Observation 1: Bella Voce, DeWitt HS

Observation 1

I will be observing Mrs. Meghan Eldred at DeWitt High School this semester!

Before I entered Mrs. Eldred's room for the first time, I noticed that DeWitt High School is a large school that is nicely renovated. I realized that usually for music ed placements, I have not been in a high school, so the dynamic was different than I expected. The secretaries in the office were more casual about my coming and students didn't really notice me. I knew that high school students would be very interesting.

The choir room has its own vestibule with practice rooms off of a little hallway. The room itself is large with a high ceiling and a window! There were cheerful decorations and quotes about music all over the classroom. I am observing Bella Voce, a young women's choir of sixty or more girls. The class meets at 7:45 in the morning, so I'm sure that influences their mood, but they seemed extremely sleepy to me for their number.

With breathing exercises, stretches, and warmups, the girls seemed very shy. Mrs. Eldred reminded them, "Nobody's looking at your arms," when many of them were self-conscious about waving their arms around. They seemed self-conscious in general and were very quiet.

During sight reading, the students had a good handle on the concepts, but were again shy to really sing out. I noticed that Mrs. Eldred sang louder than all of them combined whenever she modeled for them. She said to them, "Sopranos, don't chicken out when you get to that high spot." When they didn't sing the high spot with much confidence, she used this again saying. "Nobody here but chickens. That's you guys." I thought this was an odd way of directing them. They sort of giggled but seemed generally unaffected.

It seemed that the students had a lot of respect for Mrs. Eldred because there weren't really any classroom management issues. The students payed attention and stayed focused for the whole class. I didn't even notice Mrs. Eldred ask people to stop talking. I think that this group is somewhat shy by nature, or at least they were this day. Their singing was definitely shy, and Mrs. Eldred pushed them to sing out more. She had a very structured, meaningful plan with lots of connections between warmups, sight reading, listening activities and rehearsing pieces. I think this helped students stay calm. I think they were focused, but I also think they are just really sleepy at this time. I'm ready to see them on another day as well and whether it is the same dynamic. They seemed happy, but even after class was over they were only mildly chatty for what I would expect of sixty plus underclassmen ladies.

I look forward to seeing more sides of this group!