Season 3
Episode 90
Switching from Elementary to Middle School Choir with Sara Rond
Sara's Bio: Sara Rond is the Assistant Choir Director at Cooper Junior High and Draper Intermediate in Wylie, TX where she teaches 5th-8th grade choir. Previously she taught elementary music in Garland ISD for 8 years. During that time she completed her Orff Levels at SMU and conducted the Garland ISD Children's Chorus. She is married to Kevin and has two children.
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TRANSCRIPT OF THE SHOW
Jessica: Sara thank you for being on the podcast.
Sara: Of course!
Jessica: I am so curious because we haven't talked in person about this, but how did you come to the decision of switching from teaching elementary music to deciding to teach secondary?
Sara: Okay so before I can go through that decision I need to back up a little bit. In college I would have sworn up and down that I was going to be a 5A High School Choir Director. Like that was my love was high school choir and just the choir life. And so most of my college career that was really my focus. I went to extra conducting classes and master classes and that was going to be my thing and it wasn't until my student teaching my senior year that I had to do my elementary kind of mentorship and student teaching there. And the person that I had had just come off of her Level I Orff Schulwerk class at SMU and she was on fire and loved it and seeing her love elementary just brought me so much joy and it was new for me so I just wanted to dive in head first. And knowing that I still wanted to build a family and be home at a decent time I thought I think elementary might be my thing, you know. Because I can love my job and do it well and still be home in time to cook dinner.
Jessica: That is a benefit - yeah.
Sara: So I dove in head first in elementary. Did my Orff Schulwerk levels and it wasn't until I had the opportunity to conduct the Garland Children's Chorus. Gosh - that love of choir was rekindled like oh my goodness. It was just... I could not put it out after that. I thought I would be just fine doing elementary and having that choir on the side, but I wanted more and if I could do that - do choir every day all day and still be home for dinner, I wanted to find that path immediately. So when this position came open in Wylie to be an assistant choir director at the Intermediate and Junior High Level and kind of shared in that way I couldn't pass it out. I was going to learn how to transition into this new world from two master teachers and still get to be home in time enough for my kids. I still kind of assist with nights and weekend things here and there, but it's just where my love is. Where my original passion for this craft has begun and so I'm just excited to kind of venture into this new world again.
Jessica: That's so neat. So you have two head choir directors?
Sara: Yes.
Jessica: Wow. And how long have they been at Wylie?
Sara: So the one at Wylie she has opened the campus that she is at now for, it's been open for 12 years. I think this is it's 13th and she opened two of the elementary schools in Wylie so she's been here for I don't know how long, but long enough to open three campuses and be at this other one for 12-13 years now. And then other head director at Cooper Junior High has been here for 5 or 6 years and has moved from other junior high/middle school campuses from throughout the metroplex as well.
Jessica: Did you say the first person had taught elementary?
Sara: Yes! Yeah, she transitioned from elementary and then stepped into this intermediate position where we teach 5th and 6th grade choir. And 5th grade choir is structured similar to elementary music in that there's a rotation and they still have kind of a specials rotation. So they go to choir, then band, then art, and then another elective and then come back around. So we're able to take those 5th graders and start to build this beginning sight-reading piece and learning how to read music and follow what is a coda? What is the DS al coda? A first and second ending. And really set them up for success so that in sixth grade we can dive into music and they can sightread so well by the time they start sixth grade already.
Jessica: How helpful to have a head director and yourself having already taught elementary so you understand what that role looks like before tackling the middle years. You know?
Sara: Exactly. Yeah.
Jessica: That's awesome. So what do you think has been most helpful coming from the elementary world into the middle school world?
Sara: Knowing the language that the kids are coming in with. I know that several times there are several middle school directors who come in and say okay we're just going to start from scratch and just start from the beginning. And sometimes it's just a language barrier. Maybe they're not calling it the same way that the kids know it or something like that so knowing the language that they are learning in elementary school and being able to apply that and kind of help this transition smoothly go over, we're able to move a lot faster I feel. We're able to kind of select some of the repertoire that they're familiar with and then apply that in a different concept that we're trying to do. For example if we're trying to teach a partner song I choose a song that they already know in their repertoire and I just kind of tack on to that and it just kind of... you see their eyes light up when they hear harmony along with this children's song that they have know and had just written off you know. So it's kind of neat to kind of show them that it's all the same thing.
Jessica: They're not starting completely over. It really does relate in middle school to what they learned before in elementary.
Sara: Exactly. Exactly.
Jessica: What do you think has been the most challenging?
Sara: Without a doubt the boys' changing voice. For sure because I've never gone through that and so I don't know how to navigate that and I know there are still master teachers who still struggle with that. And so through trial and error and good repertoire and bad repertoire and learning from that and now that I've got a year of the boys' changing voice under my best I feel like that's been a little helpful. We also have some high school choir directors that have been really great partners through all this transition for myself and for the junior high directors. They make it a priority to come down to visit us a few times a week and we've requested that they come down and see those boys so that if they're having a hard time with something and we just can't connect with them in whatever pedagogy it is that we've not covered, they just say well you just have to do this. And I think well great. Thank you! Will you come and show them how to do that because I can't model that for me. So it's been nice to really have a great vertical team to come in and help out when they really can. But without a doubt the most challenge - the most challenge has been that boys' changing voice. I remember walking in on day one and going uhhhh.. I don't know how to help you. We had one boy who goes " Miss I can't sing that." And I go, "Okay then just mouth it for now. I don't know man. Let's figure it out together." You know.
Jessica: That's definitely something I encounter as well because I teach 5-8 as well and so you do find it's like some of their voices - course they're not changing at the exact same time or the same rate - and so trying to still build their confidence in what they are able to do while also making sure they don't just easily drop down to the octave because you want to keep that higher singing voice so yeah, do you have anything that you've found with that struggle that you're like oh this has worked for me?
Sara: So at the intermediate level where everyone is singing in the unchanged voice kind of range we've not penalized a kid if they've dropped down the octave. I don't want to discourage them and tell no you have to get up there. No you have to get up there. So if they're singing the pitches just down the octave, we tell them "hey - there's this thing called the Tenor/Bass Choir and if you'll just hang in there for six more months, you know, there are going to be other people around you who are singing the same way you are." Having the strong vertical team who can come in and share recordings or share boys to kind of sing for him and give him a chance to hear what that's going to be like kind of makes him feel like he's a part of an elite crowd. Just talking it up and making it sound so cool like these boys have this really awesome kind of thing that happens to them and girls - sorry you don't get it. You know. And I think that helps recruit boys too which is always a given, but something that these teachers have shown me is that transition between head voice and bringing it down a little further without completely dropping is the challenge so we start every rehearsal up in our head voice and we're just trying to work and see how far we can bring that down without dropping. We say okay you feel that? That's you dropping down. Keep it up there. Let's go back up or something like that. Getting them to feel it has been super helpful because then they are at least aware because we've got a couple of boys that just don't know they're droning down there.
Jessica: Interesting. Yeah. I like that having them - so you start high in the head voice every rehearsal and bring it so they can feel because can't it change - it can change from week to week or you know seemingly with some of my students I feel like Oh you were hitting high notes and now all of a sudden this week you've got a very narrow range and then it kind of varies.
Sara: It is week to week. I mean we have a concert next week and we have a boy who has learned the tenor part and his voice has changed and he could be a baritone right now. I'm like bud you have to hang in there. I don't want you to have to learn a whole new part. You know? Just know that the next concert round we're going to move you down. Just hold on tight.
