Erin Emery-Dumas

It’s almost that time of year again — schools begin interviewing teachers for next school year! I wanted to share the list of questions my mentor gave me before my first interview, and how I would answer each of them now that I’ve had two years of teaching experience.

1. Tell us about yourself. You can include anything you would like us to know about you. 

I grew up in a tiny town with about 350 kids in the entire district. I did a program called Teacher Academy with absolutely no intentions of becoming an educator, but after 600 hours in the classroom, I fell in love with teaching. Outside of school, I love yoga, Animal Crossing, crocheting, reading, and going to the dog park with my chihuahua-mix, Gracie, and my husband, Scott.

2. What is your background? Choral and/or instrumental?

Both! I started college as a double major with French horn and as a mezzo soprano. I was in two studios my entire freshman year. Financially, I had to make a decision between the two, and decided on sticking with horn because the instrumental education track went more in depth on each instrument family when compared to the choral track.

3. What is most important to you as a music teacher of elementary-aged children?

I think the most important thing in elementary music education is that students are having fun! If they aren’t having fun, you won’t get any buy-in, and then it’s all for naught. It’s my goal to build a lifelong love for singing, playing, and movement.

4. What are some music philosophies or methodologies you are familiar with and incorporate in your teaching?

I focus on four main music methodologies. This first is Boardman’s generative approach. This focuses on transitioning through the enactive, iconic, and finally symbolic stages of learning in order to set up students for success. Another one I use is by Dalcroze, which focuses on eurythmic movements and improvisation, especially a combination of the two. An example of this would be interpretive dancing to the steady beat. Next I focus on the method of Kodaly, who teaches a lot about singing. He uses solfège, hand signs, and moveable do to make melodies more accessible to students. Finally, I use the methods of Orff-Schulwerk. This method emphasizes the teaching of music in order of say, sing, dance, play. I use a combination of all four of these methods because I think they hold important values for various areas of music education.

5. How would a lesson plan for the lower elementary look different than that of an upper elementary class?

Early elementary lessons focus more on enactive and iconic learning rather than symbolic. There’s a lot of movement involved, and a lot of the songs are taught by rote, then I have students identify the lyrics using iconic images that represent each phrase. There’s a lot of repeat-after-me and improvisation, which is a lot of fun. We play a lot of unpitched percussion instruments, like rhythm sticks, drums, tambourines, triangles, and shakers. We also use simple Orff instruments like xylophones and glockenspiels. In later elementary grades, we transition from inconic notation to symbolic notation. We also work on pitched instruments, such as recorder and ukulele in addition to the instruments I mention earlier. Older students will begin analyzing the elements of music, as well.

6. How would you Mainstream special education students into your classroom?

I use my special education accommodations for ALL of my students! I include visual schedules, inconic images and written dialogue to help translate spoken dialogue, incorporate a lot of kinesthetic activities and movement. I also make sure to have plenty of hearing protection available, because music class can get really loud! I also like to use visual and auditory timers to help students know when we will move on.

7. How do you communicate with parents?

In the past I’ve used email, phone calls, and ClassDojo. I’d like to begin a monthly newsletter as well! I think it’d be a lot of fun to include them in our learning by letting them see what we’re learning about each month.

8. How do you manage discipline in your classroom? Give an example of a challenging behavior that you’ve had in you classroom and how you effectively approached it. 

I manage discipline by making sure students have very clear expectations and success criteria. If students don’t follow the expectations, they receive a warning. I work on a three strikes and you’re out sort of basis. After three reminders, students take a break in the calm down corner. They have five minutes to regulate their emotions and actions, and then I check in with them. For example, I had a student who became very noisy and disruptive after losing a game in class. He took his break, and when I went to talk to him, he was able to tell me about why he was frustrated. We came up with a plan of how to better handle the situation in the future, and the incident hasn’t occurred since. Being able to have a discussion with the student makes all the difference. Sometimes they just need help putting their thoughts into words.

9. How do you embed social-emotional learning within your curriculum?

I like to incorporate a question of the day into my teaching. This is usually done during our hello song. It gives students a chance to tell me about how they’re feeling or what they’re going through, while still incorporating musical goals, such as singing a solo. I also include a calm down corner where we use the zones of regulation and fidgets (tools) to help students calm down their emotions.

10. What do you like most about being a music teacher?

I love getting to share my love for music and watching students be creative! There was a study I read in college that said children develop (not reach) their eventual musical potential by the time they are nine, and I love being a guide to help them learn as much as possible during the years that they grow the most. Plus, music is fun!