Last week in my Secondary Music Education class I had to perform a mock lesson and teach the first 5 minutes of a 6th grader's first clarinet lesson. I focused the majority of my lesson on breathing and developing proper breathing, I think that all wind and brass players should have a good breathing foundation. Was it the best thing to start with for a 6th grader's first lesson? Maybe, or maybe not. I view breathing as a good way to center one's self. Many 6th graders do not take time in their day to breath deeply and properly. I think by that age, introducing breathing is a good life long skill that they can take with them into any field. It calms the mind and body and prepares one for the task at hand. If it is followed by some stretching it can create a very peaceful place to start teaching. My professor Brandt Schneider suggested that we could start our very first lessons building habits and procedures that students will need to strictly follow throughout the year. It would be a good time to begin teaching students how to walk into the room, when to walk into the room by, what they will need, where to sit, how to get their instrument etc etc. I think if I started with that I could have gone on for hours.....Think about a 6th grader, how long do you think you can hold their attention while you explain procedures and they have an instrument within reach.
The reason I started the way I did was so that I could build good breathing habits from the start as well as center my students and start the class from a calm place. My mock student was my professor and he seemed to respond well to instructions. I made sure to keep my focus very precise so that I wouldn't overwhelm him with information. I notice some of my colleagues bouncing around many ideas in 5 minutes which confused me let alone a 12 year old. I knew that I had to keep it focused and related to the topic. I had to make sure that my student knew what we were learning and why we were learning it. I introduced the clarinet as a woodwind instrument and asked him guiding questions about how we create air (knowing of course where that question could take me....perhaps need to reword that question next time). We were able to get through the lesson smoothly and work on proper deep breathing; filling the lungs from the bottom up and expanding our stomachs instead up raising our shoulders. I drew him a picture of a water balloon to represent his lungs and water to represent air (I chose a water balloon as opposed to a regular air balloon because water is something that we can see filling a balloon). He seemed to understand what I was saying and hopefully understood why we need to breathe to play woodwind instruments; because we need WIND of course!
Overall I think that I taught what I wanted to teach in that first 5 minutes of the lesson and hope that the student wasn't just yessing me to death that they understood. I tried to speak very short and ask lots of achievable questions so that the student could be engaged. I'm learning that lesson planning is tough work and even planning 5 minutes can take a while. It will come with practice!
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