Product Review - Sherman's Bass Rosin

Wow, back so soon?  It's almost like a regular blog or something!

Today is a product review day - maybe some day if I get truly organized I can have a regular product review day of the week.  Wacky Wednesdays?  Weekly Wednesdays of Wonder?  Wow.  I'll have to work on that.  If anyone has a better suggestion I am all ears.

Enough with the word play, on to the review!  Today we're talking about Sherman's Bass Rosin.

This is something I bought just out of a need (more like desperation, really) as I had zero rosin for my school's double bass.  This became especially important when I had a student who was interested in playing said double bass - the first time since the instrument came to the school that someone other than me would be using it.

All of my experience with bass rosin prior to purchasing the Sherman's was with Pop's Bass Rosin - the stuff that comes in the little red plastic tub with the attached lid; you open it up and there is the rosin cake sitting in a little paper cup.

This stuff.  Notice the paper medicine cup.

I always had the feeling that this was someone's solution to dealing with the mess of making rosin who cared more about their post-production cleanup than the actual end user's experience.  The paper cup is good in theory, but as you use the rosin you have to peel the sides down, which inevitably (for me, anyway) led to sticky fingers, the awful sensation of the bow scraping the paper, and a lot more mess than I felt was truly necessary.  And heaven help you if you ever leave the rosin somewhere warm.  Good luck prying it out of that cup.  It's like trying to chip off an ice block without the aid of melting.

Enter the Sherman's rosin.

This stuff.  In case you forgot.

It comes in a regular wooden tray just like any other student rosin - almost like bass players are considered to be the same as the violinists, violists, and cellists!  I know, crazy town.  The nice thing about these trays is that they allow for true shadow bowing while you rosin.  This is how I have students practice their bow technique - hold the rosin about where your bridge would be and bow, whether you're bowing a song or just back and forth.  The idea is to reinforce the muscle memory on straight bowing, which is so wonderfully facilitated by the sides of the wooden (sometimes plastic) trays.  The downside to the trays is also one of their strengths.  The ends of the tray are open, so there is nothing holding the edges of the rosin back.  This means that if you have a student who drops their rosin like one of mine did last week, it will not only chip and crack, but also start to fall out.  So perhaps this isn't the best solution from a durability standpoint.

As far as performance of the actual rosin, I have not noticed any difference between the Sherman's and the Pop's rosin.  I will be completely honest in that I have not really paid attention to the sound quality of the rosin in particular, but I have not noticed students having more or less issues using either rosin.  At the very least I can say it does not cause any more issues that the Pop's rosin.

And now my favorite part of my Sherman's Bass Rosin experience: the price.  Sherman's rosin costs $3.95 over at Johnson String Instrument (they also sell through Amazon), while the Pop's rosin is listed at $8.95.  Now, I am all for paying extra for higher quality when necessary, but if you're in a situation like mine where students have far more important things to worry about than their particular grade of rosin, I'll take a major cost savings where possible.  Like I tell my students - get to where you can play all of your notes and rhythms 100% correct 100% of the time and we'll worry about the tiny details then.  Now that is not to say that I wouldn't attribute any kind of benefit to improving the quality of your rosin.  Quite the opposite.  If it helps you play better I am all for it.  The thing is, I'm tired of hearing students talk about their playing difficulties like there is some magical accessory out there that will make up for their lack of consistent practice.

"No, really, Mr. Earley, if I get this $200 rosin that was pressed from old growth Douglas Fir trees in virgin forest land in the Pacific Northwest I'll totally be able to play everything perfectly.  My fifteen minutes of practice a week might even be able to be reduced to ten!"

Not me.  I am not an Asian woman.  Just to be clear.

Right.  More like if you practiced five minutes a week it would be a 500% improvement over the current time spent with the instrument.

But that's the cynical music teacher in me that gets tired of being "fibbed" to on a weekly basis.

And I digress.



So my overall impression and recommendation?

Sherman's Bass Rosin is an excellent value for the money, especially for a student who doesn't have issues with dropping things.  I would love to have a student who progressed far enough that I could hear a limitation of this rosin, but I teach 3-5 strings.  Maybe if it was high school I'd have someone at that point, but not at the elementary level.

