Front Line Reporting

Spent Friday as a music teacher. Made some rhythm compositions with the older kids. Gave the sixth graders drums and rhythm sticks. Might as well have given them PCP and bullhorns, they were that noisy and wild. I guess it is kind of silly. "I am going to pass out noisemakers, but nobody make any noise with them." It turned out to be the most interesting class of the day, watching them really try to listen to the rhythms on I created and play their little hearts out trying to mimic my clapping.
The Kindergarteners got to watch a video on music and sound including a portion on the 30 something lady who conducted the Philadelphia symphony at the time. Upon seeing her at the front of the orchestra (in close-up) one little girl yelled out in a completely matter of fact tome, "that's a man! Dressed up like a lady!" It was like a half-pint Mystery Science Theater with me as the only audience member. About halfway through, during a particularly grooving musical interlude, on little boy in the middle turned and made eye contact with me and without breaking his gaze, slowly got to his feet and started dancing like a maniac. Soon the whole class was on their feet going wild and occasionally glancing over at me to see if I was going to put the kibosh on their impromptu discotheque. I sat back grinning and enjoyed the show.
Now I am a French teacher for the next week.

Side note... One day I returned to my 8th grade IB science classroom to find that someone had changed my name on the white board from "Mr. Harkness" to "Mr. Lockness." I was stunned. All I could think to say was, "I am really disappointed with this group." I stormed over to the board, grabbed and eraser and pen and switched it promptly to "Mr Loch Ness." I can't believe kids these days.