Jessica: When you do your warmups with students, how long do you usually spend on say warm-ups, ear training, all of that before you work on repertoire?
Sara: In the beginning stages of learning repertoire it's probably half the class. Because if I do warm-ups and ear training or sequence that in a way that's helpful for the repertoire coming then it makes the learning of the music a whole lot faster because it's a skill they already have in their tool belt. They know the solfege. They know how to sightread well, but if there's a tricky rhythm and I set that up in the warmups well then they're able to fly through that and grasp onto it a whole lot faster in the repertoire. So the beginnings stages I would say half the class in warm-up and then once they've got the pieces down and then we're able to focus on polishing and perfecting those kinds of things and there's, I would say, just a few minutes less not so much on ear training, but more on warm-ups. Getting them to focus on an articulation that I need them to do. For example we've got girls who are singing the Latin piece who are having a hard time with overununciating the K sound several times because it just takes up so much air and so much breath for a K so much so we'll spend a lot of our warm-ups singing with a loud K. Lots and lots of K... So kkk and activating their diaphragms and singing may be one of those words in a phrase. For example: Quonium is one of the words in their phrase. (singing) Something like that. Get them to feel that over and over and over so that it becomes muscle memory. So then it's all of a sudden the piece I'm not having to drill that phrase over and over and over with the accompaniment because we already did that in warmup. I'm like lightbulb - yes you did it. That sort of thing. I feel like if we can do our warm-ups. If we can focus on the skills needed in the repertoire in our warmups then it's going to make the rehearsal time and the repertoire time feel more successful and when a kid feels successful, they want to do it more and more and more. They love it so much more.
Jessica: So when you're deciding what warm-ups to pull from your repertoire, do you then create your own warm-ups for the pieces?
Sara: Yeah. A lot of times. And some of them flop and I tell the kids you know I had a great idea for that because I really wanted to focus on that, but it's clearly not working so let me try something else. Instead let's try... again another example of failure and how it's okay.
Jessica: So I would imagine that it would be very different selecting repertoire for choirs compared to selecting repertoire K-5 in a classroom where you see them once a week, twice a week if you're lucky. So how do you - what have you found that works really well in selecting repertoire for these middle ages?
Sara: So it's honestly the beginning process of when I'm choosing the repertoire so I'm trying to think back to what did they know in elementary. What sort of language do they know: verses and refrains... that sort of thing or do they only know ABA form and that sort of thing. What can I do that kind of gives them somvesthing familiar? To structure the familiar with and how can I continue to stretch them and grow them in that way? Sequencing part singing has been the most - the biggest - focus for me in choosing repertoire. I want them to sing beautifully in unison first even in middle school. Especially with even the girls voices change a tad bit so giving them a chance to hear just female voices. No males or no changed voices in their choirs. Building that unison sound is still my number one priority. And so our fall concert we sing three pieces - two of them are unison and then the third one we do is part-singing. And I'm making sure that my part-singing that a lot of time it's antiphonal or there's a canon in there. Trying to give them something that they're going to feel successful in, but still hear that harmony. So sequencing the part-singing in a careful way. Understanding where they're coming from in the elementary level or the intermediate level. Or if I'm in the high school level knowing where my junior higher are coming from. Talking with those directors as a vertical team to see where are they now? Where can I take them? And give them something familiar with.
But within that process trying to make that there's a variety of language. Without a doubt trying to start with Latin so we can get those tall round beautiful vowels. With beginning singers especially a variety of tempo. A variety of meter. For example my 5th graders we are beginning sight-readers and so everything is in 4/4 and I gave them My Country Tis of Thee today in a piece of sheet music. I asked them how many beats are in each measure. Most of them didn't look at their music and go "Four" and there's a couple that said "No no no! It's not!" and they were so excited to have 3/4 time signature you know. And they go "What's that going to sound like?" So getting to model for them this waltzing tempo vs this march-like and they were kind of excited about that over something so little. So making sure they have a variety of meter. That's something I know John Feierabend talks a lot about with kiddos coming in is you want them to hear 6/8 as well. Don't give them just one meter. Give them several so they can feel and give them a chance to move in it so they can internalize that as well. I want them to be well-rounded musicians. I want to give them variety. I don't want them to be good at one thing. I want them to taste it all.
For beginnings singers, beginning choirs, I also want something that's diatonic. I want to give them that's sight readable because I want to build that skill hand in hand and put those together so when they have a hard time with an interval in a song, I say "hey guys that's just so-mi. You've been doing so-mi for years. You've got this down." You know, and so giving them a chance and even still our kids are having the hardest time in sight-reading with their so-mi skip. And so once I bring it back and given them a a couple of reference points and I say do you know that song-
(singing): Charlie over the ocean
And they're like oh yeah I know that one. That's so-mi guys! That's the one you learned that early on so you can nail that so-mi down. And without a doubt it's still just a little sharp or just a little off so choosing something in the repertoire that has something in there that I know there's challenging with, I want to give them a reference point with that. So if I know so-mi skip is hard for my kids I want a song that's got a little so-mi in there. Or if there's a do-fa in there, that's great because they're going to need that next year in sight-reading so give them a reference point.
Let's see... in repertoire also looking for tessitura. Where is it going to hang out for most of the time and where's that going to fit in my ensemble's range? For example boys changing voices, you know, we've got an unusual number of kiddos in our boys class that cannot sing very low notes so I can't choose anything lower than I would say an E or an F below middle C so that's kind of challenging to find some 2- or 3- part repertoire and so being careful as I'm looking through at that range. But also where is it hanging out? Is it hanging out in the lower range? Are they going to be able to have the stamina to sing through that whole piece? And same for my girls. I don't want them to hang out for too high for too long and if it is up hight, what kind of vowel shapes are they singing on? Because if it's E vowel sounds, that's going to be so shrill. So I want them to feel successful and I want to set them up for success and that's all in the choir of the repertoire that I'm picking. And if I choose something that's too challenging for my kids they're going to feel like they're failing when really it comes back to it was a bad decision on my part. And I've had to say that to the girls a couple of times. Last year we chose a song for UIL that was acapella that was really a challenging piece and I told them sorry! That was my fault you know. I chose a piece that I really loved and that I could read, but I had to put myself in your shoes and you rose to the challenge and you did it, but it was hard and you had to show a lot of grit while doing that and you learned a lot, but I'm hard I pushed you so hard so soon. So giving them a chance to see how we've failed and set them up and give them a chance to rise to the occasion too has been kind of neat.
After that it's do I like the song? If the song's not likable and they're going to be miserable singing it, then why? We're trying to build a passion and a love for this so that they can continue to pursue the craft or that they can just enjoy the craft as adults later in life in their community so I really want them to love what they are singing. And without a doubt usually it's the most challenging piece that is their favorite because they've had to work at it and they've had to persevere and they feel victorious once they've gotten it down. So it's exciting.
Jessica: So how do you do your score study, I'll say, to help you look at the repertoire and decide you know all of these things?
