A substitute teaching challenge

[jbuck919]

I volunteered for this in contact with the teacher. Most music teachers have a difficult time finding subs, and when they do, it becomes a babysitting operation. However, this is the chorus teacher in my own local high school, from which my mother graduated (in a different building of course) in 1938. At the risk of boasting, I'm still pretty spectacularly talented to do this (I can just read everything off that they might possibly be singing), so how could I turn it down? I'll follow up later next week to let you know how it went.

[jbuck919]

To follow up because I said I was going to, it went fine, and I'm sure the kids were happy and grateful actually to have a musician sub, but I must blush a bit, because I gave myself such airs while I forgot that a very great deal of programming at the high school level these days is what I can only call jazzed-up. Western notation will handle this, but it is not what it is ideally designed for, and I would have needed a lot more prep time to get it precisely right, not that I would have any interest in doing so. The other problem, which I handled with grace and has nothing to do with musical competence, is that this teacher gave me literally the most complicated lesson plans I have ever had to deal with.

[John F]

I hope you're not discouraged by the lack of messages by others in this thread. It's gotten 94 views, which means lots of us have been interested enough to read it, and if we didn't have anything to say, I guess you said it all.