Pajama Day

It was pajama day at Success Academy in Harlem today and no one told me.  But I had stickers and an agenda and today felt better.  I'm increasing my batting average at having good teaching days.  In fact the last three times visitors have come into my class, it has been at dream teaching moments, everyone engaged, everyone getting it.  Thanks guys.  Captain America and Pink Sparkle Stars.

There is such a game of power between teachers and students and I enjoy the humor of it, unless I'm losing terribly.  (I know they still have that power over me.  I'm not yet invincible.)  As per their request and good educational practice, everyone in the room has responsibilities, which they more or less maintain.  My time keeper enjoys usurping the class focus by frequently announcing how much time we have left ("Five minutes twenty seconds!"  "Four minutes fifty seconds!"), but then that is also a barometer for me because she is perhaps the most easily distracted.  Maybe time to move on.  And I'm not sure my point keeper was completely diligent and honest in her point logging when I saw the tally at the end of the day.  But I'm not really worried about that (what's an extra temporary tattoo for their focus) and no one seemed to have any problem with what she announced.  But I should be careful, because there are some in the class that I believe care very deeply in their points.  Or do they?  What a farce this seems to be.

And with my increasing batting average comes increasing enjoyment.  One of my beginning students has sung both the blues and Michael Jackson's "Thriller" plucking only open strings for his daily performances.  And pajama day, I hope I get another chance.

Sunday Morning in Lower Manhattan

A morning walk on this Sunday morning to lower Manhattan.  We saw the touching and reflective 9/11 memorial, ventured to Battery Park and through the financial district, and stepped intoTrinity Church between services.  And then we found a small bagel shop with a very long line and knew that would be lunch.  It was the most delicious bagel I've yet had in my life.  Mmmmm, I can still remember the perfect texture of the wheat core and the touch of garlic and poppy and sesame.  And the clear fall light sifting through the skyscrapers, falling on the rivers and bay, dazzlingly in the haunting memorial fountain.  

Chinatown Lessons

I really want some cello students.  And so when a colleague of mine asked me to substitute teach for him this morning in Chinatown, it was a definite yes.

It took an hour to get there because on the weekends there are inevitably route changes to the subway.  I got off the bus and walked through a courthouse district, closed off to cars.  There were some Chinese people practicing Tai Chi in the shadows of the tall buildings and as I rounded the corner and stepped out of the restricted zone into Chinatown, I immediately saw the Florentine music school.  I walked in and got the receptionist's reluctant attention.  "You're early," she said.  I had figured 15 minutes was at the very least polite for a first time.  She escorted me to the room where I would be teaching, a tiny kitchen complete with refrigerator, washing machine, dish washer, microwave, sink, some folding tables, a drum kit, and a piano.

I squeezed in and tried to make sense of the space.  Where would I go?  Where would a student go?  It struck me there was no music stand, but it seemed silly to ask for one.  Where would it go?  This was a used room, an unnurtured space.  Strange to imagine a lesson happening.

But it did.  Three of them, in fact.  And it felt good to stretch those rusty muscles again, good to feel the things that I've been learning in the past few weeks come into use.  And over the course of the three hours that I was in that room, I was also the beneficiary of a college prep Algebra lesson being shouted in a Chinese accent at a class of students on the other side of the thin wall.  "18...  X....WHAT IS X???  YOU SEE Y????"

The teaching conditions were a little less than ideal, the pay a little less that than it should be, too.  And yet I would eagerly return.  It's pretty cool to change the character of such a tiny room, to leave it seeing it differently than it was when I entered.

Learning Teaching Learning

I am surrounded by wonderful teaching models.  There are so many ideas moving around, so much creativity and curiosity.  I hope education is never complete.  I think this is why I'm so drawn to it.  Will we ever conquer all the things it poses: how we learn, the ethics of what is taught, the politics of how education is structured, the interpersonal relationship of teacher and student?

I had the pleasure of watching Pamela Devenport, a master (truly) Suzuki teacher give two very different lessons to two very different students this afternoon.  They learned from her,  I learned from her, and my lesson for my students will be influenced by her as well, and where else will it all go?  Learning from learning, teaching from teaching.  It is such a difficult art and only as I start to step into it with some self-scrutiny am I starting to see the incredible virtuosity of certain teachers.  I am a beginner, and a very fortunate one, indeed.