Sara: Yeah, I have a book that I got in college and it's automatically opens to the score study page. I've juts worn it down so much. It's called Evoking sound: Fundamentals of Conducting and Rehearsal by James Jordan. And I have so many of his resources because he's just very well-read in the topic of choral music. And within it it very specifically asks after you've chosen your piece what things to mark. Things like dynamics and crescendos and meter changes and that sort of thing, but also text stress and you want to find the thematic and imitative material. Where is it that sounds similar? The A sections and that sort of thing. Where is it coming back? Underlining tempo changes. Something that's been most helpful has been the harmonic analysis because I feel like we get so focused on teaching the intervals and the solfege and the hand signs and that sort of thing and then moving on to the text so quickly that they don't understand it in the context of the structure of the song with the accompaniment help them hear where this is going when there is a key change. Help them understand. You know you're going from this to this because listen to the accompaniment. Do you hear where it's going and that sort of thing. So being able to study that and help see okay they're shifting keys right in this area so we need to change solfege, yes, but do they understand why and do they understand how that's going. Cause a lot of times the kids can naturally anticipate, you know, the changing of chord or something like that and so being able to pull that out for the kids and knowing where it is for myself and how to play that ahead of time so they can hear this is where it's going. Do you hear how if you're flat here, what that's going to sound like in this chord if you don't repeat fa again? Or something like that.
Jessica: When you're teaching repertoire, do you ever play the piece for them just on the piano for the first time through? Or sing it through or listen to recordings? Or do you often have them sightread sections? Or do you pull out warm-ups that they'll find within the music or all of the above?
Sara: Yes. All of the above in a certain sequence. I will if I know that there's a tricky skip or there's something coming I want to set them up for success by giving them a chance to do that in warm-ups or some ear training beforehand. For example if there's a so-re that's not something that we often go over in class and so I will find some exercises or I'll put something together where they're having to walk down from so-fa-mi-re - so-re something and get that in their heads so that once they see it in the music they go 'oh that's not hard - I know how to do that.' But their brains haven't connected that yes, that's because I've planned that. So planning a way to set them up for success by sequencing the warm-ups just so or if it's a harmonic progression that's a little funky trying to give them something like that in the warm-ups or the ear training ahead of time. We usually start with solfege. Our kids write it all in cause that's the way they've been taught to do that. So they write all their solfege in and then sing through the whole thing with solfege even with accompaniment before we ever look at the words.
And then for me I have them speak the text the way that I want them to sing the text first. So we speak it in rhythm, but with the vowel shapes and with the consonants and with the rests in their list and then add pitch in last because otherwise they're just going to sing through it and kind of garble up the text. If they're going to start the text, I want you to learn the right way so I don't have to fix anything later. Just makes everyone's live easier you know. And then what I found is they kind of help for those days I nee vocal rest or I need a substitute. I will find a few recordings on YouTube and set up a Google Form. A google assignment. They have to listen to one recording and I'll ask a few questions about what they're hearing. In measures eight, then what's happening in their piece or do you hear that crescendo that we were working on? What are they doing with that here in this piece? Or after they already know the piece and they know what it should sound like, hear a few choirs on YouTube that do it well, that maybe don't do it well, or exceedingly well. I want them to hear good choirs and I want them to hear how they're growing as well. So that's been kind of neat to be able to just put that together and to see their faces and to hear their comments and when they say something like "Wow - their vowel shapes really need help on that tall O or that Ah" I think yes you hear it! Maybe not when you're performing it, but you hear it.
Jessica: With the repertoire as well, in rehearsal time how do you decide if you're going to start the beginning of the piece or the middle or the end? How do you make those decisions to go "Okay this rehearsal I'm going to start here?" Or teaching it not just front to back.
Sara: Right. I like to teach from back to front. I like to give them an idea of where they're going. If you don't know what your goal is, how are you going to get there? So I want them to understand where they're going and so I'll often start at the end and just on solfege. Nothing too elaborate. Give them an idea so that when they get to the end of the piece that's the part that's usually the most familiar at that point and because they've rehearsed it so many times they feel most successful with that and if they can end a piece feeling successful then you can't really get any better than that.
Jessica: What do you love about teaching secondary?
Sara: I love seeing my kids every single day. I really do. Because I get to see them every day we have that chance to build a relationship with them and really connect with them and build community with them. And although I feel like we got to do that a little bit in elementary because we see them for six years, there's just still something missing when you don't get to see them every day. Even my kiddos that I had them when they were kinder babies all the way up, they still didn't have as a strong a bond as they did with their classroom teacher because I didn't get to see them every day. Now that I've got these girls and guys every single day it's nice to see this familiarity with them and they want to come to me with their drama problems and with their questions and it's just encouraging to see.
Jessica: I love that too about the middle school and probably in high school as well. I've never taught high school but just how you have that more bond with them and I think it grows faster because of the consistency and middle schoolers too, I think, that relationship is so key. I mean relationships were important in elementary as well because you go them a long time, but I feel like you lose them if they don't know that you care about them and if they don't feel like you don't know them, there's more tension there, but if they feel like you're on their side, you're here for them, they'll do anything.
Sara: Yes. You just have to listen to them. And oftentimes that's all these kids want is someone to hear them out even if its petty little cafeteria room drama, they just want to be heard.
Jessica: Exactly. So speaking of relationships you know, you have the relationships with your students, but you also have the relationship with your head directors. How do you work alongside them and what's your advice with working alongside a head teacher as an assistant?
Sara: Right. Well in the same way with every relationship I feel like they all have their own dynamics and because of the way that this weird schedule works that's shared between two campuses I kind of feel like it's a little like being bipolar having to jump back and forth sometimes. Being flexible for number one was for me to be understanding that these two master teachers that I am coming in fresh and new have never had an assistant before. They've never had to share their program or share their ideas or share their kids. And here comes...I kind of feel like the evil stepmother and coming in and trying to steal their things. You know and I want to make sure that I'm careful and respectful in that process as well. So last year was a real learning year for all of us and lots of grace given throughout the process. now that we've got that year under our belt kind of understanding and reflecting what worked, what didn't, why didn't it work, why did it work so well. So I think divide and conquer has kind of been our theme this year because last year just didn't work out very well. I felt more like a student teacher last year which was so so strange and so being able to share and divide and conquer and understand that okay now we have a better idea. This is a schedule that works well os you do X-Y-Z and I can do that sort of thing. But working at the two different campuses because they have different schedules has kind of been a challenge. So making sure that when we have an expectation that it's all communicated. If something's not working that we share that. We speak up because otherwise it's the kids who suffer and it's the program that suffers and we don't want to let our pride get in the way of that so being able to humble ourselves in that process has been a learning or I guess a tool that we've needed to learn.
So walking into someone else's program and someone else's room with someone else's students was the most humble step for myself in understanding what my role in that was. Building relationships with the students and getting them to see that we're two different people is helpful as well. And being flexible. And letting the kids see us fail. I feel like it's a lot like a marriage. You know! They need to see what good conflict looks like and what forgiveness looks like and how making a mistake is okay, you know. Except that for me who is recovering from a need from control and people pleasing and perfectionism sometimes that is so difficult for me to swallow my pride and do that. But giving them a chance to see that it's okay for it flop and for it to not work and make mistakes and we can try again tomorrow has been helpful. Because sometimes the girls come in - for example, on Monday after Thanksgiving break and give them sight-reading on day one and for them to look at each other and go "I don't know what happened. You've slept since then. How many of you sightread over Thanksgiving?" It's okay. But consistency is key and giving them permission to fail has been neat and permission to fail even in relationships you know. Sometimes they see frustration between the two of us and I say "Y'all I'm trying to kick caffeine right now and it's not working is it." Something silly like that, but those things are key. Communication. Humility. And flexibility has been key in all of these relationships and trying to figure out a new position. Those kinds of things.
