music, therapy, and me

My AMAZING sister has been nominated as Teacher of the Year for her school. This fact simultaneously thrills and petrifies her. She hates public recognition and would be perfectly happy if other people never acknowledged her hard work and phenomenal success working with kids. She doesn't like the rigamarole of interviews, essays, and smiling when people are talking about how wonderful she is. She doesn't really think that what she does is all that wonderful - it's just the way teachers should teach. She is an amazing teacher. She works with seven to eight year olds who love her. She has a reputation for being tough but fair. She also can take a child who is labelled as "behavior problem" and find the way that child needs to be nurtured, spoken to, and taught. Amazingly, those "behavior problems" become children in her classroom, and often for the first time in their educational careers. Kids learn in her classroom. She can differentiate her instructi...

Hello, readers. I've got to tell you about a blog post that I just found that is probably going to influence some of my posts for a bit. Wendy Nielsen, over at Writing A New Story, posted a link with several writing prompts, and I'm ready to dive in! The first one I chose is #51 on her list. The Ten Songs I'll Listen To For the Rest of My Life: (NOTE: This is really a difficult idea for me since I have music that comes and goes in my life, but I think I'll be able to find 10 songs that are mine forever... Just know that I may have to shuffle the list if another great song arrives...)   I'm Going to Go Back There Today - I love lots of music from the Muppets, but this one is my absolute favorite of all times. Gonzo is so pensive, hopeful, and resigned to his fate. My favorite lyric? "There's not a name yet, for old friends who've just met." It gives me shivers. The World Ain't Slowin' Down - Ellis Paul - This song came as part of m...

When I logged into Blogger this morning, I found that the number of blog views has hit 10.063! Wow! Now, I know the scheme of all things "bloggy." 10,000 may not be a great statistic in 7 years, but for a little place where I post random thoughts and ideas about music as a therapeutic medium and what happens in my small world of music therapy, it is pretty tremendous to think that people out there in the internet have looked at these posts over 10,000 times. Thank you! So, anyway, back to the normal state of things here at music, therapy, and me !  This week's inspired Therapeutic Music Experience (TME), the Anger Monster Mash , seemed to be a hit for most of my students. Depending on the overall level of function for group members, we talked about our responses to feeling angry. We evaluated whether the responses were "good" or "bad," specifically in terms of hurting self, others, or property. One group labeled each of the 11 monsters with a behav...