Catching Points

Yesterday they were great, and today, chaotic.  I think my scholars are as pecuniary and fearful as the rest of the adult population and my job is to award points and corrections and stick to it.  I'm disappointed in my ability to do this consistently.  So I'll keep asking myself if I can do a better job.  Can I put more of my focus on the points and corrections distribution?  100% of the students 100% of the time.  This is what the art teacher advised me today.  Everyone is so supportive.  They know it takes time, that it's difficult.  But that doesn't mean I don't want to have it solved now.  It's a quick fix once I get myself on board.  And yesterday was great.  They were expecting their punishments and I didn't dole them out because they didn't need them.  It was a mistake.  So many thoughts about what I'm going to do with the content of the class and really I think it is far more simple, just lay down the law.  But it is so hard to do that.  To really be fair, to ignore someone if they are talking out of turn, to call them on it, and punish them.  I have to trust that they can be trained.  That's the goal for Thursday.  And better bow holds and the left hand on the cello and better rhythm reading.....

I joined the Riverside Choral Society because I had missed singing for the past ten years.  And it is wonderful to be singing again and it is wonderful to be in this group of people that are very nice and talented amateur musicians.  But we do have to go over things a lot and I miss the rigor of orchestra.  I miss the engagement of sitting next to a really great stand partner.  I miss the trombones.  Yes, that's right.  There are so many colors, so many nuances and capabilities.  I'm surprised how much I miss it and I can feel the atrophy of it every time I'm singing in this group.  For some reason it invokes the desire for more.  And maybe for that reason it is something I need to be doing, to at least be reminded of the importance of making music with others, that it not silently crawl out of existence.

But there is a frustration here.  I wonder if longing is actually connected with lacking or missing.  I remember longing so much in high school.  For what?  Or maybe it was for all the things that have come into me.  I long much less now and somehow feel less sincere.

I had a moment today where I wished to be blind.  It was a feeling, a desire to lose my eyes and ability to see.  Hard to know what to make of it.  Maybe I wish to see the beauty of the front hallway of our apartment again, the way the elevator door closes.  It can be hard to note all the beautiful things once experiences.  How to keep seeing.  

Rainy Mornings, Diner Booths

A chilly, wet, autumn morning through the streets of New York.  Coming out of the subway and feeling the wind whip the mist along the pavement, up the buildings, a warm smell of something, from a bakery, a food cart.  On a street somewhere some one is walking.   Maybe it is someone I know, someone I've loved, or will love one day.  I'm looking at all the faces and searching, and not looking at any of the faces and feeling.  This time of year is a departure.  The sun is leaving us, the warmth is leaving us.  We never think of the arrival of the dark, the arrival of the cold.  

So many departures come to mind on a morning like this.  How many departures does one have in life?  

I've been reading Nurtured by Love the classic Suzuki text I've read at least twice before.  But this is the first time I've read it since having been in Japan.  It takes me back a little.  I understand Suzuki, his way of life and way seeing the world in differently than I did before.  To Westerners, he is a magical person.  He is indeed, but his thoughts about pedagogy are certainly the product of the classic approach to Japanese education and culture.  It takes me back.  I read a few lines of Japanese this morning for the first time in months.  There is an irreplaceable feeling there.  It's a hidden alcove inside of me that can never be closed, even if it gets shriveled and shoved under all the pertinent parts of living now and living to come.  I've been opened in yet another way.  How many ways can one be opened?  How many times can one love?

With the cold, we've started a diner search.  An hour spent in a booth, across from a solitary woman reading a book, a well-lipsticked and laid back waitress with a light evening, a decent cup of hot chocolate, and some horrendous cherry pie.  One diner down, and so many more to discover in the upcoming cold that approaches this city.  

New Yorkers

As I left the school today, wondering if I'd gotten any closer to figuring out the classroom management needed for these students, it started to rain.  And then next to me came the voice, "Ah another fellow musician."  A woman dressed in black, carrying a bassoon on her back.  "It rains on us all," I said.  And here was an immediate friend, originally from Israel, speaking in a candid, comfortable and straightforward manner.  She could not have been more New York.  We chatted during our train ride to the same stop and she got my email address.

And on the way back home a stranger paid for my train ticket when my card didn't read and I got stuck in the turn style with my cello.  I could have backed up, but he was too fast.

People are so open and closed with the strangers around them.  They ignore them or interact with them, but not much in between.  It is so liberating to be in this city after Japan, where emotions were so covered, but still understood.  There need be little deciphering here.  The pace is fast enough that there isn't really time for it.  Any offense gets off a few stops later, walks on.  People are too involved in their own lives to be concerned for others.  And so kindness actually feels more sincere, more open.  Like the woman who spontaneously opened up to me, or the guy who paid for my fair.  They have nothing to expect in exchange.  Just people being nice and open.  No strings attached.  Another side of human nature.