Jessica: It's a whole work in progress. And we work all literally works in progress all the time. Sometimes I think failing like is harder for the teacher than the students sometimes too because it's like you want them to learn and you tell them oh it's okay to fail, but then as a teacher you're like well I can't fail and I've got to get it all right, but for them to see you do something wrong. Like today I made multiple mistakes today, but there was something I was teaching and I was like "Wait. Hold on." It was with sixth grade and I was teaching this new melody I hadn't taught yet and I thought I had worked out the plan of how I was going to go about it and I got to the third measure and all of a sudden I was like wait because I had slowed the tempo down to allow them to get it so when we sped it up they had the sticking and everything on the bars. I got to it and I was like wait I need to think about how slow that would go os I was like give me a minute and then I made a few mistakes and I was like okay we've got it. For them to see hey we have to work things out too and that we don't get it right or we might get it here and go whoops - hold on let me try again, but I think them seeing that and learning that oh okay they're... flexible and you know, it's good for them.
Sara: And it helps them see and build that growth mindset that just because I fail doesn't mean I'm going to give up and scrap this piece altogether. I'm going to persist and persevere and continue trying and fail a couple more times in the process.
Jessica: Exactly. Exactly. so I have two more questions for you. And ones that I didn't plan this one at all, but I'm curious. Even though everyone's teaching situation is different in the middle years and you have to know your kids and what repertoire works for them, what are some of your favorite pieces that you've done with students?
Sara: Most of my favorite pieces come from my work with the Garland Children's Chorus. And the pieces that worked well, the tried and true kind of pieces, but I find that for some of my older kids it has text that isn't relatable or feels too kiddish. And so I'm careful not to go overboard with those pieces. There's a piece called Sing to Me by Andrea Ramsey that is still my most most favorite and last year I had my non-varsity girls do it and they fell in love with it. We did it in our fall concert. I thought it was a pretty simple beginning piece. It turned out to be a little more challenging than I anticipated, but they rose to the occasion and they often asked that we sing it at UIL and I thought it wasn't on the PML and so I put it down as a choice piece and one of the judges said, "Actually I think this is a grade two." I said Oh is that against the rules? I'm so sorry. Please excuse me. But the girls loved it and I loved it and I was so passionate about it.
And then there's another piece. It's a version of - an arrangement of This Old Man - and I was introduced to it by Michael Chandler at one of our sharing sessions at Orff and I love love love that piece because it's just so fun and it splits them into so many parts that they kind of look around and think who this is kind of cool because they have to be independent in that. So that one is a whole lot of fun to do with my beginning choirs.
Our boys like to sing songs, gosh, and most of the songs are sea chanties, but they kind of like it because without a doubt there's some kind of obscure words in there or they're talking about ...a can of grog is what they had to sing about today. And they go what is grog? And I said honestly I don't know. I'm so sorry. And then somebody googled it because everybody has their phone and apparently an alcoholic drink is what grog is. And I said well I'm so sorry guys. Well we're not singing the text. We're just solfeging. That's okay. We don't need to know that. You know. But anyway our boys really like sea chanty pieces and so I choose from solo festival or solo books something like that that have already been put together, you know. Honestly there's a couple of lists that I've stolen from other master teachers. There's one within our district who has her list of tried and proven junior high middle school boys pieces and I just pull from those because if someone else has already figured out what works, why am I busting my hiney to find something when it's already been found?
Jessica: Right! Yeah. Interesting. Have you used the book One Accord at all? By Georgia Newlin?
Sara: Yes!
Jessica: Because that's one of my favorite resources that I always go to for part-singing and really getting in those folk songs and yeah - I love it.
Sara: I love her sequence. I just think gosh - when she wrote that all out I was like Duh! Of course. Why haven't we been doing this forever? And when a piece doesn't work, I go that's because it wasn't sequenced right. They haven't done X-Y-Z just the way she said to.
Jessica: Yeah! For the last question you can take it however you'd like, but just for those teachers listening what do you think has been the most helpful in relating and working with your middle school students?
Sara: Being real with them. Being authentic. And listening to them and owning up to those mistakes like we've talked about. And apologizing. And listening to them. And sharing personal stories. And listening to them. Gosh I feel like these junior high kids just want to be heard and a lot of the kids that I've seen I don't feel like their parents - they feel like their parents don't hear them out. My mom just always says no all the time. Or they think I'm being dramatic. And yes. Yes you are, but it's what they're feeling and gosh they feel it so strongly. Their hormones and their emotions are just so ramped high that it truly feels like a major life event when something like that happens and they just want to be heard. And so they just don't want to be written off and I want to be sure to give them the chance to be heard and feel safe. They're going through some major emotional rollercoaster and they don't know how to regulate that. So what seems like something so silly to us it can feel catastrophic in nature to them so belittling them is only going to push them away. Giving them a safe place to express what they're feeling and feel heard is gonna have them coming back even if they don't like to say... We have one girl who was in choir and I thought she loved it. She opted not to do choir this year. Her parents really pushed her to do some other elective courses that would count for high school credit and so sometimes that's the motivation. But she still comes in here every morning to give me a good morning hug and there's other times where something's happened at lunch and she's says I just can't do it today Mrs. Rond. Can I just do lunch with you? I'm like absolutely! So if I can be a safe place, you know, just because I will let her gab and talk about her lunch or something like that, I'm fine with that. You know.
That and getting them on Instagram on our page. They are so into taking selfies and having an online presence and I want to give them a healthy way to do that and so one of the things that we've done is in a photo scavenger hunt. In the beginning of the year I put them in groups and I tell them okay you have to, you know, take a picture with all of these lists of pictures are worth however many points and everyone on your team has to be in it and so you've got to be creative. Take a picture of you in a human pyramid. Or you acting out a scene. Or you... something like that. And that is just silly and goofy and it gets them to start building healthy relationships and you know get also - a shameless plug for our social media - and getting that out there as well. But they just enjoy I think being social so much of this age that they just don't know how to do that in a healthy way and so I love doing that for them and giving them the chance to do that. And also kind of giving them some reality checks at the same time.
Jessica: Right. Yeah. And so shameless plug or not - what is your social media site?
Sara: Oh gosh we have several. Our choir is all over Instagram and Facebook. Facebook I believe is just Cooper Junior High Choir. And I think our Instagram is @cooperpatriotchoir. There are a couple other Cooper choirs out there so we were careful to put our little mascot in the middle @cougarpatriot choir. And it's kind of fun to just good to give the kids a presence on there when we have a fundraiser or when we have a spirit night. For example we had one: Nothing Bundt Cakes. I told the kids they could go throughout the week. if they put their receipt in the box it goes towards the profits go towards the Cooper Junior High Choir. To kind of boost it up, if you post a selfie of you putting your receipt in the box then you get entered into a drawing to win a free hoodie or something you know silly like that, but without a doubt people start sharing and tagging us all over Facebook. They're so excited when they see a friend tag. It's just kind of fun to do that kind of stuff.
Jessica: Absolutely. And then if teachers want to reach out to you, do you have contact info that you'd be willing to share?
Sara: Sure! They can email me: sara.rond@yahoo.com. Would be the best place. Otherwise I'm on Facebook. Sara Rond. You can find me. There's not many Roads so you can find me.
Jessica: Thank you for sharing. I feel like this is so beneficial for those middle school teachers who are new to the field and even those who have taught a long time just thinking through repertoire and working with other teachers and just really reaching middle schoolers where they are.
Sara: Yeah. Thank you so much for giving me a chance to lock arms with you and kind of go through this progression together. Nobody has to do it alone and we can't.
Jessica: No. We can't. So thank you!
Sara: Thank you!