Also, as a side note - I am giving very serious thought to an experiment.  I'd like to see if I could re-melt the rosin to get rid of the cracks from it being dropped.  I watched a video of a guy making rosin, and have heard of folks who make their own regularly, so it looks to me like it's a question of getting to the right temperature, holding it long enough, then allowing the rosin to cool properly.

If any of you read a news story about a music teacher from Maryland getting killed by his girlfriend for messing up her oven, you'll know that's me.

Also not me.  But the beard is at least heading in the right direction.

But more on that later.

Wow, that's a bit of a break....

Let me start off by apologizing to my followers - all both of you.  I did not intend to take such a long break from my blog, it just kind of happened.  So with that said, here's a quick summary of what I've had going on this school year:

- I started the year with a student intern named Grace, and she had some of the most original ideas for elementary music I've ever seen.  We did an activity with a loop pedal for her second observation and had the students create a loop-based composition using improvised body percussion and vocal sounds.

- I have students who are struggling like never before to play brass instruments.  Two trombones and a trumpet, all three who started at the same time; one of the trombones plays everything too low, the other trombone and trumpet play everything too high.  It's making for a bit of a beginning band struggle.

- I was observed by my principal doing concert prep.  Very strange.  We dissected the form of one of their concert pieces which made for a very useful lesson, but I'm a little concerned it cost me some valuable time that could have been spent on performing and rehearsing.  The neat thing is that I  think I did the best lesson on form that I have ever done, and I will absolutely use it as a touchstone throughout the year.  (Also pretty awesome is that the write-up for my observation was overwhelmingly positive - we'll see how that comes up in the post-observation conference.)

- I have second grade students working on rhythmic fluency using pool noodle notes as well as a worksheet I created.  They are using the noodles to work out rhythms in three dimensions and getting used to drawing notes on the paper, which is a pairing of ideas I got from Tracy King over at Mrs. King Rocks.  If you haven't already, go check out her blog and then her Teachers Pay Teachers store, they're both pretty fantastic.

- First grade and Kindergarten have been working on found sounds, body percussion, and enhancing stories with sound effects and music.  This is especially great around this time of year as I have found many great Halloween-related activities.  As a side note, I have no students at my school with any kind of religious or cultural barriers to celebrating the various holidays throughout the year; I cannot begin to tell you how much easier that makes my job.

My beginning band and strings groups are making progress, painful though it is to listen to at times.  My choir is off to a good start, though I suspect I could be pushing them a little harder.  We have honor chorus starting this week, which I am really looking forward to (aside from fighting traffic to make it to the rehearsals on time).  In about 2 1/2 weeks we have our fourth and fifth grade concert, which should be interesting.  Here's to hoping we pull it off in time!

So that's what's going on in my world, how about yours?

And now for something completely different...

Good morning, internet!

So usually I tend to write about things like classroom setup, goofy things kids have done, projects in the classroom, ideas I've had, and things I am working on.

Today we're going to talk about something that is just a little outside of that norm.

Food.

Yes, food.

I promise this is teaching related.

No, really - it's teaching related.

On April 21st, my girlfriend and I decided to start a program called Whole 30.  Recently the creators of the Whole 30 program have been on TV and radio, as well as featured on blogs and on their own website, as well as in several books.

This came from a suggestion from my girlfriend who sent me a text message to research the program.  Of course, being the obliging boyfriend that I am, I immediately Googled what this was all about.  And promptly dismissed it as ridiculous, too hard, too exclusive, and reeking of some Hippie/Vegan/Earth Child nonsense (and that, dear readers, is how to alienate and irritate multiple groups of people all at once!).

A week later, she brought it up again, and said that a coworker of hers was actually about halfway through and couldn't believe how well it was going.  I essentially decided that I could do it, but would have to do the reading and studying and preparing necessary first, so I promptly bought a Kindle edition of "It Starts With Food."  Before the end of the first chapter or two I was sold.


