THE Winter Performance

I want to be as honest and apparent as possible so that those that read this don't think that my first half year of teaching was all petals and roses. In the past several months, finding things to teach all grades, K-8, preparing lessons, and leading them in preparation for an end of the season Winter Performance has taken every ounce of my strength and mental capacity to do. I wish I could say that I weathered the storm without faltering in the slightest, but that would not be entirely true. There were days where I would go to work afraid even in the preparations that I had made. There were days that I would rely too heavily on Sarah, instead of God, for moral support throughout all of this. There were days where I would come home exhausted and worried about the next day and feel like I wanted to run away. There were days where I counted down the days til the weekend when I could rest again. There were days where I "unseriously" wanted to quit.

But there were many days of success and miracles throughout it all. I received several blessings from trusted friends; one blessing that said that I would see miracles throughout this whole endeavor that I had undertaken. For I had undertaken something that had challenged me from the very beginning all the way till my last breath of relief, which I was able to take after the Winter Performance.

Just the other day, the 4 kids in my guitar/ukulele class told me that music was their favorite elective and all the other ones were not as good. That they really enjoy music. I have received feedback from several other children that I teach that music is their favorite, many smiles and some hugs from the children. I am grateful for the part I play in all of these people's lives, even though sometimes I cannot see the impact I have on all of them. Mariana told Sarah that I am a godsend to the school. I don't feel like a godsend, so being able to realize the impact that I have is a challenge that I need to look into more.

It all started with this Winter Performance, (and even before, the first day that I started teaching at Santa Ynez).

In therapy, I came to realize that working as a music teacher at Santa Ynez Elementary is a growing experience that I have never had before in my professional career. And to be given this opportunity to demonstrate my and my students prowress of musical learning through such an event as the Winter Performance would be a test of my capacity and growth. I cannot say that I handled this test without stress. In fact, before the two weeks prior to the performance, I was admittedly stressed out beyond any stressed that I had felt.

I learned through my life coach, Cytel Schults, that I could practice what she calls the AIVA process. It is a way to work with your feelings that are in your body, positive and negative, by first, Acknowledging that you have the feelings, then Identifying them by using the feelings wheel. Then you must Validate that you have these feelings, and lastly, Ask your heart what it is that you need to help you with these feelings.

So, I was practicing this, day by day. And it wasn't until the 2 weeks prior to the concert that I was really in zen about how I was feeling and that I really wasn't feeling stressed, even though this should have probably been the most stressful time to be in.

So, now, let me tell you about the weeks preceding the winter concert:

There are two stories. I will start with fifth grade. I was teaching the fifth graders Ukuleles. However, this was probably the hardest grade level to work with behavior-wise. Despite behaviors, they were slowly learning to do chords like G7 and C and F and even Bb on the Uke. However, it was rather slowly. In desparation I asked my principal what I could do for them that would still make their performance doable. He told me to make it easier for them. So, on that same day, it was decided, by the students, their teacher, and me, that they would sing to a backing track instead of try to play the long songs by themselves and know how to play these songs by heart. That made it a 100 times easier. We spent the last 3 weeks practicing their song to a backing track. I probably could've made Mele Kalikimaka faster. But what was really surprising is that at the winter performance, when they sang 12 days of Hawaiian Christmas, the sung phrase, 5 Big Fat Pigs, caught the attention of the kindergartiners and TKers to everyone's surprise and they were giggling and repeating that phrase every time it came up. It made the fifth graders on stage relax and smile and sing with every ounce of enthusiasm that they could muster, even the child that was most troublesome. It was a happy giggly miracle. And I was all for it. The 12 Days of Hawaiian Christmas was  our closer, which made it even more perfect.

The second story and miracle of this whole concert was the weeks leading up to it with the sixth graders.

Part of my hardship with my 6th graders is that their previous teacher had had them learn how to play certain band instruments and at the beginning of the year they told me this and I wasn't ready to try it out because I had never been trained in band instrument playing.

So we struggled at the beginning of the year. I taught them small things, including about jazz (which they weren't interested in in lecture format). We learned about different more chalenging rhythms like dotted quarter eighth note rhythms. We learned about note reading.

But what they really wanted was instrument playing. So about four weeks before Thanksgiving break I bought a whole drumline curriculum called The Developing Drumline which had 16 bar drumline cadences that a middle school could play and I knew how to read rhythms, so I thought this was a good compromise. However, it was not received very well by the class, and after a few weeks of doing that something had to give.

So, I was prayerfully contemplating what I could do for them, because I was in agony just as much as them. I really wanted them to succeed. In turning to the Lord, and in one miraculous fell swoop, Heavenly Father woke me up one Friday Morning, and told me what I needed to do.