Episode 90
Switching from Elementary to Middle School Choir with Sara Rond
Sara's Bio: Sara Rond is the Assistant Choir Director at Cooper Junior High and Draper Intermediate in Wylie, TX where she teaches 5th-8th grade choir. Previously she taught elementary music in Garland ISD for 8 years. During that time she completed her Orff Levels at SMU and conducted the Garland ISD Children's Chorus. She is married to Kevin and has two children.
Links:
Evoking Sound: Fundamentals of Choral Conducting and Rehearsing by James Jordan
Sing to Me by Andrea Ramsey
This Ol' Man arranged by Greg Gilpin
One Accord by Georgia NewlinTRANSCRIPT OF THE SHOW
Jessica: Sara thank you for being on the podcast.
Sara: Of course!
Jessica: I am so curious because we haven't talked in person about this, but how did you come to the decision of switching from teaching elementary music to deciding to teach secondary?
Sara: Okay so before I can go through that decision I need to back up a little bit. In college I would have sworn up and down that I was going to be a 5A High School Choir Director. Like that was my love was high school choir and just the choir life. And so most of my college career that was really my focus. I went to extra conducting classes and master classes and that was going to be my thing and it wasn't until my student teaching my senior year that I had to do my elementary kind of mentorship and student teaching there. And the person that I had had just come off of her Level I Orff Schulwerk class at SMU and she was on fire and loved it and seeing her love elementary just brought me so much joy and it was new for me so I just wanted to dive in head first. And knowing that I still wanted to build a family and be home at a decent time I thought I think elementary might be my thing, you know. Because I can love my job and do it well and still be home in time to cook dinner.
Jessica: That is a benefit - yeah.
Sara: So I dove in head first in elementary. Did my Orff Schulwerk levels and it wasn't until I had the opportunity to conduct the Garland Children's Chorus. Gosh - that love of choir was rekindled like oh my goodness. It was just... I could not put it out after that. I thought I would be just fine doing elementary and having that choir on the side, but I wanted more and if I could do that - do choir every day all day and still be home for dinner, I wanted to find that path immediately. So when this position came open in Wylie to be an assistant choir director at the Intermediate and Junior High Level and kind of shared in that way I couldn't pass it out. I was going to learn how to transition into this new world from two master teachers and still get to be home in time enough for my kids. I still kind of assist with nights and weekend things here and there, but it's just where my love is. Where my original passion for this craft has begun and so I'm just excited to kind of venture into this new world again.
Jessica: That's so neat. So you have two head choir directors?
Sara: Yes.
Jessica: Wow. And how long have they been at Wylie?
Sara: So the one at Wylie she has opened the campus that she is at now for, it's been open for 12 years. I think this is it's 13th and she opened two of the elementary schools in Wylie so she's been here for I don't know how long, but long enough to open three campuses and be at this other one for 12-13 years now. And then other head director at Cooper Junior High has been here for 5 or 6 years and has moved from other junior high/middle school campuses from throughout the metroplex as well.
Jessica: Did you say the first person had taught elementary?
Sara: Yes! Yeah, she transitioned from elementary and then stepped into this intermediate position where we teach 5th and 6th grade choir. And 5th grade choir is structured similar to elementary music in that there's a rotation and they still have kind of a specials rotation. So they go to choir, then band, then art, and then another elective and then come back around. So we're able to take those 5th graders and start to build this beginning sight-reading piece and learning how to read music and follow what is a coda? What is the DS al coda? A first and second ending. And really set them up for success so that in sixth grade we can dive into music and they can sightread so well by the time they start sixth grade already.
Jessica: How helpful to have a head director and yourself having already taught elementary so you understand what that role looks like before tackling the middle years. You know?
Sara: Exactly. Yeah.
Jessica: That's awesome. So what do you think has been most helpful coming from the elementary world into the middle school world?
Sara: Knowing the language that the kids are coming in with. I know that several times there are several middle school directors who come in and say okay we're just going to start from scratch and just start from the beginning. And sometimes it's just a language barrier. Maybe they're not calling it the same way that the kids know it or something like that so knowing the language that they are learning in elementary school and being able to apply that and kind of help this transition smoothly go over, we're able to move a lot faster I feel. We're able to kind of select some of the repertoire that they're familiar with and then apply that in a different concept that we're trying to do. For example if we're trying to teach a partner song I choose a song that they already know in their repertoire and I just kind of tack on to that and it just kind of... you see their eyes light up when they hear harmony along with this children's song that they have know and had just written off you know. So it's kind of neat to kind of show them that it's all the same thing.
Jessica: They're not starting completely over. It really does relate in middle school to what they learned before in elementary.
Sara: Exactly. Exactly.
Jessica: What do you think has been the most challenging?
Sara: Without a doubt the boys' changing voice. For sure because I've never gone through that and so I don't know how to navigate that and I know there are still master teachers who still struggle with that. And so through trial and error and good repertoire and bad repertoire and learning from that and now that I've got a year of the boys' changing voice under my best I feel like that's been a little helpful. We also have some high school choir directors that have been really great partners through all this transition for myself and for the junior high directors. They make it a priority to come down to visit us a few times a week and we've requested that they come down and see those boys so that if they're having a hard time with something and we just can't connect with them in whatever pedagogy it is that we've not covered, they just say well you just have to do this. And I think well great. Thank you! Will you come and show them how to do that because I can't model that for me. So it's been nice to really have a great vertical team to come in and help out when they really can. But without a doubt the most challenge - the most challenge has been that boys' changing voice. I remember walking in on day one and going uhhhh.. I don't know how to help you. We had one boy who goes " Miss I can't sing that." And I go, "Okay then just mouth it for now. I don't know man. Let's figure it out together." You know.
Jessica: That's definitely something I encounter as well because I teach 5-8 as well and so you do find it's like some of their voices - course they're not changing at the exact same time or the same rate - and so trying to still build their confidence in what they are able to do while also making sure they don't just easily drop down to the octave because you want to keep that higher singing voice so yeah, do you have anything that you've found with that struggle that you're like oh this has worked for me?
Sara: So at the intermediate level where everyone is singing in the unchanged voice kind of range we've not penalized a kid if they've dropped down the octave. I don't want to discourage them and tell no you have to get up there. No you have to get up there. So if they're singing the pitches just down the octave, we tell them "hey - there's this thing called the Tenor/Bass Choir and if you'll just hang in there for six more months, you know, there are going to be other people around you who are singing the same way you are." Having the strong vertical team who can come in and share recordings or share boys to kind of sing for him and give him a chance to hear what that's going to be like kind of makes him feel like he's a part of an elite crowd. Just talking it up and making it sound so cool like these boys have this really awesome kind of thing that happens to them and girls - sorry you don't get it. You know. And I think that helps recruit boys too which is always a given, but something that these teachers have shown me is that transition between head voice and bringing it down a little further without completely dropping is the challenge so we start every rehearsal up in our head voice and we're just trying to work and see how far we can bring that down without dropping. We say okay you feel that? That's you dropping down. Keep it up there. Let's go back up or something like that. Getting them to feel it has been super helpful because then they are at least aware because we've got a couple of boys that just don't know they're droning down there.
Jessica: Interesting. Yeah. I like that having them - so you start high in the head voice every rehearsal and bring it so they can feel because can't it change - it can change from week to week or you know seemingly with some of my students I feel like Oh you were hitting high notes and now all of a sudden this week you've got a very narrow range and then it kind of varies.
Sara: It is week to week. I mean we have a concert next week and we have a boy who has learned the tenor part and his voice has changed and he could be a baritone right now. I'm like bud you have to hang in there. I don't want you to have to learn a whole new part. You know? Just know that the next concert round we're going to move you down. Just hold on tight.