The entire idea behind the program is that you are eating too much of everything that is bad for you, and that includes some things that you think are healthy.  The bulk of the program revolves around a simple idea: eat nothing but whole food - lean protein, vegetables, fruits, and good fats - for thirty days.  You must exclude all added sweeteners (including honey and agave, especially including artificial sweeteners like aspartame), all grains and pseudo-grains (sorry, no quinoa!), all dairy with the exception of clarified butter and ghee (they give you instructions on how to make your own), white potatoes, alcohol, soy, and legumes.

Now just hold on there one cotton pickin' minute.  Soy?  That's what the health nuts eat!  Legumes??? Those have important nutrients!  No grains at all?  Meh... Dairy?  Isn't milk supposed to do a body good?  Just what kind of tree-hugger crap is this?

Where's the tofu, man?

Actually, those are just about the exact thoughts that went through my mind upon reading the basic tenets of the program.  The funny thing is, after 3 weeks of doing this program, I don't really miss those food items.  Sure, there are a lot of things I can't have right now, and lots of things I may never really eat again (especially in any kind of quantity), but it's absolutely worth it.  There is nothing nutrition-wise in any of those things that you can't get from eating the right food.  Even better, if you are careful about selecting produce that has been grown without the use of chemicals and meat that has been pastured/free-ranged/grass-fed, you're eating far cleaner anyway.  I had started to buy into the idea that maybe pesticides and fertilizers and herbicides and whatnot weren't really something I wanted in my food stream, but hadn't done much of anything about it.  It's expensive.  But since I've begun doing research (some through the internet, some just using the old taste bud approach), I'm coming to find that it is frequently worth it.

As a side note, one of the guiding rules is not to step on the scale for the entire 30 days.

I'll tell you right now that I've broken that rule.  In my defense, my girlfriend started it.

But what's more - in three weeks I've lost 11 pounds without doing a darn thing outside of my normal routine (aside from cooking more).

I have more energy, I don't usually find myself sagging mid-afternoon, I feel better overall, and the 11 pounds I lost came straight off my stomach where I was carrying around all of the adult beverages I have consumed directly or indirectly as a result of being a teacher.  Even better, I've found myself to be less irritable and more patient in general, which was becoming a real problem.  I've always been one of the most patient, laid-back people I knew.  Until about a year ago.  I suddenly realized that I was getting irked or frustrated or downright angry about stupid things that never bothered me in the past.  Having changed my diet, I have definitely noticed a return to how things were.  I know that the folks around me had to have noticed as well.

Now here is the connection to teaching:

I TEACH BETTER WHEN I AM NOT FEELING CRAPPY!

I have had more energy to do things in the classroom this past three weeks. I have had more good ideas flowing this past three weeks.  I have felt more like I am being a positive influence.  I have had more patience.  I am better able to deal with student behaviors and troubles.  Overall I am a much better, more effective teacher, all because I am not fighting with myself to get through the day so I can go crash at home.

I look around the building and see teachers eating leftover pizza, frozen meals that are full of sodium and preservatives, tons of bread and cookies and muffins, and all kinds of things that I'm not allowing myself to have.  And to be honest, I think I can say without a doubt that I feel physically better than anyone else in my building.  And for once, that's not just because I am 15 years younger than the average!  One of the other specialists in my building has been complaining of digestive tract distress for a year now.  Go figure, it all seems to have started when she moved out of her parents house, had no one else to cook for her, and started eating prepackaged everything.  Essentially she has salt-cured herself and loaded herself down with every preservative used in today's prepared meal industry.  I (and another teacher) have tried to show her how much better she could feel with a change in diet, but she is determined it's too much work.

Yes, it is a lot of work to cook for yourself.

But are you an adult or a helpless baby?

I know for a fact that I spend an extra 4-5 hours per week in the kitchen compared to what I did a month ago.  Some weeks it's more like an extra 10 hours.  And this is on top of working 3 jobs.  It's a lot of work.  But since I don't have ridiculous exercise requirements on top of all that cooking, I'm okay with it.

The best part is that I get to eat literally as much as I want.

Let me repeat that:

I GET TO EAT AS MUCH AS I WANT!

