talesofthemusicroom - Tumblr blog

talesofthemusicroom · 2 months

Text

So s question I get asked a lot by adults is "oh god why jr. high?!" and... there are a lot of reasons, but I think I will let today speak for itself as a prime example of exactly why. The following all occurred in the space of about half an hour.

Stepped into the hall to investigate a weird noise. Found a Very Short Boy unsuccessfully leaping up to try to condescendingly pat his Very Tall Friend on top of his head. Result: repeatedly slapping his friend.

Me: so that is hilarious but also please stop slapping your friend and go back to class.

Very Short Boy: MEOW ( And then he ran away up the stairs.)

Returned to my classroom. Grade 6 Class Clown (the absolute LAST kid I would expect this from) asks a super insightful and respectful question about my rainbow safe space posters and what it's like to figure out parts of your identity throughout your life. Led to an awesome 15-minute conversation with most of that class about how different minority groups have existed and been perceived throughout human history. I have had conversations with university-educated adults that had significantly stupider questions than these kids were asking, it was absolutely amazing.

Amazing conversation came to an abrupt halt when, simultaneously, the bell rang and a student who wasn't participating accidentally hit a different kid in the nuts. Kid who got hit immediately called his (usually good friend) an autistic monkey boy, and I snagged the AP from the hallway to deal with that while my kids swapped out for my other batch of grade 6s.

Turned on an iPad to show the incoming class what to work on for today, and yup, someone was searching up Fart Noises and forgot to close the browser before putting the iPad back. 🤦

Ah, teaching. If you don't have mood whiplash yet, just wait 5 minutes!

#teacher life #teacher #music teacher #educhums #Grade 6 WHY

2 notes · View notes

talesofthemusicroom · 2 months

Text

"what does a TARDIS malfunction sound like?"

"idk just dump the entire goofy sound effects library in the span of 10 seconds. That should do it"

35K notes · View notes

talesofthemusicroom · 4 months

Video

My elderly black cat/house panther agrees. Him good luck.

Black cats are lucky. (via leahweissmuller)

849K notes · View notes

talesofthemusicroom · 7 months

Text

Today's lunch supervision was enlivened when a grade 7 decided to pet a pigeon on the school stairs. The pigeon was calm and just flew away a little bit to a ledge on the side of the building and continued its pigeon business. The grade 7 on the other hand was a feral wild animal who attempted to climb the school wall in pursuit of their goal and had to be forced down and sent inside for sanitizer.

And continuing what seems like it will be a delightful year of grade 6 boys, one of them accidentally said "you're welcome" instead of "sorry" when I asked them to stop talking through instructions, which made me laugh. So now his entire group of friends is busting into a note-perfect rendition of 'What can I say except you're welcome!' from Moana every time I need the class's attention. THIS is the nonsense and shenanigans I specifically request in my classroom, children, well done, 10/10 for you.

#teacher life #teacher #music teacher #educhums #grade 6 #grade 7 #pigeon petting #you're welcome

6 notes · View notes

talesofthemusicroom · 7 months

Text

Family medical situations made the start of this school year a lot harder than most. HOWEVER! The children's shenanigans stop for no one, so Tales of the Music Room resumes!

Somehow one of the grade 9 boys lost his uniform trousers the first day of school. He wore gym shorts for 3 days and made the mandatory number of lost pants jokes.

I had to call parents today because the correct response to 'kid, get your instrument, it's 15 minutes into class' is not and will never be a massive eyeroll and "I'm TALKING, bro!" In the most sarcastic voice ever.

And in the process of creating a STOMP-based project a group of grade 6 boys has constructed a more or less accurate replica of a medieval fort out of empty boxes in a corner of my room. A different group in the same class brought in a FULL FORMAL TEA SET and functional paper dragon puppet head. Assuming their music is equally creative, I may FINALLY after 6 years be able to award full points to a group for this project.

#teacher life #teacher #music teacher #Band Teacher

1 note · View note

talesofthemusicroom · 8 months

Text

we were the liminal kids. alive before the internet, just long enough we remember when things really were different.

when i work in preschools, the hand signal kids make for phone is a flat palm, their fingers like brackets. i still make the pinky-and-thumb octave stretch when i "pick up" to respond to them.

the symbol to save a file is a floppy disc. the other day while cleaning out my parents' house, i found a collection of over a hundred CDs, my mom's handwriting on each of them. first day of kindergarten. playlist for beach trip '94. i don't have a device that can play any of these anymore - none of my electronics are compatible. there are pieces of my childhood buried under these, and i cannot access them. but they do exist, which feels special.

my siblings and i recently spent hours digitizing our family's photos as a present for my mom's birthday. there's a year where the pictures just. stop. cameras on phones got to be too good. it didn't make sense to keep getting them developed. and there are a quite a few years that are lost to us. when we were younger, mementos were lost to floods. and again, while i was in middle school, google drive wasn't "a thing". somewhere out there, there are lost memories on dead laptops. which is to say - i lost it to the flood twice, kind of.

when i teach undergrad, i always feel kind of slapped-in-the-face. they're over 18, and they don't remember a classroom without laptops. i remember when my school put in the first smartboard, and how it was a huge privilege. i used the word walkman once, and had to explain myself. we are only separated by a decade. it feels like we are separated by so much more than that.

and something about ... being half-in half-out of the world after. it marks you. i don't know why. but "real adults" see us as lost children, even though many of us are old enough to have a mortgage. my little sister grew up with more access to the internet than i did - and she's only got 4 years of difference. i know how to write cursive, and i actually think it's good practice for kids to learn too - it helps their motor development. but i also know they have to be able to touch-type way faster than was ever required from me.

in between, i guess. i still like to hand-write most things, even though typing is way faster and more accessible for me. i still wear a pj shirt from when i was like 18. i don't really understand how to operate my parents' smart tv. the other day when i got seriously injured, i used hey siri to call my brother. but if you asked me - honestly, i prefer calling to texting. a life in anachronisms. in being a little out-of-phase. never quite in synchronicity.

50K notes · View notes

talesofthemusicroom · 9 months

Text

judgemental assholes, also known as middle achool students... no, that thing/person is not 'cringe, bro!' Just because it exists. 🙄

Cringe started as a verb describing a physical reaction, i.e.: "I cringe when I see [x]."

Modern slang has turned cringe into an adjective describing anything to which a person might have such a reaction.

.

This shift in language is illustrative of a shift in culture.

.

For a while there, in the early 2000s, there was this big sex positivity movement and we talked openly about kink and queer sexuality and creating a culture of consent that broke away from traditional conservative ideas of moral respectability.

And now we are in the midst of this giant purity culture backlash, this giant push for rigid conformity all over the internet. Anything that deviates from the norm even remotely is ridiculed.

And this cultural shift is perfectly encapsulated in this singular linguistic shift, this verb becoming a noun.

The Revenge of the Pearl Clutchers

That's what "cringing" is. It's pearl clutching.

When the pearl clutchers turned cringe into an adjective, they turned a reaction into an accusation. The pearl clutchers don't want to take responsibility for their own kneejerk emotions. They want to blame YOU.

They are saying, "My disgust isn't the fault of my own backwards prejudices. It is YOU who are inherently disgusting. My inability to cope with even the slightest deviation from norm is not the problem here. YOUR refusal to rigidly conform is the problem. I am not the one who is cringing. YOU are the one who is cringe."

Fuck 'em.

.

Take the word back.

Cringe is not something people are.

It's something judgmental assholes do.

32K notes · View notes

talesofthemusicroom · 9 months

Text

Today in niche genres of joke that I can never get enough of and will probably still be secretly thinking about four years later