Jessica: When you do your warmups with students, how long do you usually spend on say warm-ups, ear training, all of that before you work on repertoire?
Sara: In the beginning stages of learning repertoire it's probably half the class. Because if I do warm-ups and ear training or sequence that in a way that's helpful for the repertoire coming then it makes the learning of the music a whole lot faster because it's a skill they already have in their tool belt. They know the solfege. They know how to sightread well, but if there's a tricky rhythm and I set that up in the warmups well then they're able to fly through that and grasp onto it a whole lot faster in the repertoire. So the beginnings stages I would say half the class in warm-up and then once they've got the pieces down and then we're able to focus on polishing and perfecting those kinds of things and there's, I would say, just a few minutes less not so much on ear training, but more on warm-ups. Getting them to focus on an articulation that I need them to do. For example we've got girls who are singing the Latin piece who are having a hard time with overununciating the K sound several times because it just takes up so much air and so much breath for a K so much so we'll spend a lot of our warm-ups singing with a loud K. Lots and lots of K... So kkk and activating their diaphragms and singing may be one of those words in a phrase. For example: Quonium is one of the words in their phrase. (singing) Something like that. Get them to feel that over and over and over so that it becomes muscle memory. So then it's all of a sudden the piece I'm not having to drill that phrase over and over and over with the accompaniment because we already did that in warmup. I'm like lightbulb - yes you did it. That sort of thing. I feel like if we can do our warm-ups. If we can focus on the skills needed in the repertoire in our warmups then it's going to make the rehearsal time and the repertoire time feel more successful and when a kid feels successful, they want to do it more and more and more. They love it so much more.
Jessica: So when you're deciding what warm-ups to pull from your repertoire, do you then create your own warm-ups for the pieces?
Sara: Yeah. A lot of times. And some of them flop and I tell the kids you know I had a great idea for that because I really wanted to focus on that, but it's clearly not working so let me try something else. Instead let's try... again another example of failure and how it's okay.
Jessica: So I would imagine that it would be very different selecting repertoire for choirs compared to selecting repertoire K-5 in a classroom where you see them once a week, twice a week if you're lucky. So how do you - what have you found that works really well in selecting repertoire for these middle ages?
Sara: So it's honestly the beginning process of when I'm choosing the repertoire so I'm trying to think back to what did they know in elementary. What sort of language do they know: verses and refrains... that sort of thing or do they only know ABA form and that sort of thing. What can I do that kind of gives them somvesthing familiar? To structure the familiar with and how can I continue to stretch them and grow them in that way? Sequencing part singing has been the most - the biggest - focus for me in choosing repertoire. I want them to sing beautifully in unison first even in middle school. Especially with even the girls voices change a tad bit so giving them a chance to hear just female voices. No males or no changed voices in their choirs. Building that unison sound is still my number one priority. And so our fall concert we sing three pieces - two of them are unison and then the third one we do is part-singing. And I'm making sure that my part-singing that a lot of time it's antiphonal or there's a canon in there. Trying to give them something that they're going to feel successful in, but still hear that harmony. So sequencing the part-singing in a careful way. Understanding where they're coming from in the elementary level or the intermediate level. Or if I'm in the high school level knowing where my junior higher are coming from. Talking with those directors as a vertical team to see where are they now? Where can I take them? And give them something familiar with.
But within that process trying to make that there's a variety of language. Without a doubt trying to start with Latin so we can get those tall round beautiful vowels. With beginning singers especially a variety of tempo. A variety of meter. For example my 5th graders we are beginning sight-readers and so everything is in 4/4 and I gave them My Country Tis of Thee today in a piece of sheet music. I asked them how many beats are in each measure. Most of them didn't look at their music and go "Four" and there's a couple that said "No no no! It's not!" and they were so excited to have 3/4 time signature you know. And they go "What's that going to sound like?" So getting to model for them this waltzing tempo vs this march-like and they were kind of excited about that over something so little. So making sure they have a variety of meter. That's something I know John Feierabend talks a lot about with kiddos coming in is you want them to hear 6/8 as well. Don't give them just one meter. Give them several so they can feel and give them a chance to move in it so they can internalize that as well. I want them to be well-rounded musicians. I want to give them variety. I don't want them to be good at one thing. I want them to taste it all.
For beginnings singers, beginning choirs, I also want something that's diatonic. I want to give them that's sight readable because I want to build that skill hand in hand and put those together so when they have a hard time with an interval in a song, I say "hey guys that's just so-mi. You've been doing so-mi for years. You've got this down." You know, and so giving them a chance and even still our kids are having the hardest time in sight-reading with their so-mi skip. And so once I bring it back and given them a a couple of reference points and I say do you know that song-
(singing): Charlie over the ocean
And they're like oh yeah I know that one. That's so-mi guys! That's the one you learned that early on so you can nail that so-mi down. And without a doubt it's still just a little sharp or just a little off so choosing something in the repertoire that has something in there that I know there's challenging with, I want to give them a reference point with that. So if I know so-mi skip is hard for my kids I want a song that's got a little so-mi in there. Or if there's a do-fa in there, that's great because they're going to need that next year in sight-reading so give them a reference point.
Let's see... in repertoire also looking for tessitura. Where is it going to hang out for most of the time and where's that going to fit in my ensemble's range? For example boys changing voices, you know, we've got an unusual number of kiddos in our boys class that cannot sing very low notes so I can't choose anything lower than I would say an E or an F below middle C so that's kind of challenging to find some 2- or 3- part repertoire and so being careful as I'm looking through at that range. But also where is it hanging out? Is it hanging out in the lower range? Are they going to be able to have the stamina to sing through that whole piece? And same for my girls. I don't want them to hang out for too high for too long and if it is up hight, what kind of vowel shapes are they singing on? Because if it's E vowel sounds, that's going to be so shrill. So I want them to feel successful and I want to set them up for success and that's all in the choir of the repertoire that I'm picking. And if I choose something that's too challenging for my kids they're going to feel like they're failing when really it comes back to it was a bad decision on my part. And I've had to say that to the girls a couple of times. Last year we chose a song for UIL that was acapella that was really a challenging piece and I told them sorry! That was my fault you know. I chose a piece that I really loved and that I could read, but I had to put myself in your shoes and you rose to the challenge and you did it, but it was hard and you had to show a lot of grit while doing that and you learned a lot, but I'm hard I pushed you so hard so soon. So giving them a chance to see how we've failed and set them up and give them a chance to rise to the occasion too has been kind of neat.
After that it's do I like the song? If the song's not likable and they're going to be miserable singing it, then why? We're trying to build a passion and a love for this so that they can continue to pursue the craft or that they can just enjoy the craft as adults later in life in their community so I really want them to love what they are singing. And without a doubt usually it's the most challenging piece that is their favorite because they've had to work at it and they've had to persevere and they feel victorious once they've gotten it down. So it's exciting.
Jessica: So how do you do your score study, I'll say, to help you look at the repertoire and decide you know all of these things?