Now, that doesn't mean I get to gorge on whatever I'm eating and go until I can't possibly take another bite.  Instead, it means that if I want a few more sweet potato fries, I have no reason not to.  If I want a big plate of leafy vegetables, peppers, carrots, and pork chops I can have it.  I'm even encouraged to cook with lard and tallow!  I haven't yet - still trying to win the girlfriend over on that one - but if I had it, I could use it!  I've been making sweet potato hash and fried eggs frequently for breakfast, and eating an entire plate full.  And in case you've forgotten, I've LOST WEIGHT doing it!

Pictured: Deliciousness.  Also, weight loss.

Another side note - I actually really like another one of the guiding principles behind this program.  There are no cheat days.  In their book, Dallas and Melissa Hartwig actually specifically say that the only "slip" is if you were to physically fall face first into an open box of donuts with your mouth open.  And no, that doesn't mean you can add open boxes of donuts to your home decor hoping to improve your chances.  For three weeks the only to "slips" I've had were for two (I think) good reasons.  First, the guy at Chipotle misunderstood and put hot salsa on my salad - it is made with chipotle Tabasco, which has sugar in minute quantities. No big deal, the rest of the meal was delicious, and I didn't feel any ill effects.  Second, I ran the Warrior Dash last weekend with my girlfriend, her son, and a friend of ours.  At the end I indulged myself with my celebratory free beer that was included in the cost of the race.  I felt like crap for about 24 hours.  No guilt, just consequences - I consumed something that had negative effects on my body, I dealt with those negative effects, and now I am back on track. (I'll admit, I am very disappointed - I love good beer.  I especially love semi-free celebratory beer after achieving something.  Sigh.)

So if you are looking for that next thing to improve your teaching, this is it.  If you find yourself reaching for another can of Diet Coke (what is it with teachers and Diet Coke???), this is better.

Pictured: the enemy

If you have an unhealthy relationship with food, this is the solution.  Overall, I don't think there is anything I could have done for professional development this year that would have had as significant an impact on my teaching as this has.  It's truly amazing what my change in diet has done for me personally and professionally.

Just as a reminder, I want to leave you with this thought - I refused to do this when I first read about it.  I'm a meat and potatoes and barbecue and beer guy.  Hardcore.  Ron Swanson is my spirit animal.  Even though I am coming from that sort of angle, I am completely sold on Whole 30 and have no intention of going back to my terrible food habits, even after my 30 days are up.  Will I reintroduce things that I haven't had for this whole time?  Yes.  I plan to indulge myself in some delicious ice cream the first day I'm done with the program.  However, I will eat it in a small quantity, and won't be surprised if I find it to be disgustingly sweet.

Sometimes them's the breaks.

Forgotten Instrument Records

I don't know about you, but a kid who forgets their instrument is the bane of my existence.  For some reason, printing out a monthly calendar that shows EVERY SINGLE DAY a kid will need their instrument isn't clear enough.  For some reason, having classes meet on the same days EVERY WEEK isn't regular enough.  For some reason, kids seem to think "I was in a rush." is a good reason to forget their instrument.

Ugh.

Incidentally, the worst part is when it's my private students who forget.  Because clearly you won't need the instrument that you are paying someone to tutor you individually on.  Sigh.

But I digress.

I have been trying to come up with a solution to this problem since day one of my teaching career.  I've written letters home, sent home form notes, sent home handwritten notes, sent emails, made phone calls, written student names on the board, included it as a comment in report cards, had face-to-face conversations with parents... You name it, I've probably tried it.  I even had kids copying out of the dictionary (regular and the Harvard Dictionary of Music).  Nothing seems to truly work.

So I am going to try something I just stumbled across.  The No Instrument Binder.  This is less a means of prevention (which I am still looking for) and more a means of tracking.  This was originally intended as a No Homework Binder, and the idea came from the blog "Teach - Bake - Love."  The original idea was to have each student write their name and the reason why they forgot their homework, and then put their homework in the binder.  This helps with organization, tracking student work, keeping up with grades, etc.  The only catch is that as a music teacher, I really don't assign "homework" per se.

