How do you teach a subject you barely know?

[titankore]

Ok I am an afterschool teacher that teaches art, engineering, and chess. But I came into one of the schools I work at and was told while carrying my paints I had to teach chorus.

I don't really sing I was in a few school musicals but that's it.

How do I teach this? Does anyone have some suggestions? I wanna be cool like that Portal choir teacher but I don't know where to start

 

[LeonLethality]

Tell the people who are telling you to teach chorus that you don't know how. Seems like the most logical thing to do.

 

[maddawg IAJI]

Well seems like your best bet would be to tell your boss that you're not a music teacher and that if he wants to teach a Chorus class then he should get one. You can't nor shouldn't teach a class that relies heavily on personal experience and training. Math and History you can teach out of a book, singing a certain note is something you need to have an ear for.

 

[titankore]

Tell the people who are telling you to teach chorus that you don't know how. Seems like the most logical thing to do.

Unfortunately I need the work and I am afraid I would be fired if I didn't teach it. My boss isn't too keen on keeping me up to date on the goings on with the program. so I have had to hit the ground running with every program.

 

[LeonLethality]

Tell the people who are telling you to teach chorus that you don't know how. Seems like the most logical thing to do.

Unfortunately I need the work and I am afraid I would be fired if I didn't teach it. My boss isn't too keen on keeping me up to date on the goings on with the program. so I have had to hit the ground running with every program.

Well it seems rather unfair to those you are teaching that their teacher is not good on the subject and to you that your employer is making you do something outside of your ability, this is really something you should talk with your employer about.

 

[DuplicateValue]

Or just start taking lessons yourself, and teach the students what you learn in each lesson.

 

[IronCladNinja]

Teaching about stuff you don't know is easy, I've done it before, and my teachers in junior high and high school did it all the time. You should just gotta look cool and make some stuff up.

 

[easternflame]

You don't spread knowledge you don't know about. It's not cool.

 

[Booze Zombie]

Ask the teachers who know about it what you should do and look up the particular subject on the internet?

 

[Rylot]

Just be confident and they'll go along with it. It's not like they know the difference, and who knows, you might be right.

In all seriousness is there maybe another choir teacher at the school you could talk to, if not maybe a choir teacher at another school?

 

[chainer1216]

to me it sounds like its KARAOKI TIME!!!!

pick some songs, play them alot, have students sing to the music while its playing.

and if any of the students asks why the class sucks, tell 'em the truth, that you didn;t sign up for this and that they're school doesnt give a shit about the arts or about them probably.

 

[Polaris19]

Do some research and see if you can figure it out.

Or tell them that you have no idea what your doing and it would be better for the class if you didn't teach it.

 

[Raiha]

choose songs that you really love. make them appropriate for a school setting, but extremely unusual for the class. it will either be an amazing success, or a terrible flop. either way, people will remember it and you will have a great story to tell.

 

[Hero in a half shell]

Do you have any musical experience, a good singing voice and a good ear for music? Because if not then it may be impossible to teach a choir. Depending on how serious the choir is it could be easy to bluff your way to doing an alright job, or if they are very competitive maybe it would be better to admit defeat.

Look up the theory behind conducting first of all, the way conductors wave their arms to keep rhythm, etc. with that theory you should be able to lead the choir.

Generally choirs are taught in stages, I think something similar to first of all introducing the song you want to sing by bringing a recording of it. let them listen to it, talk about the feelings behind it, how it should be sung emotionally. You may need to find music with seperate harmonies for bass, tenor, soprano etc. and to teach these just focus on one of the groups, getting them to sing their piece, while the other groups rehearse their parts quietly, go through each part in turn, and bring them all together for what will be a disatrous first try. You may want to try introducing a short solo, or quartet, especially useful if there are a lot of weak singers, as it means they (and you) don't have to worry about the bits that they don't sing.

Just try and think back to how you were taught, vocal warmups etc. and do the same thing.

 

[Paksenarrion]

Tell the people who are telling you to teach chorus that you don't know how. Seems like the most logical thing to do.

Unfortunately I need the work and I am afraid I would be fired if I didn't teach it. My boss isn't too keen on keeping me up to date on the goings on with the program. so I have had to hit the ground running with every program.

Welcome aboard, fellow teacher! We are the most underpaid, under-appreciated, and overworked profession in my opinion.

Try a few simple rounds at first. For example, Row, Row, Row Your Boat:


Move on to a bit more involved songs that have simple, repetitive melodies.

Or, if you want to get them in tune with each other, there's nothing like "Still Alive" to get them singing together; different voices doing different parts.

Deep voices act as the beat box, while the rest act as the chorus. Have the class experiment; each student should be able to choose which voice they want to do.

 

[katsumoto03]

Here's the thing: You don't.

 

[PhiMed]

Tell the people who are telling you to teach chorus that you don't know how. Seems like the most logical thing to do.

Unfortunately I need the work and I am afraid I would be fired if I didn't teach it. My boss isn't too keen on keeping me up to date on the goings on with the program. so I have had to hit the ground running with every program.

Welcome aboard, fellow teacher! We are the most underpaid, under-appreciated, and overworked profession in my opinion.

I hear this a lot from most of the teachers I know. My family's full of them. It's not true.

My mom was a high school math teacher, arguably the most despised subset of the teaching profession, and even she thought this was a silly assertion. Probably because she was married to someone who actually was overworked. We all kept our mouth shut when the other members of our family started complaining, but I've been hearing this a lot in the wake of what's going on in Wisconsin, and I'm kind of tired of it. (For the record, they should be allowed collective bargaining rights. There's no practical reason to take that away... but that's another issue)

Most teaching jobs in the United States pay about $50,000 a year in salary and about $25,000 in benefits. All this for working 45 hours a week (assuming 10 hours of working at home... which is more than generous. Only really good teachers spend that amount of time at home) for 36 weeks. If you're doing the math, that's about $46/hr in compensation for a job where you get every holiday off, you get huge chunks of the year off, and you don't work weekends. That is not underpaid, and it's certainly not overworked. There is no other job that nets that much for that little effort with a degree as easy to obtain as a teaching degree (Yes, you read correctly. It's easy. My girlfriend in undergrad was majoring in education, and she used to ask for my help every week. I regularly laughed at how easy her coursework was).

The thing most people admire about teachers is their selflessness. I'm not saying teaching is easy, but I am saying that every time a person complains about his compensation and workload, that undermines the perception of the profession as a selfless one. Most people would love to have the job security, hours, and hourly pay scale of a teacher. The only drawbacks are that because you work so little you get paid less overall, and that you have to put up with other people's children.

So stop it.

OT: If you're working at a large school, then asking them about the wisdom of having you teach chorus may be a viable option. If you're at a smaller school, then they probably cannot afford to hire someone else just to fill this role. Most of the older kids who are in the chorus will most likely be pretty familiar with how it's been run up to this point, so they can help to lead the way until you're comfortable enough to establish your own tempo and style.

I'm sure there are resources on the internet for teaching chorus. Most high school choruses and bands are awful. The only ones that are really good are the ones where there has been a leader at the same school for years. Many of them were probably a bit out of their element initially as well, so I'm sure you'll do fine.

 

[Berethond]

You don't, for god's sakes.
You simply cannot teach something like music without decades of experience. I have seen people try and fail miserably.

 

[Jark212]

Pick up some intro books on chorus then study the hell out of them while taking some notes, then you can regurgitate what you learned to the class. Make sure you go over those notes because those will really help you out...

Good luck with your job...