Internship

As you may already know, I have a teaching internship while studying here in London. Until yesterday, I had absolutely no idea what that would entail. It looks like it'll be great though.

Started at Ashmole primary school Monday morning, and helped out with some instrument demonstrations. I think I'll be teaching flute and clarinet lessons there. They don't seem to understand that I'm capable of teaching more than one or two instruments--I'm certainly not great at all of them, but IC does a good job of preparing us to teach beginners just about anything. Anyway, there are about 4 other music teachers at that school alone, to be able to teach lessons on all the instruments.

Monday afternoon I went to Bonneville primary school. I think this one was my favorite. The kids are SO cute! At Bonneville they were particularly well-behaved, and seemed so excited to get started. Here I'll be doing one lesson with year 3 (7-8 year-olds) singing, drumming, and playing recorder; and another lesson with year 4 (8-9 year-olds) playing band instruments. I'm the only woodwind player of the three of us, so it looks like I'll get to teach quite a lot.

Today, my first school (St. Luke's) had no idea I was coming. Elizabeth was with me, and we had a similar experience to what she had yesterday: they've had IC students before, but no one bothered to tell them we were coming. Oh well. We're doing year 3 and 4 here as well, but the year 4s are doing strings instead of winds. So I'll be teaching violin and cello! I talked to a few of the kids here, and one of them asked me if I knew Michael Jackson. No, I told him, not personally. "Oh. Do you know his doctor?" Haha! Apparently, to an 8-year-old British child, all Americans know each other.

Then this afternoon I was at St. Stephens, and we'll be doing basically the same things as at St. Luke's. What's nice about this place is that Laura, the team leader, knew about me, and she's already given me lessons to plan. Oh, and one of the year 3 boys told me that I sounded "quite posh." :)

So, while it's all been very disorganized, I think we'll have a really good time teaching here. I'm definitely looking forward to it.