You're listening to that music podcast with Bryson Tarbet, the curriculum designer and educational consultant behind that music teacher at the elementary music summit each week, Bryson and his guests will dive into the reality of being an elementary music teacher, and how music can truly be transformative in the lives of the students you serve. Show Notes and resources mentioned in this episode can be found at that music teacher.com.
Hello, everyone, and welcome back to this week's episode of that music podcast where it's going to be a little less formal than the other episodes, I'm basically going to share how my month has gotten these monthly check ins, we're going to be pretty informal, pretty kind of off the cuff. And it's really just going to kind of see where we where we've been and where they look like the last couple weeks have been. If you've been following that music teacher for a while, you might remember the old school midweek check ins we used to do. They're actually one of the precursors of the podcast, I would go live on Instagram every Wednesday night and just kind of share how my week went and kind of hear how your week went. And then it eventually turned into podcasts whole thing. But that's kind of what this is going to be. So this is the first time I've ever recorded these episodes. And it's also the first one since the beginning of the year. So I want to talk about the beginning of my year. So the beginning of the year, I'll be honest, this has been one of the easiest beginning of the years that I've ever had. I've been thinking about last year, we unfortunately like are we barely had, we didn't have a contract. Last year, when we started, we were very close to striking. And it was just a lot. You know, I was in the negotiations team. So like we were constantly being pulled into this, that and the other thing I was the vice president of the Union. So it was really busy last year. Last year, the beginning of the year was absolute chaos. And then the two years before that was COVID, right. And everything was changing by me felt like minute to minute. So I'm really enjoying the beginning of this year, because there I basically just teaching, or yes, I'm running that music teacher. But for a couple of reasons. Like one I brought, you know, my team has been giving more to my team. So I'm doing we're doing a little bit less and working more on the things that are kind of in my zone of genius. And also I'm not teaching piano lessons this year, which I absolutely love. But it was a lot, it was just too much. So I'm having a great year. And it's I there's a few things that I've been able to kind of gain some perspective on. And because I'm not working constantly, you know, I'm not doing 1000 jobs, I'm not doing this than the other thing. I'm primarily just teaching. And I'm really kind of been able to take a step back and look at my curriculum. And one thing I noticed is my curriculum, nap maps need some work, there are things that I'm like, Whoa, wait a minute, this is not how I should teach this, this is not the greatest way, we're going to need some work in in getting that that better. So that's kind of one of my tasks this year is to take a look at some of my curriculum maps, and just get them better where they are and kind of get them more more accurate to what I'm actually doing. And stead of kind of what I created in grad school kind of abstractly, not really knowing what would come next. So that's kind of a big thing is that I've realized now that I have a little bit more time to kind of explore with my lesson planning. But on top of that, I've realized that my true experiment that I did a few years back with really focusing on handwriting, my lesson plans, and working on transitions has really changed my life. It's something that I will continue doing forever. And it's something that I talked about probably at nauseam in these episodes, and episodes about how transitions have changed my TJ. But it's been, especially with this year's kindergarten class because I don't know y'all this this kindergarten class, I love teaching kindergarten. But after 40 minutes, I'm spent, you know, I don't have anything left to get granted at least the last thing that I teach. So it kind of makes sense that the last period that I teach, it'd be a little bit exhausted. But with that being said, this particular class is it's just there's just a lot, we have one, it's the biggest class that I've had for kindergarten and while there are 24 kindergarteners in each class, which goodness, that's a lot. We have a lot of a lot of students in this kindergarten class that are English learners. So that adds another little level of complex complexity to it. And it's just it's just they're really testing my classroom management skills, I'll tell you what, but we're finally get to the point now where like, alright, I at least know their names enough so I can keep them in and keep them involved and things like that and kind of know where we know who they are and like what they need for me to help them be successful. So we've been doing a lot better the last last few lessons but let me tell you the beginning of the year, it was like they would leave and I would just be sitting at my desk going what just happened. I don't know about you if you're kindergartens like that but my kindergarten car is really taking me really taking me giving me the rent for my money. Another thing that I really kind of I noticed this year and kind of went being able to take a step back and look at it is I am really happy where I'm at. And you know I'm not sharing this to say Haha, I love what I do or you might be in a situation that's that's not