So what I am going to try is to have kids write their name and the date in the binder, along with the reason why their instrument is not in class.  I think to start out I will allow students to write "I was in a rush." as their reason, but I suspect that once it becomes obvious how many of those lame excuses I get I will require a little more thought to go into it.  Hopefully this works better than my patented "Mr. Earley is disappointed and frustrated by your lack of responsibility" look that I give.  We'll see.  Check back for developments, I plan to create this over Spring Break and give it a limited run to the end of the school year.

The importance of making things interesting

I don't know about you, but I like things that are a little out of the ordinary.  Mind you, that doesn't mean I want everything to be weird or cantankerous or obscure (take that, hipsters!).  Instead, I just like things that work a little differently than is sometimes the norm.

For example: I have a penchant for barbecue.  Not just some meat in a restaurant slathered in sauce, but real, slow-cooked, smoky, well-seasoned meat that has been tended to over a bed of hot coals for many hours.  This is different than the norm these days in that people don't often like to spend hours in preparing a single food item.  But it is worth it in the end.  It's also nice to come in the house smelling like woodsmoke and meat, knowing that I have been playing with fire for the most delicious result imaginable.  Also, each time I make barbecue it's a little different.  No matter how hard I try, I can never perfectly replicate the previous result.

Smells like.... Victory!

Another example: My own personal style is... somewhat rustic, I suppose.  I like to wear things that are both comfortable and functional, but that look acceptable for their purpose.  This has resulted in showing up to Halloween parties dressed as a lumberjack or some other outdoors enthusiast and having people ask why I wasn't wearing a costume.  But I digress.

I'm a lumberjack, and I'm okay.

Part of the attraction of these things, to me, is that they are interesting in some way.  They are interesting partly because they are different.  Not what you would expect.  Not what you see every day.

"But how," you may be asking, "does this relate to teaching?"

The answer is quite simple.  Things that are out of the ordinary - striking, different, novel, however you want to say it - attract more attention in the learning process.  Our brains are wired to accept new input, categorize it, file it away for later retrieval, and expend minimal effort in recognizing it in the future.  Have you ever walked past a painting on the wall so many times you forgot it was there - only to realize some time later that it had been replaced with something else?  This is just part of how the human mind works.  We don't want to spend a lot of energy or effort on noticing the same things over and over again.  This helps us cope with the incredible amount of stimuli that exist as part of our every day lives.  We would be quite overwhelmed if we took notice of every single speck of everything that we encounter regularly.  There's just too much.

"But how," you may be asking, "does this relate to music education?"

Again, quite simple.  One of the most difficult things to teach students is to make things interesting and novel even when they are practicing the most mundane, uninteresting, boring aspects of music.  It's why I have as many different acronyms for teaching lines and spaces of the staff as I possibly can remember.  It's why I like to ask students to tell me what they think after something goes horribly wrong - or wonderfully right.  It's why sometimes a band director will switch around seating and do something ridiculous - like putting the trumpets in the front row. (Another great Tone Deaf Comics moment!)

When things are different, we pay attention to them differently.  Our brains are always (ok, usually) more responsive to new things than they are to things that are well-worn and habitual.  Music teachers (and teachers in general) take advantage of this frequently, if for no better reason than to keep their students from griping about being bored (side note - I couldn't tell you the last time I had the luxury of being bored.  Seems like there is always something that must be done.  Must be one more curse of growing up.).

I would like to share with you the revelation I had about a week ago (actually, I had it several years ago but forgot until just last week).  When you practice on your own, do you use a metronome?  If you teach music, do you use a metronome in class or in lessons?  Personally, I can't imagine life without a metronome.  It's as fundamental to music as sound itself.  The division of time into perfectly regularly spaced pulses is not something that comes easily to many of us.  We need something to keep us on target, and something to get irritated with when we are playing in perfect time and that infernal machine is OBVIOUSLY SPEEDING UP. (John Bogenschutz sums it up perfectly in his Tone Deaf Comics found here.)

