Janie
Gates Lane Elementary
Worchester, MA
Janie is a first-year teacher at Gates Lane Elementary. Janie teaches 27 classes. Usually, her position is split between two teachers, but because of COVID, she is the only teacher. She received her undergrad degree in Music Education at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.
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Essential Questions: (to get an idea of what the classroom looks like)
- What did you expect a normal day in teaching to look like, pre-covid?
I expected to have my own classroom, and be using lots of instruments and singing all the time. I pictured a circle rug in my classroom and having my students come and sit down on it. None of that is happening this year.
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-What does a normal day in your classroom look like now?
So, I have a classroom, but I am not allowed to use it. I have a cart and I go from classroom to classroom. I bring my two laptops and a monitor to every class that I go to and make sure to hook everything up to the projectors since we are in a hybrid model right now. We do a lot of work on the computer to try and keep things equitable for the kids at home.
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-What restrictions are in place for the school you are teaching at, specifically revolving around singing?
Last I heard from my principal, you have to be masked and 10 feet apart. In my state, they have changed the guidelines to 6 feet apart, but I haven't heard anything from my principal yet.
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-Is your classroom all online, hybrid, or all in person? Has that changed?
We were fully remote up until 3 weeks ago. Now we're in our hybrid model, and then two weeks from now, we're back fully in person. (interview conducted on 4/15)
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Teaching Related Questions
-How has the content you are teaching changed?
I taught high school in person when I was student teaching, so elementary music lesson plans are different from that. Usually, I would do a lot of group singing with the kids, and I still have done some of that online, but it's tough because they can only hear themselves. Now that we're back in person, they can't be far enough apart to be singing at the same time, so a lot of it is me singing to them and them doing some sort of movement. I'm not really a dancing person but this year has kind of forced me to figure out how to do dances with my kids. With the older kids, it's been really difficult. Typically, I do a lot of instruments with them, and I'd probably do a ukulele unit and recorder unit with them, but we can't really do any of that. So I've been doing a lot of online projects with them, using a lot of Chrome music. All sorts of interesting things I never thought I'd do.
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-Has there been any positives to teaching in an online format?
There was no commute, which was nice. I got to see a lot more of the kid's lives than I would otherwise because, you know, they're in their houses. During attendance each day, I tell the kids that this is their chance to show me something or tell me something when I call their name. And so a lot of them would go and get their pets. I've met most of their siblings and their parents now. Around the holidays, a lot of them wanted to show me their Christmas trees, and, you know, I got house tours. It's nice seeing that side of them. I feel like I get to be more involved in their lives outside of school than I would have been otherwise.
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-What has been the most difficult part about teaching music in these times?
It's been really, really hard to make connections with individual students because there's really no opportunity to speak 1 on 1 with a student. Even being in the classroom, I have to stay in a certain area so anything that a student says to me, everybody can hear it, and anything that I say to a student, everyone can hear it.
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-How has the pandemic shifted your approach to teaching in the music classroom?
I'm doing a lot more movement activities, and I think I will continue to do a lot more movement activities. I had to get very creative with what I could do to work around the online format, and a lot of it was received really well by the kids and was really engaging for them, and it was stuff that I never would have thought of. After all of this is over, I think I'll try to shift them off the computer screen. I don't think any of them need more computers.
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-How do/did you keep your kids engaged in a virtual setting?
This is a tricky question. I tried my best to keep them engaged by keeping my lessons as fast-paced as possible. I had a lot of components where the kids could volunteer, and, you know, do things on the phone and give input. But in general, I wasn't too tough on the kids who walked away from their screens or who looked like they weren't really paying attention because they're in their own homes, and I don't really know what's going on around them.
Philosophical Questions:
- Do you think there was anything you could’ve been taught in undergrad that may have prepared you more for the pandemic?
Yes, so I had no experience whatsoever and no education whatsoever based in special education, and I teach 7 separate special education classes from grades K-6, which was an absolute shock to me. Most of the younger students in these classes are non-verbal, and up until this point, most of what I learned to do was talking with students and singing with students, and that obviously did not work with these kids. It was extra hard being online, as my instinct with them is to give them instruments, give them things that they can hold and things that they can play, but they couldn't do that online. So it's just added this extra layer to something that I already had no experience with whatsoever. It's ended up being one of my favorite parts of my job, but at first, it was very difficult.
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-Post pandemic, do you think the music classroom will go back to how it was? Will this pandemic shift how the classroom changes forever?
I think it will go back to how it was for the most part. But I think some of the benefits of this is being able to integrate technology in the future. I found that integrating technology has been helpful for some of my students with special needs, especially. Just having that extra something to look at on the projector, when maybe I wouldn't typically have that up. I have found for my special ed students, having 2 different places to look has been really helpful. So smaller things like that I think will stay, but for the most part, I think it will shift back to singing and playing instruments, and you know, group ensembles.
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-What has been the biggest takeaway from this year, teaching-wise?
Personally speaking, it's that I can teach through anything if I could teach through this. I think teaching wise, though, it's how important connections with the students are. You know, they need it now more than ever because they don't have the connections with their friends right now, especially at the elementary level. I've had students ask me if their best friend from last year still attended the school because they don't get to talk to them, they have no clue. My kindergarteners don't know each other. Even though they're in the same class, when I ask them to call on a friend or to give me the name of a friend, they can't do it. I really think that's the best thing that's come out of the pandemic, the shift towards social emotional learning.
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