Mr. B's Blog

I am officially the new Director of Instrumental Music for Pentucket Regional High School and Middle School. I am happy to join my former teachers and now colleagues Zach Field, David Schumacher, and Ellen Hart in making the music department live up to its full potential.

When I was student teaching at the elementary level, I played music and had the students draw what they heard. I then scanned their pictures into IMovie and put the music in the background creating a soundscape. Enjoy! "Firebird Suite" Soundscape

I had a great teaching day today. I think it was because I had my first coffee in like five days so I was really excited about all of my classes. My 6th grade general music class is working on creating raps about pollution. They are pretty funny. I had one student who is always an issue. However, I told him at the end of class that he did really well today. He was engaged the whole time and did not cause any trouble. After I told him he did a good job, he asked me if he could go around the class to collect all of the papers and pencils!!! Ahhh...that's when you know you are doing well teaching! In this class in particular, you really need to think of things that relate to the students in order to make connections with them. Band was fun. I've been working on Sawmill Creek with the 5th graders. I have been really focusing on having the students perform half notes with high quality. The piece is going to be a hit!

I am hoping that whomever the new President of the United States is, he will evaluate No Child Left Behind and make music and the arts mandated for public schools PreK-12 with extreme definition. We'll see what happens.

So today I did a phone interview with the magazine "Teaching Music." We talked about advocacy and how I recently spoke at a "No Child Left Behind" event in Boston, advocating for music in our schools as part of the core curriculum. Apparently it is going to be in the next issue! Pretty cool. In other news I did a hand clapping activity with my sixth graders today. We first listened to "Clapping Music" by Steve Reich. I did the usual "what did you hear" and got the usual answers. From there I split the students up into three groups and they created their own clapping pieces. It was amazing because I got to see students who normally fear to participate being actively engaged with the activity. Really cool!

So yesterday was graduation day for UMass Lowell. The celebration actually started the night before with a reception honoring Senator John Kerry, honorary degree recipients, and student award winners of the Chancellor's Medal. The dinner went awesome as I got to spend time with two of my friends, Steve and Mellisa, both of whom were receiving the medal. I spoke to Chancellor Marty Meehan for a few moments to reflect on the event. I told him it was more professional then last year's awards dinner when I received the Chancellor's Medal. The Allen House has become the main highlight of the South Campus. Saturday went great. For the first time, each person's name was read and everyone received their diplomas in one place, the Tsongas Arena. I got to wear a crazy cool trustee cap and gown. The new provost from Northeastern sat next to me. We both gave each other a look when we were walking to the platform because our seats were like right behind the podium, like rig...