So what do you do to teach kids that a metronome is so important?  "But Mr. Earley," I can hear my students saying, "it's just an annoying noise that won't stop and gets boring (there's that word again!!!)."

Hmmm... They may have a point there.  The sound of a metronome does become rather monotonous after a while, and if you're not focused on keeping 100% with the metronome pulse it can become white noise and ignored rather quickly.

A view of the metronome being ignored.
Also, how it feels when your foot falls asleep.

One approach I have tried with a general music class is to play some sort of percussion instrument.  Conga, Bongos, Djembe, drum set, you name it, I've tried it.  This usually leads to kids complaining that they want to try it.  Or worse, ignoring it just like the metronome.  The most reliable of these has always been the drum set, but there are two fundamental problems with it. First, I am not a terribly gifted drum set player.  Second, it only works if I am behind it, and this keeps me from being able to move around the room.  What good is a means of keeping tempo if I can't actively adjust/fix things?

If I can't get out of here, I might as well get comfortable...

Hmmm... So what I need is something that works more or less like the drum set, can keep a perfectly steady tempo, is interesting to listen to, and lets me move around as needed....

Bingo. (Cue novel approach fanfare!)

What I have found is that by using audio software and a loop library, I can metronome the heck out of anything, yet still make it fresh and interesting for the students.  Heck, it makes it more enjoyable for me, too!  I use Acoustica Mixcraft (because I am not an Apple fanboy), which is essentially the Windows equivalent of GarageBand (what I would use if I were an Apple fanboy).  This is a fairly straightfoward digital audio workstation (DAW) that includes, among other things, a fairly impressive loop library.  By searching for a drum groove, I found one that I liked - it's straightforward, only slightly syncopated, clear enough to follow, and outlines two measures.  I took that and expanded it to three minutes in length.  Then I added a chime sound (which sounds suspiciously like something from Super Mario Brothers) to indicate when each minute passes.  For kicks, I added a short chime riff to the end to indicate that time was up (I may go back and make this the "game over" sound from Mario - we'll see...).  I can now use this to not only keep my groups on track with tempo, but also to manage my own time in the classroom.

What I love about this approach is that it is interesting and novel enough on its own that as soon as I start the track, I can see the kids wiggling and moving to the beat in their seats.  No instruction needed, just pure interest.

The next step was to expand the track so I could have one that was 3 minutes, 5 minutes, 7 minutes, and 10 minutes in length.  This way I don't have to just play a recording on endless loop - I can pick whichever length fits the activity and time remaining.  Furthermore, it is versatile enough to use for an extremely wide variety of activities.  I have used it with second grade playing mallet and rhythm instruments, first grade and kindergarten playing Boomwhackers , even the older students in band and strings when doing exercises and scales.  What's more is that if we get to where this particular track gets stale or loses its novelty, I can go back to Mixcraft and make a new one that sounds completely different with minimal effort.

Now, I understand that not everyone is in love with loops and creating audio tools the way that I am.  If you'd like, you can visit my Teachers Pay Teachers store and pick up the audio tracks I created, either individually or as a bundle of all four lengths.  The length is the only difference between them. They are done as mp3 files, so you don't need to worry about having a particular piece of software to make them work.  If you use them, please feel free to leave a comment here and/or a comment on TpT.

I plan to keep making things like these rhythm tracks to keep everything as novel and interesting as I can.  I also would love to hear from you - what do you do to keep things interesting in the classroom?  Do you have a particular approach/trick/product that you use?  Do you have a particular group/student that needs more novelty than you can keep up with?  I welcome your comments below!

Snoooooow!

This will be a fairly short post. I think.

I live in Southern Maryland. Like much of the Northeast, we have been hit with quite a bit of snow for our area. Our superintendent of schools has applied for a waiver from the state for 5 of the snow days we used past the 5 that were already built into the calendar. We are now up to a grand total of 12 snow days this year in an area that usually only uses 1 or 2, and those are frequently for hurricane-related weather rather than actual snow.

Usually I will be pleased to see the snow, appreciative of its beauty,of the stillness that comes with the soft flakes blanketing everything. I don't lie to disturb the snow with footprints or shovel make until I absolutely have to.

