”, which I had put together the weekend previous. Overall, Tuesday was a marvelous day compared to Monday, and has probably been my most successful day so far here in NZ.

            On Wednesday we spent all day up at Napier Girls’ High School for an orchestra festival, sort of like the honors bands from back home, except this was open to anyone who wanted to participate. The students were led by Ken Young, the assistant conductor of the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra. What a treat for them! He worked very well with them, and I used the opportunity to catch up on my string pedagogy, an area that I am admittedly rather weak in. At the end of the day, the orchestra performed a Michael Jackson tribute, an arrangement of the song Everything I Do, I Do It For You by Bryan Adams from “Robin Hood”, and simplified arrangements of the finales from Tchaikovsky’s 2^nd and Beethoven’s 5^th Symphonies. According to the students, a wonderful time was had by all!

            The last exciting event for the week was Thursday night’s Open Evening, which provides Year 7 and 8 parents to visit the school and learn about the different programs the school offers as their students head towards their secondary school days. It was a really nice chance for us to kind of show off the different things we do here. The parents were amazed by the school’s recording studio and use of technology in every day classroom instruction. I can’t wait to really dig into the composition stuff with the Year 11s so I can show everyone back home how we do things with music technology here in New Zealand!

            So as you can see, things are still heading in a wonderful direction for me and the future is bright! Teaching jobs are starting to pop up back in the States so it’s time to do some applications! Until next week…

Cheers!