great. But what I want to say that is that there are opportunities is for you to feel like you are part of the team, you know, I might have, I might have had to force my way in for people to realize that I'm not just a music teacher, I am a teacher who teaches music and I am part of this educational team. But I am I find finally feeling confident in my role where in my school setting aye, aye aye kind of built myself as this person who isn't just there to teach music. I'm someone here that wants to teach students and I just happen to teach music. And I'm so thankful that I have a wonderful administrators, I have wonderful other teachers, you know, that are my peers and my friends, that really helped me be the best that I can be. Because let's be honest, the people that you're surrounding yourself with at school, that's gonna make a Pew a huge difference in your job, you can have the worst job in the world, but have supportive peers and supportive, you know, teachers and administrative IT administration. And then the opposite way you can have the perfect the perfect schedule, the you know, and things like that, but then have administrators that don't support you and have other teachers that don't believe in you. And, and that's really the frustrating part. So I hope that you can find something where you feel like you're a part of that community rather than just kind of privy to that community. Like I said, these tabs are really not going to have much of a flow or an outline, I'm really just kind of talking from the heart. But I have for a lot of reasons, I really feel like this year is kind of going to be the year for me. First of all, my we've been doing a lot of bouncing with my antidepressants over the past few years. And it feels like we've finally come to something where like, I feel we have the right combination. And I've always been very open about my mental health journey. Because I think it's important for us to be open about it, I think it's important for, you know, if we if you basically be important to share that teachers are human, and that mental illness is just that it's an illness, it's just, it's fine. It's something that happens, we don't need to hide it, we don't have to pretend it doesn't happen. We don't need to, it's not this terrible thing that's going to, you know, absorb you if someone else knows that it afflicts you. So I want to be really blunt about it. So I finally feel like I'm in a place where my my antidepressants, and my the medicine that I take for my ADHD is finally like, right in the same place is like we found it all. We figured it all out. And I find like, alright, I can actually do things, I have executive functioning skills, I can actually make things happen. Another thing that happened over the summer is I got licensed as a foster parent. And I, you know, I've gotten a few calls so far in the year eight or so far this year. And nothing has panned out. I've said yes a couple times. But you know, they went with different different placement or with kinship or whatever. But I just feel like even in those moments, like yes, I would have loved to have been able to walk the child in my home. But I just feel like whatever is best is going to happen, whatever it is time for this child to come into my home, for however long they're going to be there. It's going to happen. And I just that's not how Bryson would have looked at things a while while ago. And I think that I am finally getting the point where i i was i was driving the other day and I'm thinking is this wisdom is Bryce and getting wisdom like cool. I love it. So I'm sharing this not because I want one is kind of a potpourri episode, like we're all over the place. But I just kind of wanted to this is really what this episode is this we're kind of checking in. But also I want to hear from you. I want to hear how your month has been. I want to hear how your beginning of the school year has gone. Please send us an Instagram message or send me an Instagram message over at that music teacher. I would love to hear how your year is going feel free to send a voice message. I love replying to voice messages. They're my favorite. You know, I love talking as you can tell. But yeah, this episode is going to be really, these types of episodes are going to be kind of not hopefully a little bit more focused. And today, it's been a little bit of a wild week. But I'm really excited to continue these podcasts continue and see what happens the rest of this year. And honestly, I'm really excited to see what is going down in the rest of the year inside of that music teacher community. Because I haven't had an I've had an absolute blast inside the community getting to lead the masterclasses. And I'm really excited to see where we can take the community in the rest of the year. So with that, thank you so much for joining us for this week's episode of that music podcast. If you've enjoyed today's episode, it would mean the world for us if you were to leave a review, wherever you're listening. Remember New episodes come out every Wednesday, so make sure that your calendars are marked so they get ready for some engaging discussions about music education. If you haven't already, please consider joining us inside that music teacher community where you'll get early access to exclusive podcast episodes as well as a lot of other bonus perks including master classes every month and resource packs to help you really take some new new steps in music education. For shownotes links and more ways to stay connected Be sure to check out the episode description or in the show notes as well. Once again, thank you so much for listening and I will see you next week.
