Posted by anon on February 20, 2008 at 08:16:58:
I'm a first year teacher. I have HS band, MS band, and one of our elementary bands. HS and elementary bands are going fairly well; however, I'm having some problems with MS band. Every band period I have at least 5 or 6 kids that get signed to other teachers to "make up work," or "finish a project." Some days that number reaches 10 or 12 kids. And this is out of 67 kids total in band, so that is a pretty big chunck that I am missing. I have already gone to my MS principal back in the fall about this, and what he said was that it is their activities period and that is the time for them to do that, and basically if they are signed from another teacher, I must let them go. So my hands are pretty much tied there. But then on top of that group that I'm usually missing, I also have anywhere from 5 to 15 kids that don't have their instrument for one reason or another. Either they forgot or their instrument is "in the shop." I've tried to remedy this situation by giving them a "class participation" grade - 5pts if you have your instrument and music or 0pts if you don't have what you need. This doesn't really seem to phase them. Yesterday, out of 67 in band, I had 7 absent, 5 signed to other teachers, and 13 without instruments. That's 25 out of 67 that I was missing. As you can imagine, that really hurts a rehearsal.
In addition to my attendance/participation problems, I also have the usual not practicing problems. I have a handful that are great and I could tell they practice regularly. But for the majority of them,it's like they're looking at the music for the first time. Maybe it's my programming? They seem to be struggling with the songs I thought for sure they'd like - Bohemian Rhapsody and Latin Gold.
Basically, I'm looking for suggestions. I've exhausted all of my ideas already. After all, the MS band is my future HS band, and I'm worried about losing a lot of them. I'm sure I'm not the only one who has been in this situation before. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks!