If that seems a bit overwhelming to you in the current situation, you are not alone.
Music teachers are known for being uber-prepared, super organized, and ready for anything. And now our whole world has been turned upside down, and yet we teachers, who are still trying to acclimate to this unusual scenario, are redesigning everything we’ve ever done and are working miracles to ensure our students don’t miss out on learning while we’re apart.
But this is SO hard to do – especially since there’s almost TOO much information out there to filter through. That’s why I’m offering to help.
In case you missed it, on Monday’s webinar I shared a few things that you might find helpful during the school shutdowns and resulting upheaval to education as we know it.
A few highlights from the webinar include:
- Understanding the “three types of teaching,” pre-, during-, and post-COVID
- Recognizing how our roles as music educators are changing and will continue to change and how to use this opportunity to grow rather than feel overwhelmed
- Discovering the power of how we music teachers can emerge as leaders to help our students and communities deal with the losses and changes that are happening at warp speed
I want to be sure to invite you to be part of my FREE series on Mondays in April where I’ll deep-dive into the content of my second book, in which I teach teachers how to reduce their own stress levels and how to most effectively teach students who come to us distracted by overstimulation of electronic devices, anxiety, depression, ADHD, and so many other things that keep them from learning.
When I wrote the book, I knew teachers around the world struggled for ways to keep students engaged in a very distracting world. Now more than ever, the techniques I share in my book are critical building blocks for helping students and teachers adjust to a new normal that faces us when we return to school.
Rather than waiting until the book comes out in May, I am sharing the content on these webinars NOW. This is the time to start thinking about how you’ll teach students who have experienced all kinds of trauma, new stressors, and situations that will make “normal” learning even more challenging.
I’ve taught over 30,000 classes during my career (so far!) Long before the COVID-19 outbreak happened, I’d experienced personal challenges of teaching when I was dealing with my own stress and exhaustion, and over the years I’ve seen more and more kids coming to my classroom with all kinds of barriers that make it difficult for them to learn.
That’s why I wrote my books – to share what I learned so you can learn from my lessons and not have to struggle as much. The content of the books are more relevant now than ever.
Here’s what Dr. Tim Lautzenheiser said about my most recent book:
“What is uniquely wonderful about Lesley’s writing is based on her own teaching journey. Her wisdom reflects reality rather than hypothesis. She has “been to the well,” she “walks her talk,” and she does it with a sense of understanding unknown in common hours. Rather than simply focusing on the obvious, she delves into the WHY-WHAT-and-HOW of the given situations:
* Here’s WHY you need to take stock of this concern or breakdown.
* This is WHAT you can do to reset your compass to achieve resolution.
* …and this is HOW you can do it to reach your destination.”
Dr. Tim Lautzenheiser, excerpt from the foreword for Love the Job, Lose the Stress, releasing in May 2020
Join me on Music Ed Mondays to dig in to the new realities of what it takes to be a successful music educator in a post-COVID world.
See you on Monday! Lesley
