Blog Post #6: The Festival of Champions/The End

On Saturday September 24, Murray Sate University invited twenty-five marching bands to participate and compete in the annual Festival of Champions. Luckily for me, the Boonville High School Band of Gold was one of those bands. I was working most of the day, trying to help with running the competition, but I got a few hours to prepare the students for the preliminary competition. I met up with the band at the warm up site, and immediately knew, just by the look on their faces, that they were ready to perform. It had been two weeks(the competition on September 10) since I last saw them perform, and this time they were a lot more focused. The band, during warm up, sounded more mature than I had ever heard them throughout the season. They had a nice, rich and dark tone and only missed one release during the entire warm up. I was very pumped up for them to perform, especially after asking the band kids if they were ready to throw down their best performance to date, and getting a screamed reply "YES!!!!" The students marched on to the field and played an amazing show. After their performance, the students, the rest of the staff, and myself all eagerly awaited the announcements of which bands made it to finals. Out of the twenty-five bands that competed in the preliminaries, the judges selected twelve for finals. Although I watched a great performance by the band, I was still unsure if it was going to great enough for a spot in finals. To both mine, and the band's surprise, the announcer called Boonville High School as one of the finalist bands for Festival of Champions 2011.

This is when  I realized that if you come focused, and perform as if you will never get to perform again. even against all odds, you can come out on top. The students did perform this way, and were rewarded for it. They made it to finals, and performed well again. The band placed 11th overall, next to some very fierce competition. Great job guys!

This post will also be my last, sadly, because my project for this term has drawn to a close. I Have learned so much and will now take this opportunity to reflect on what I have learned. The biggest lesson I probably learned about myself and my teaching abilities is that to be an effective teacher you must have patience and remain open minded. Even though these are very broad lessons, they have really helped me to learn more about myself. I learned that in one class period, you can't try to fix everything that needs to be fixed, it's impossible, especially if you're picky. If I could do things differently, I would just try to focus on one thing at a time so that the students don't get information overload. Most students can't handle trying to change multiple things about their show at one time. The other lesson I learned, which is to remain open minded, is one I am sure will help me grow as a future educator. Staying open minded is what can make or break a teacher in my opinion. Over the time span I spent working with this band, I sometimes caught myself only trying to teach with one technique, instead of being open minded to how students learn, and teaching using multiple techniques. I feel that if I can really broaden my horizons on different styles of teaching students, I can become the "master teacher" and build up a great program for the arts in whatever school I end up in. Overall, this experience has been quite rewarding and, if given the chance, I would do it all over again.

Blog Post #5: Focus Anybody

Finally, the anticipation and waiting for the performance was coming to a close. The students were eager to perform, and i could see it on their faces as they were walking off the bus. After the students had their snack, the band parents and volunteers told them to start changing into their uniforms. After the students got done changing into their uniforms, they got into their fundamental marching block formation in the parking lot. It was finally time to start the warm up process, which is crucial and should be treated in a delicate manner, for the show. The first warm up exercise we, the staff, do with the students is a physical stretch/warm up. This was the students' first competition, and they were acting very unfocused during this warm up. It was very difficult to instruct the students through the stretching process, because they were all very hyperactive. It wasn't until the playing warm up that the band started to focus on their goal. I honestly was in shock to see this focus from the band appear out of nowhere. As I began warming up the brass section I was thinking to myself, "Wow, I am really proud of these students for turning up their focus level." Unfortunately, about halfway through the warm up, I was got off guard, yet again, by my students. They were beginning to lose their focus again, probably because they were anxious to perform. They were talking and missing attacks and releases. Considering they didn't start losing their focus again until towards the end of the warm up, all i could do to help the students get their focus back was by giving them a pep talk.

 I told them that they have everything they needed to be successful for their performance, and that they just needed to get in the right state of mind. i asked them to close their eyes and envision themselves successfully executing their personal hardest moments in the show. Doing this helped them to gain focus and they performed very well. After a successful performance,  I made the connection that focus is a crucial part of performing. If anybody is not focused on the task at hand and in the right mindset to do well, than there is no  way the task will be completed at the highest possible level of achievement. I'm very proud of these students for turing on their focus. Although the band took second place at the competition, I feel that if the students had been focused from the point they got off the bus, until they were marching off the field after the performance, they could have taken first place, easily.