Perseverance

One of the big HOWLs at our school, (an acronym for habits of work and learning) is perseverance.  I need a great deal of it lately, because I am challenging myself regularly in so many different ways.  First of all, I have taken on all the choreography for the musical, "High School Musical, Jr."  This is a great show, and the story is perfect for middle school, all about trying new things and being yourself, and finding yourself by pushing the status quo.  However, there is so much choreography to create and figure out in it, that I am pretty much in over my head.  That being said, I am loving it!!  Must I love being challenged to do well with this?  Perhaps, I don't know.

One other way I am persevering is with the choral music I am learning to play for the fifth-eighth grade choruses.  The theme this spring is "musicals" so the music is complicated, fast, multi-layered, full of huge, many-noted chords, full of off-beat rhythms, full of really huge extensions with my hands.  I will persevere, and it is only January, so I have some time to work at it, but I get frustrated, because every time I come back to it, I feel like I am sort of starting over from scratch..shoot!! But, just like a little child who is learning to walk, I will not give up until I am soaring!!

The best news is that with my new fifth grade students I can use these experiences to show the importance of perseverance.  I can share my own personal experiences with perseverance with my students.  I works to talk to them about it, also because they all hear me practicing down the hall from their classrooms, and some of them are IN chorus, so they know what the music looks like.  It's just plain HARD!!  I will keep you posted, but wish me luck, will you??