Spring Concert Prep.

Well the madness has already begun. When I was offered the job at MRA back in November, all of the teachers were hating their lives and telling me not come because they were in the middle of preparing for the Christmas/New Year concert for the parents and families. The thing about the concert was that it became the most important thing and over trumped everything else going on in school. For Morgan, the concerts are a way to display that the children are learning English by singing English songs, and the parents eat up the adorable costumes and choreographed dance routines.

MRA puts on two concerts a year – one in December for Christmas and New Years and a second in April for spring. Each class sings one Chinese song and two English songs. Each song has to have a costume and choreography – and we are not just talking about a 30 second finger play – the performances need to be about two minutes for each song, and the costumes and choreography are supposed to be pretty elaborate. Since the concert is approaching, all the teachers have begun cramming to teach the kids songs and dances, and hand make costumes for each kid. Based on what the other teachers told me about the Christmas concert, concert practice begins to take over the entire day the closer it gets. Morgan expects teachers to cancel lessons, choice work time and outdoors time to practice singing and dancing with the kids every day, and teachers are supposed to use all of our break and prep time to make the costumes for the kids.

Well today, I got my first taste of concert prep. Thursdays are Chinese days – the Chinese teachers lead the whole day and they teach all the lessons and I use the down time for prep and planning. When the morning began, the Chinese teachers started off by having the children try on costumes, followed by placing all of the children in their spots for the performance, and then the teachers taught/reviewed the dance for the song several times. After that, the children were given a little bit of choice work time, however, during that time, both Chinese teachers sat at one table cutting, sewing and gluing felt for the costumes (zero interaction with the children). You see, Morgan told the Chinese teachers that they have to have all of their costumes done this week so that they can help the English teachers make costumes, too (we have not even started ours, but we have double the costumes). Anyway, after work time, they took the kids outside for a little bit to play (it is beautiful outside today). Once they came back in, I bet you can guess what they did again… yup, you guessed it – concert practice! Then the kids had lunch and took their naps, then went outside, and then (can you guess) sang and danced again… literally. When I was writing in the books today for parents, it was difficult for me to think of anything that the kids did today beside concert practice.

The worst part is how inappropriate the whole thing is. I mean, I am supposed to sit my kids down and teach them a songs and dance, then each child is supposed to practice singing independently in front of the whole class. When the Chinese teachers do their music and movement lessons, two children stand in front of the class and perform a song, then the children vote on who sang it best and the better child gets a reward! Crazy, right! When I do my lessons, we sing fun songs, and we sing in groups and if any children want to sing in front of the whole class, I have them volunteer to sing in groups or two or three and they are all rewarded for having the courage to do it.

It is just so odd to me how much pressure is put on kids in general, but definitely the pressure to sing. Parents honestly believe that if their child comes home singing English songs, that they are learning to speak English. Well let me tell you, I can sing about 5 kid songs in Chinese, and I still only understand about 15 words total.

I don’t know, but anyway, the two next months are pretty much going to be hell…  not only am I going to be under a lot of pressure from Morgan and my parents in regards to the singing performance, but I also have to hand make 32 costumes. Additionally, I have to write 18 observation reports, and assemble 18 portfolios for each child for my parent-teacher conferences in May (each consisting of 30 pages of anecdotes, pictures and observations).