School Daze

I just got back from four hours of music theory testing at U of I. One hour of aural skills from 11 AM to noon and then three hours of written theory covering functional harmony, tonality, and twentieth century techniques. I think I did pretty well on most of it but there are some glaring holes in my music theory training, particularly when it comes to the twentieth century. You see, I was never very good at math, nor did I enjoy it, so I've never really gotten into serialism or tone rows or matrices. Now that I'm 31 years old and a bit more mature than I was as an undergrad I will probably feel a little bit more like learning these things. Either way theory testing is a great way to spend a Saturday.

This week I've had a bit of stuff to do. On Monday and Tuesday we had TA orientation and the U of I Graduate Academy. It was basically a two day workshop that tried to cram an entire teaching degree program into twelve hours of sessions. Additionally I had to teach a mini-lesson or "microteaching" on Friday to a class of five other grad students. I taught them how to write a major scale in bass clef. Unfortunately my eight years of public school teaching did not get me a "pass" so I had to take all of the classes just like everyone else.

I also met with the supervisor for my TA position this week. He and I sat down and talked about my responsibilities as a student teacher supervisor this year. It turns out that I'll be driving up to Chicago quite a bit this semester to observe student teachers in middle and high schools. I have four student teachers under my observation: three of them are placed in the Chicago surrounding suburbs and the fourth is in town here at Champaign Central High School. I will make three observations of each student this semester which means a bit of commuting. The university will pay for my gas and hotel when I go up to Chicago and I will get to check out a car from the school as well. I'm looking forward to getting out to the schools, to watch the teachers, and to see all of the different programs. This will be a great experience. Let's just hope that I don't get lost in the Chicago suburbs!

Classes start on Monday for us, but my first full week won't really hit until the second week of the semester. Conducting lessons and seminar start once the orchestras are up and running. I'll be helping out with the auditions on Monday and Tuesday so this week I'll only have one official class. Once the semester gets under way and all of my classes begin I will have class Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. I've set aside Tuesday and Thursday for observations and studying. It's a pretty sweet schedules - a far cry from those 6:45 AM jazz band rehearsals everyday!