This year, I am officially on the I hate snow bandwagon.

All I want is to be able to teach and have fun with my students, play good music, and be out of school before the 4th of July. With each falling flake that looks less and less likely.

ARGH!!!!!!!

They didn't train me for this... OR "Stand back, I'm a professional! "

A few days ago, I had a meeting at school. Nothing major, just a quick meeting as a reference for a friend. At the end of the meeting I was walking the gentleman I met with back to the office, which involves going out of my mobile mansion, down a ramp and into the school building. Total outside time is something like 10 seconds. In that 10 seconds, I noticed two things. First, there were a lot of screaming children in the playground. Not out of the ordinary. Second, and much more incongruous, there was a dog running around. Just an average sized beagle, not some hulking mastiff or anything like that, just a moderate sized dog. Curious - dogs are not generally on school grounds until after school when a neighbor woman likes to bring her dogs to run around and leave little "presents" for the kids to step in. I went in to the building, informed the custodial staff that there was a dog outside, then did the same with the office.
As it turns out, my principal is deathly afraid of dogs, and was not about to go confront her fear. The secretaries decided the best course of action was animal control, a decision that took about 2 minutes longer to reach than it probably should have. Meanwhile, it occurred to me that in the brief look I got at the dog, it did not appear to be sick or injured, just lost. Perhaps I could coax it over and get a look at its tags. So outside I went.
After a couple minutes of walking around the playground in pursuit of this poor dog, the kids finally are ushered inside and I was left out there alone in relative peace with the dog. He finally dared to come close enough for a few sniffs, I checked his collar and found no tags. Go figure, who would want their dog to be returned to them? Unfortunately, he got away from me before I could get a good grip on his collar, so I was unable to hang on to him for animal control. He trotted off across the road and disappeared between some houses. Animal control finally got there something like an hour later, I talked to the animal warden (apparently that's their preferred title? News to me.) briefly and received an admonishment to not get bitten among other things.
Now, I am a pet sitter on the side. I have worked on a farm, I have had several dogs and cats as pets, and I like to think that I have a decent helping of common sense. If anything had appeared out of the ordinary about the dog I would have stayed away. But it was very friendly, not the least bit aggressive, and clearly not rabid or anything like that. I like to think that I used my professional pet sitter skills to know if the dog was okay.

The point of this rambling diatribe (that has taken way too long to write) is that there are lots of things you find yourself doing as a teacher that nobody ever mentioned in college.  For instance - we learned about dealing with hostile parents, administrators, colleagues; we learned many educational and developmental philosophies and theories; we learned about instruments and music and dealing with bathroom breaks in Kindergarten (hint - don't say anything that sounds like bathroom.  It's like yawning.  It's contagious.); we even learned about how important it is to have the custodial and secretarial folks on your side.

Nowhere did I have the opportunity to sign up for "Dogcatching 101." 

Granted, I love dogs.  I love animals in general.  I actually really enjoyed dealing with this dog.  I have even had to capture him now 5 separate times since this article was first undertaken (his name is Buddy and he loves to play with the kids at recess).

What I am really getting at is that these are the moments that I think can really make or break the job of teaching.  Job descriptions call this "Other Duties As Assigned."  The intentional vagueness can leave open an absurdly broad realm of possibilities. Sometimes they're as fun as romping with Buddy the dog.  Other times it means moving furniture, dealing with paperwork, unexpected meetings, conferences, etc.  Some days are nothing but Other Duties As Assigned.  Some days you see neither hide nor hair of anything out of the ordinary (let's face it, those days don't happen very often).

As much as I don't enjoy having to stop what I'm doing or spend what little unscheduled time I have to chase a dog that is surrounded by a screaming group of children, I can't imagine a job where I knew what every moment was going to hold before it happened.  One of the greatest things about teaching is that each day is new.  Even when you have all of your lessons planned down to a tee, little things will happen that are completely unexpected.  Some good, some bad, but none of them can really be anticipated (beyond the simple fact of their existence).

I don't know about you, but I'll take Buddy the dog over a cubicle and TPS reports any day.