Creating the Culture & Community You Want in your Choir

I remember graduating with my music degree, teaching certificate in hand, totally ready to take the choir program by storm in my brand new school.

Right.

I knew music. And I knew the very basics of lesson planning. But, I didn't know the most important part of my job: Creating a Culture and Community that gives the students a safe place to risk and sing and grow - and that makes them want to return year after year.

Whew. Just typing that run-on sentence makes me a little bit anxious. It's a HUGE undertaking.

Where to start?

The very beginning is knowing who YOU are and what YOU bring to the table. What are your strengths? How can you use those strengths in the classroom? What are your weaknesses? And, how will you work around your weaknesses so that there's not a "hole" in your instruction or classroom management?

Then, it's time to investigate the behavior policies of your school. I've learned that admin will support you if your policies line up with the school policies. AND, they'll usually support you if parents have already seen and signed off on any expectations/consequences written into your classroom policies. So, what are the expectations and behavior guidelines in your school? If you can build from there, you're in a good place.

Create - or implement - the guidelines that will support the culture you WANT to create in your classroom. For example, my culture must be SAFE. Kids won't risk singing if they don't feel safe. Therefore, any bullying, mean talk, or disrespectful action is an automatic conversation in the hallway, email home, and usually a lunch detention (or more, depending on a few other factors.) First time. Real talk. There's no room for disrespect in the choir classroom. It usually only takes one student receiving a consequence, and the others figure it out real quickly.

There's no need for negativity or anger (although, kids being mean to kids does get under my skin). I try to remain calm, show little to no emotion, and follow through as my policies state.

The most exhausting part of teaching is the act of being CONSISTENT!! But, I promise, it's TOTALLY WORTH IT!! And this includes me being the same person each day they arrive. Yes, we're allowed to have bad days. And I'm honest with them when one of those happens. But, generally, they should know who they're going to see when they walk in the door each day. My goal? Be one of the most welcoming and positive people they see every day. Notice things about them. Ask a couple quick questions as they come in the door. Let them know they are SEEN.

So, a safe place.

And, a fun place! I want my students to laugh every day, to learn how to work together and have fun at the same time. So, I build in all kinds of silly focus activities, group activities, etc. I teach LARGE classes, so the normal team building exercises are a no-go. I have to do large-group type of things. Some simple ones are:

1. Pass the crystal ball. Pretend you have an invisible crystal ball that is worth SOOO much money. Carefully pass it to the kid on the end of the first row. Ask them to carefully pass it to the next kid etc. Challenge them to carefully pass the ball without dropping it and shattering it into a million pieces. Then challenge them to see how quickly they can do it. * We teach middle school. There WILL be some student who decides to chuck it across the room. I act sad. Pick up the ball. Put it away, and move on to the next activity. The next time I try to do this activity, this kid will receive a job to do that takes them out of the classroom.

2. Simon Says: Speed version. I call this "Fowler Says" and go REALLY fast. Plus, I mix up the commands with the actions I do. "Fowler says touch your head" (while I touch my legs), etc.

3. Start at one end of your choir and have one student at a time say a letter of the alphabet in order. One beat per letter. Late, start over. Early, start over. Wrong letter, start over.

4. Same as above, but with numbers.

5. Count. One person starts with 1, then anyone can say "2", etc., but if anyone says it at the exact same time as someone else, you have to start over. See how high you can go.

6. Forbidden Pattern. Them vs. me. Sing easy 3-4 note patterns. Choose one that is "forbidden." if they sing it after you sing it, YOU get a point. If they DON'T sing it after you sing it, THEY get a point. Play to 3 points. Keep track of how many times they win. What do they get if they beat you _____ amount of times?

7. Do silly echo phrases. "Hey" - in a ton of different ways. "No", same thing. "Hello", same thing. Be silly about it. Change it up every day.

So, we've covered a bit of safe and fun culture. How do you build community?

That one's tougher, the larger your classes are. I see the best community built when we are working on big projects together. Our musical, our contest ensemble, our leadership team for our concerts. We also teach our students to encourage each other, and build time into the rehearsal for that. Little things like "who did you see that was doing a great job with posture? Point to that person." Or "high five 5 people before you sit down" or "fist bump 3 people and tell them good job" before you sit down.

Building time to encourage into the rehearsal teaches them that it's a good thing, and that it's encouraged.

Of course, knowing their names matters. (This is so hard in giant classes! I have pictures of all the classes beside my rosters so I can look quickly...)

Fact Finding Fridays: ask a question that they'll answer during attendance. They could also talk to another person about the answer. Get them comfortable talking with others, but in a way that has boundaries and a time limit. :)

Add in goofy things that they ONLY get to do because they're in Choir. Special songs for special days. Special events for time together. Ya'll know and do so many amazing events and fun things with your kids. I don't think we can adequately measure what it means for them to have a safe place to be real.

These are just a few ideas for getting things started. There are so many more - and I'm hoping some of you will message me with what is working in YOUR classroom!

Here's to building a family from the amazing choir students who've been placed in our spaces. What an opportunity! What a gift!