He told me that I needed to get very vulnerable with my 6th graders. To lay it out in front of them about how I want them to have what they want but that I was never trained with band instruments and that this is a weakness of mine but that I have strengths as well. And over the period of three class periods, I did just that. And by the end of it, we decided that we would try to make it work and that the kids, who know these instruments would teach me what they knew. We got the band instruments and chose a Christmas piece and that was Thursday.

By Tuesday, there were a lot of fires that I had to put out regarding all the things needed for the band instruments and getting organized to even do this. Another thing that I learned, that I don't like, is that most of the children (with the previous teacher) had never learned how to read music and that she would feed them music with either the notes having letter names, or the fingering of their instruments. That was really to my chagrin. It turns out that the piece that I chose, was just still way too hard and too difficult to learn in just four weeks (which is what we had left) and so we were getting very frustrated. That following Thursday, 3 girls stayed behind and told me that it wasn't working at that something needed to change. (This was the Thursday before Thanksgiving break.) They suggested that we put the saxophones away and have a drum/trumpet piece.

I took this to heart that week and thought about what I could do and got advice from different people and so I chose. Since we only had 3 weeks after break to learn a piece, (really 2 weeks to learn and 1 week with the final week being the rehearsal week), I arranged a very simplified Snare Drum/Bass Drum/Trumpet/Clarinet arrangement of The Little Drummer Boy. Really, my ideal was that the trumpets play the melody once with the drums, and that on the second verse, the clarinets join in on a third above the melody. But we didn't get that far, we just learned it one time through, BUT THEY DID LEARN IT.

OMG, it was getting down to the wire because with three weeks to learn it (really two), we had to get really serious. I worked with the drummers first for a day and a half while the trumpeters and clarinetists learned outside. Then I took the clarinetists and trumpeters for a day and half while the drummers worked outside. Then for the remainder of the practices, we mostly did it together, so that the trumpeters and clarinetists could get the hard start-on-the-second-beat rhythm that is so very common in The Little Drummer Boy.

By the end of the two weeks before the third rehearsal week (and final week), they had only played through it successfully twice. I also had to advocate for the last two days of our time together to be extra long days with permission of Emma Daniel, their teacher. But with that permission, we were able to have some extra effort and practice toward learning this. Then in the rehearsal week, I took them still one day with me in my classroom with them moving their instruments to the gym.

Then on the final two days of rehearsal, I worked with their teacher to help get them prepared for their performance. And each time, with our words of encouragement, they got better and better. Finally, at the real performance, when it all really mattered, they did SOOOOOO well. I was amazed. Impressed. So Happy. And I think they were happy with their performance. I even had one of the trumpetists (Kimberly) show up when she didn't know if she was. All while helping them get less anxious by laughing at me doing six-seven. It was an all out miracle and I am so happy it went that way.

Another small miracle is that when the stage hands kids brought out the xylophones, some of them were turned the wrong way. I was trying to signal to them to put it the right way but no one was seeing. The second grade teacher, Ms. Jennifer Elliott was walking by them on the ground and she noticed that they were the wrong orientation, so she fixed them. Of course, if they weren't fixed, I would have done something about it, but I didn't have to, and the show went on with the first and second graders on the xylophones. Pluse their song was a showstopper.

Here are the rest of the videos.

My compliments I remember:

That was a vibe.

My mom wanted to talk with you she can't get up. I walk to her and she holds my hand and says that the concert was amazing, 100 times better than previous concerts. They did so good and so did you. Jacqueline mom's mom

Molly, from school board, complimented me on how it went and that the kids did really well. She asked how long the 6th graders had been playing and I told them they picked up the music really fast.

A somewhat elderly couple shook my hand and told me that it was superb.

Anthony Bruemmer, principal told me that it was a great concert and he hopes to see me at the holiday party

Morgan Rangel said it went super well.

Stephanie Lewis said that it went great. In this year of thr performance things flowed better than in past years.

Flor, she said that I did an awesome job.

Mariana, said I exceeded expectations even from past years and that im really great with the kids and Im a godsend to this school

Ronnie Tow said it was really good.

New President of school board said it went really well!

Everything looked great!

Mr. Bruemmer, when he introduced me said I just got my credential 2 months ago and arent I doing amazing.

Mariana, right after Anthony interviewed me, told her that he found the one. This is my new music teacher.

How I felt after the concert:

I feel like a million bucks. Like I earned every penny that I am making. Like I did a great job preparing the students. Amazed at how the 6th graders made it pull through eith mine and Emma Daniel's direction. Happy to have been a part of something so big that I directed with Sarah's help. Excited for future endeavors.

I really felt like I was living in the moment, even when I had to remember all the different things that I had to do for the concert, like hand signals for My Sandman Won't Melt and other songs.