Sara: Yeah, I have a book that I got in college and it's automatically opens to the score study page. I've juts worn it down so much. It's called Evoking sound: Fundamentals of Conducting and Rehearsal by James Jordan. And I have so many of his resources because he's just very well-read in the topic of choral music. And within it it very specifically asks after you've chosen your piece what things to mark. Things like dynamics and crescendos and meter changes and that sort of thing, but also text stress and you want to find the thematic and imitative material. Where is it that sounds similar? The A sections and that sort of thing. Where is it coming back? Underlining tempo changes. Something that's been most helpful has been the harmonic analysis because I feel like we get so focused on teaching the intervals and the solfege and the hand signs and that sort of thing and then moving on to the text so quickly that they don't understand it in the context of the structure of the song with the accompaniment help them hear where this is going when there is a key change. Help them understand. You know you're going from this to this because listen to the accompaniment. Do you hear where it's going and that sort of thing. So being able to study that and help see okay they're shifting keys right in this area so we need to change solfege, yes, but do they understand why and do they understand how that's going. Cause a lot of times the kids can naturally anticipate, you know, the changing of chord or something like that and so being able to pull that out for the kids and knowing where it is for myself and how to play that ahead of time so they can hear this is where it's going. Do you hear how if you're flat here, what that's going to sound like in this chord if you don't repeat fa again? Or something like that.
Jessica: When you're teaching repertoire, do you ever play the piece for them just on the piano for the first time through? Or sing it through or listen to recordings? Or do you often have them sightread sections? Or do you pull out warm-ups that they'll find within the music or all of the above?
Sara: Yes. All of the above in a certain sequence. I will if I know that there's a tricky skip or there's something coming I want to set them up for success by giving them a chance to do that in warm-ups or some ear training beforehand. For example if there's a so-re that's not something that we often go over in class and so I will find some exercises or I'll put something together where they're having to walk down from so-fa-mi-re - so-re something and get that in their heads so that once they see it in the music they go 'oh that's not hard - I know how to do that.' But their brains haven't connected that yes, that's because I've planned that. So planning a way to set them up for success by sequencing the warm-ups just so or if it's a harmonic progression that's a little funky trying to give them something like that in the warm-ups or the ear training ahead of time. We usually start with solfege. Our kids write it all in cause that's the way they've been taught to do that. So they write all their solfege in and then sing through the whole thing with solfege even with accompaniment before we ever look at the words.
And then for me I have them speak the text the way that I want them to sing the text first. So we speak it in rhythm, but with the vowel shapes and with the consonants and with the rests in their list and then add pitch in last because otherwise they're just going to sing through it and kind of garble up the text. If they're going to start the text, I want you to learn the right way so I don't have to fix anything later. Just makes everyone's live easier you know. And then what I found is they kind of help for those days I nee vocal rest or I need a substitute. I will find a few recordings on YouTube and set up a Google Form. A google assignment. They have to listen to one recording and I'll ask a few questions about what they're hearing. In measures eight, then what's happening in their piece or do you hear that crescendo that we were working on? What are they doing with that here in this piece? Or after they already know the piece and they know what it should sound like, hear a few choirs on YouTube that do it well, that maybe don't do it well, or exceedingly well. I want them to hear good choirs and I want them to hear how they're growing as well. So that's been kind of neat to be able to just put that together and to see their faces and to hear their comments and when they say something like "Wow - their vowel shapes really need help on that tall O or that Ah" I think yes you hear it! Maybe not when you're performing it, but you hear it.
Jessica: With the repertoire as well, in rehearsal time how do you decide if you're going to start the beginning of the piece or the middle or the end? How do you make those decisions to go "Okay this rehearsal I'm going to start here?" Or teaching it not just front to back.
Sara: Right. I like to teach from back to front. I like to give them an idea of where they're going. If you don't know what your goal is, how are you going to get there? So I want them to understand where they're going and so I'll often start at the end and just on solfege. Nothing too elaborate. Give them an idea so that when they get to the end of the piece that's the part that's usually the most familiar at that point and because they've rehearsed it so many times they feel most successful with that and if they can end a piece feeling successful then you can't really get any better than that.
Jessica: What do you love about teaching secondary?
Sara: I love seeing my kids every single day. I really do. Because I get to see them every day we have that chance to build a relationship with them and really connect with them and build community with them. And although I feel like we got to do that a little bit in elementary because we see them for six years, there's just still something missing when you don't get to see them every day. Even my kiddos that I had them when they were kinder babies all the way up, they still didn't have as a strong a bond as they did with their classroom teacher because I didn't get to see them every day. Now that I've got these girls and guys every single day it's nice to see this familiarity with them and they want to come to me with their drama problems and with their questions and it's just encouraging to see.
Jessica: I love that too about the middle school and probably in high school as well. I've never taught high school but just how you have that more bond with them and I think it grows faster because of the consistency and middle schoolers too, I think, that relationship is so key. I mean relationships were important in elementary as well because you go them a long time, but I feel like you lose them if they don't know that you care about them and if they don't feel like you don't know them, there's more tension there, but if they feel like you're on their side, you're here for them, they'll do anything.
Sara: Yes. You just have to listen to them. And oftentimes that's all these kids want is someone to hear them out even if its petty little cafeteria room drama, they just want to be heard.
Jessica: Exactly. So speaking of relationships you know, you have the relationships with your students, but you also have the relationship with your head directors. How do you work alongside them and what's your advice with working alongside a head teacher as an assistant?
Sara: Right. Well in the same way with every relationship I feel like they all have their own dynamics and because of the way that this weird schedule works that's shared between two campuses I kind of feel like it's a little like being bipolar having to jump back and forth sometimes. Being flexible for number one was for me to be understanding that these two master teachers that I am coming in fresh and new have never had an assistant before. They've never had to share their program or share their ideas or share their kids. And here comes...I kind of feel like the evil stepmother and coming in and trying to steal their things. You know and I want to make sure that I'm careful and respectful in that process as well. So last year was a real learning year for all of us and lots of grace given throughout the process. now that we've got that year under our belt kind of understanding and reflecting what worked, what didn't, why didn't it work, why did it work so well. So I think divide and conquer has kind of been our theme this year because last year just didn't work out very well. I felt more like a student teacher last year which was so so strange and so being able to share and divide and conquer and understand that okay now we have a better idea. This is a schedule that works well os you do X-Y-Z and I can do that sort of thing. But working at the two different campuses because they have different schedules has kind of been a challenge. So making sure that when we have an expectation that it's all communicated. If something's not working that we share that. We speak up because otherwise it's the kids who suffer and it's the program that suffers and we don't want to let our pride get in the way of that so being able to humble ourselves in that process has been a learning or I guess a tool that we've needed to learn.
So walking into someone else's program and someone else's room with someone else's students was the most humble step for myself in understanding what my role in that was. Building relationships with the students and getting them to see that we're two different people is helpful as well. And being flexible. And letting the kids see us fail. I feel like it's a lot like a marriage. You know! They need to see what good conflict looks like and what forgiveness looks like and how making a mistake is okay, you know. Except that for me who is recovering from a need from control and people pleasing and perfectionism sometimes that is so difficult for me to swallow my pride and do that. But giving them a chance to see that it's okay for it flop and for it to not work and make mistakes and we can try again tomorrow has been helpful. Because sometimes the girls come in - for example, on Monday after Thanksgiving break and give them sight-reading on day one and for them to look at each other and go "I don't know what happened. You've slept since then. How many of you sightread over Thanksgiving?" It's okay. But consistency is key and giving them permission to fail has been neat and permission to fail even in relationships you know. Sometimes they see frustration between the two of us and I say "Y'all I'm trying to kick caffeine right now and it's not working is it." Something silly like that, but those things are key. Communication. Humility. And flexibility has been key in all of these relationships and trying to figure out a new position. Those kinds of things.
