So, in my general music class, I do my best to try and not squander the love of music in my students. I try my best to make sure the class is giving them exposure and the tools they need to move on to another music class if they decide to move further, I started working at Eagle in February and it has been so challenging and fun at the same time.
I have a student who in the beginning of my time there started off strong doing all of the assignments and all that was asked. Then started to slack off and not participate or care about anything that had to do with music. So as the term went on the students grades dropped to the point of failure. I want to give my students every opportunity to succeed and I gave them all the option of making up work. This student showed no interest. So I called parents , no answer. Finally something said " Talk with her Lakedria see whats up" So I pull her aside and just ask "Whats up?" she says " Nothing" and smiles I told her you aren't in trouble but I am concerned because you haven't done ANYTHING for me recently. She shrugged and said " I just dont like music at all, never have not really interested in it. I will admit this is only the 3rd student EVER that has said this to me. So I was a little shocked but the more we talked the more I found out that she enjoys music but never had an interest in studying it and never cared. So I told her to throw me a bone and at least attempt some of the work so that I can figure out how to best help her since I want her to succeed. We were doing a "Careers in arts" research and she said I'm gonna take this home and do it. She came back today with it done! I was so thrilled. SO I sought out to help her with this abundance of make up work that I knew if I just gave her she wouldn't do. I needed to find an alternate way to assess her but didn't want to make her super uncomfortable.
I called her to me, and gave her an idea for her final project ( Since she is an awesome drawer I told her to make an album cover for a CD ) its music related but something SHE likes to do. fits all of my requirements. I called her up to chat and told her thank you for sharing her thoughts with me earlier this week. I started talking to her about what she liked to listen to, and her eyes LIT up and she had this wonderful conversation ( Using terminology, and everything!) about why she likes what she likes and vise versa. SHE PAID ATTENTION even though she hates music.
We had the best time, and I told her right then that she proved to me that she could do what I ask of her just in a different way and is no longer failing my class. She then said " Wow, thank you so much, most teachers really don't care in fact my last music teacher didn't care. To her I was just the person that sat in the back and screwed around but she never took the time to actually talk to me."
I said well I wouldn't be me if I didn't. Then she says " I never cared about music but this class has me wondering WHY and HOW artists do different things. I told her that by her telling me this makes me know that I did my job. ( She responded yes you really did Mrs. L Thank you!)
As a teacher, my life was made omg I cried. THIS is WHY I TEACH!
