My New Job: Carrying on a Music Education Legacy!

The first feeling of my classroom being fully decorated!

Hello hello! ♡

So I have a very exciting announcement to make...

Since August, I have been a music teacher! I've been teaching general music for grades PreK-3 all the way up to 8th grade, and it's safe to say it's been a surreal experience. In this post, I'll talk about the ups, downs, and the fact that I'm carrying on a music educator legacy!

After going through two weeks of Professional Development meetings and getting to know my fellow resource teachers, it was time to make the room I inherited my own! I tapped into my creative side and made it colorful and bright. I am so happy with how it turned out, and all of my kids have commented on it as time has passed!

My handsome Grandpa sitting at his desk at his high school where he taught band for many years!

One of the things that has kept me going even through the toughest of days is remembering that I'm carrying on a teacher legacy. My grandpa was a high school band teacher for many years. When he passed away, a lot of his former band kids found my mom on Facebook and told her how much he meant to them. When I think of being a teacher, I hope that I'm at least making some kind of impression on the kids that I'm teaching. Sure, there have been many good days and many bad days, but I know that I can get through it. I know that my grandpa is proud of me and what I'm doing.

It's been a wild ride so far. I've already presented my first concert with all the students! We had a Grandparents Day performance with grades Prek-3 through 5th grade, and it went amazingly! The theme was "Dancing Through the Decades", and I came up with some clever changes to decade favorites to give them grandparent oriented lyrics. Some favorites were 1st Grade's "My Girl" rendition, with the replacement being "Grandma, Grandpa, Grandma!", and 4th Grade's "Mambo Number Four", where the kids and I rewrote the choruses with all the different nicknames that they have for their grandparents. It was a lively and fantastic experience and everyone loved it! I'm gearing up for the Christmas concert, which will have our middle schoolers playing Christmas favorites on instruments and our elementary students singing some Christmas songs.

I've had some good and bad days, days where I feel like I'm not enough, days where I feel like I'm the best, and days where I just need to get through the rest of the day. I'm learning to give myself some grace, and am excited for the rest of the year and directing our school musical, Frozen Jr! Here's to a great rest of the school year!

Feeling educational,

Taylor.