Jessica: It's a whole work in progress. And we work all literally works in progress all the time. Sometimes I think failing like is harder for the teacher than the students sometimes too because it's like you want them to learn and you tell them oh it's okay to fail, but then as a teacher you're like well I can't fail and I've got to get it all right, but for them to see you do something wrong. Like today I made multiple mistakes today, but there was something I was teaching and I was like "Wait. Hold on." It was with sixth grade and I was teaching this new melody I hadn't taught yet and I thought I had worked out the plan of how I was going to go about it and I got to the third measure and all of a sudden I was like wait because I had slowed the tempo down to allow them to get it so when we sped it up they had the sticking and everything on the bars. I got to it and I was like wait I need to think about how slow that would go os I was like give me a minute and then I made a few mistakes and I was like okay we've got it. For them to see hey we have to work things out too and that we don't get it right or we might get it here and go whoops - hold on let me try again, but I think them seeing that and learning that oh okay they're... flexible and you know, it's good for them.
Sara: And it helps them see and build that growth mindset that just because I fail doesn't mean I'm going to give up and scrap this piece altogether. I'm going to persist and persevere and continue trying and fail a couple more times in the process.
Jessica: Exactly. Exactly. so I have two more questions for you. And ones that I didn't plan this one at all, but I'm curious. Even though everyone's teaching situation is different in the middle years and you have to know your kids and what repertoire works for them, what are some of your favorite pieces that you've done with students?
Sara: Most of my favorite pieces come from my work with the Garland Children's Chorus. And the pieces that worked well, the tried and true kind of pieces, but I find that for some of my older kids it has text that isn't relatable or feels too kiddish. And so I'm careful not to go overboard with those pieces. There's a piece called Sing to Me by Andrea Ramsey that is still my most most favorite and last year I had my non-varsity girls do it and they fell in love with it. We did it in our fall concert. I thought it was a pretty simple beginning piece. It turned out to be a little more challenging than I anticipated, but they rose to the occasion and they often asked that we sing it at UIL and I thought it wasn't on the PML and so I put it down as a choice piece and one of the judges said, "Actually I think this is a grade two." I said Oh is that against the rules? I'm so sorry. Please excuse me. But the girls loved it and I loved it and I was so passionate about it.
And then there's another piece. It's a version of - an arrangement of This Old Man - and I was introduced to it by Michael Chandler at one of our sharing sessions at Orff and I love love love that piece because it's just so fun and it splits them into so many parts that they kind of look around and think who this is kind of cool because they have to be independent in that. So that one is a whole lot of fun to do with my beginning choirs.
Our boys like to sing songs, gosh, and most of the songs are sea chanties, but they kind of like it because without a doubt there's some kind of obscure words in there or they're talking about ...a can of grog is what they had to sing about today. And they go what is grog? And I said honestly I don't know. I'm so sorry. And then somebody googled it because everybody has their phone and apparently an alcoholic drink is what grog is. And I said well I'm so sorry guys. Well we're not singing the text. We're just solfeging. That's okay. We don't need to know that. You know. But anyway our boys really like sea chanty pieces and so I choose from solo festival or solo books something like that that have already been put together, you know. Honestly there's a couple of lists that I've stolen from other master teachers. There's one within our district who has her list of tried and proven junior high middle school boys pieces and I just pull from those because if someone else has already figured out what works, why am I busting my hiney to find something when it's already been found?
Jessica: Right! Yeah. Interesting. Have you used the book One Accord at all? By Georgia Newlin?
Sara: Yes!
Jessica: Because that's one of my favorite resources that I always go to for part-singing and really getting in those folk songs and yeah - I love it.
Sara: I love her sequence. I just think gosh - when she wrote that all out I was like Duh! Of course. Why haven't we been doing this forever? And when a piece doesn't work, I go that's because it wasn't sequenced right. They haven't done X-Y-Z just the way she said to.
Jessica: Yeah! For the last question you can take it however you'd like, but just for those teachers listening what do you think has been the most helpful in relating and working with your middle school students?
Sara: Being real with them. Being authentic. And listening to them and owning up to those mistakes like we've talked about. And apologizing. And listening to them. And sharing personal stories. And listening to them. Gosh I feel like these junior high kids just want to be heard and a lot of the kids that I've seen I don't feel like their parents - they feel like their parents don't hear them out. My mom just always says no all the time. Or they think I'm being dramatic. And yes. Yes you are, but it's what they're feeling and gosh they feel it so strongly. Their hormones and their emotions are just so ramped high that it truly feels like a major life event when something like that happens and they just want to be heard. And so they just don't want to be written off and I want to be sure to give them the chance to be heard and feel safe. They're going through some major emotional rollercoaster and they don't know how to regulate that. So what seems like something so silly to us it can feel catastrophic in nature to them so belittling them is only going to push them away. Giving them a safe place to express what they're feeling and feel heard is gonna have them coming back even if they don't like to say... We have one girl who was in choir and I thought she loved it. She opted not to do choir this year. Her parents really pushed her to do some other elective courses that would count for high school credit and so sometimes that's the motivation. But she still comes in here every morning to give me a good morning hug and there's other times where something's happened at lunch and she's says I just can't do it today Mrs. Rond. Can I just do lunch with you? I'm like absolutely! So if I can be a safe place, you know, just because I will let her gab and talk about her lunch or something like that, I'm fine with that. You know.
That and getting them on Instagram on our page. They are so into taking selfies and having an online presence and I want to give them a healthy way to do that and so one of the things that we've done is in a photo scavenger hunt. In the beginning of the year I put them in groups and I tell them okay you have to, you know, take a picture with all of these lists of pictures are worth however many points and everyone on your team has to be in it and so you've got to be creative. Take a picture of you in a human pyramid. Or you acting out a scene. Or you... something like that. And that is just silly and goofy and it gets them to start building healthy relationships and you know get also - a shameless plug for our social media - and getting that out there as well. But they just enjoy I think being social so much of this age that they just don't know how to do that in a healthy way and so I love doing that for them and giving them the chance to do that. And also kind of giving them some reality checks at the same time.
Jessica: Right. Yeah. And so shameless plug or not - what is your social media site?
Sara: Oh gosh we have several. Our choir is all over Instagram and Facebook. Facebook I believe is just Cooper Junior High Choir. And I think our Instagram is @cooperpatriotchoir. There are a couple other Cooper choirs out there so we were careful to put our little mascot in the middle @cougarpatriot choir. And it's kind of fun to just good to give the kids a presence on there when we have a fundraiser or when we have a spirit night. For example we had one: Nothing Bundt Cakes. I told the kids they could go throughout the week. if they put their receipt in the box it goes towards the profits go towards the Cooper Junior High Choir. To kind of boost it up, if you post a selfie of you putting your receipt in the box then you get entered into a drawing to win a free hoodie or something you know silly like that, but without a doubt people start sharing and tagging us all over Facebook. They're so excited when they see a friend tag. It's just kind of fun to do that kind of stuff.
Jessica: Absolutely. And then if teachers want to reach out to you, do you have contact info that you'd be willing to share?
Sara: Sure! They can email me: sara.rond@yahoo.com. Would be the best place. Otherwise I'm on Facebook. Sara Rond. You can find me. There's not many Roads so you can find me.
Jessica: Thank you for sharing. I feel like this is so beneficial for those middle school teachers who are new to the field and even those who have taught a long time just thinking through repertoire and working with other teachers and just really reaching middle schoolers where they are.
Sara: Yeah. Thank you so much for giving me a chance to lock arms with you and kind of go through this progression together. Nobody has to do it alone and we can't.
Jessica: No. We can't. So thank you!
Sara: Thank you!
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