maria pairitz's
community of teachers portfolio
xvi. extracurricular activities
evidence
Every summer for the past five years, I have worked with a high school color guard. This past summer I worked with Fishers color guard! This has given me the opportunity to work with high school students outside of the classroom environment, allowing them to participate in a community of students working together to achieve something larger than themselves. Through my experiences with multiple high school color guards, I have watched my students develop self-esteem through self-expression, respectively and enthusiastically lead and assist each other, and develop a work ethic that is comparable to none. The evidence I have compiled demonstrates my personal commitment to my students outside of the school day and my belief in the educational and social value of extracurricular activities and their impact in the classroom.
The evidence I have collected includes a video of me instructing color guard, photos from field work, all of my files concerning planning and organizing an extracurricular activity, a video of our state winning performance, a questionnaire I gave to color guard students that analyzes how participating in an extracurricular activity has impacted their academic, social, and personal life, props I helped designed for winter percussion, and Intro to 3D's totem pole project.
These pieces of evidence have allowed me to see how ideas or methods from participating in extracurriculars can reinforce concepts or behaviors in the classroom or vice versa. Extracurriculars are also an important outlet for expression and a source for students to discover individual strengths and interests and learn life skills. Through my active involvement in one of the dozens of extracurricular opportunities available to students at my school, I have learned strategies that will benefit me in the classroom, made connections with my students outside of the school day, and participated in a community that uplifts and supports the success of their students.
I will continue to sponsor and be involved with extracurricular activities in the future as I have seen the impact it has had on myself and my students. I believe the evidence I have compiled has demonstrated my ability to participate in and value extracurricular involvement. I believe I have reached Ready to Teach for this expectation.
This is a video of me leading a run through of show choreography with the students. The instructors and I take a lot of videos during practice and upload them to a group facebook page so students have a resource to refer to if they are practicing at home and forget choreography or to watch themselves and see if there's anything they are unknowingly doing incorrectly
Photos from Field Work
(Click on Photo to see description)
The group of girls I first worked with in 2014!
These are other instructors I worked with.
Quick snapshot of one of my students during rehearsal before a show!
This was the group of high school girls I worked with in 2015! I am in the lower right corner with another instructor.
I went home during their band season to see how they were progressing and snapped this picture as they left the field after their performance.
A picture with one of my students after they won state! Such an emotional evening!
The group of students I worked with in 2016!
This was snapped while we were adjusting angles of the girls' flags so they all matched.
Organization and Planning
These videos and links give a look into the organization that comes behind planning a practice and providing resources for students outside of practice. We like to take videos of the students during every practice and post them on a private FaceBook group page so students are able to review choreography they learned that day, watch themselves with the full group to see if they are matching each others movements, and see the progress of the group from day to day. Parents are also a part of the FaceBook page so they are able to watch their child grow as well. For videos that are too long or need to be organized into separate albums, I have created YouTube videos on my teacher YouTube channel and Dropbox files for students to access. I plan to use these tools in my own classroom to keep connected with my students outside of the classroom. Even posting pictures of student projects would help track individual and class growth through out the semester. I also had the opportunity to be in charge of scheduling one of the weeks of guard camp. I put together a color coded excel file that went over what we needed to accomplish and when during each day (link under Organization & Planning). We used this as our basic outline for each day during that week and was an opportunity to see how schedules need to be flexible for extra time that needs to be spent solidifying a chunk of choreography, or spent learning a new toss, but still accomplish what needs to be done.
In this video, I was recorded running through the work we had just learned from our choreographer. This was a source of reference put up on the FaceBook page.
This is a short recording of my students doing a group toss we had been working on that week. This video made me so incredibly excited because the rotation of the flags was almost completely together!
This is a video of my students doing a run through of the show choreography.
During our spring training camp I was given the opportunity to come up with a short routine for the students so they could begin to understand tempo and applying their technique to real choreography. I chose a song by Beyonce so it was more engaging and related better to them and I was completely right. While we learned this the kids were so enthusiastic and engaged because they were appplying technique to something fun.
Winter Percussion Props
The band director approached Danielle and I to see if our classes could work on designing props for the winter percussion's performance. Their theme was "tribal" so he wanted large totem poles on the stage and needed us to design the patterns on the poles. While we couldn't devote an entire project to designing totem poles as it didn't fit with Jewelry or Intro to 3D curriculum, we had Jewelry create snowflake designs to practice cutting precise lines with a jeweler's saw, and thought we could use those to come up with a design. I introduced the idea to the class and they got to work!
After they finished their pieces, I selected a few students' designs and began working on photoshopping them to look more tribal. The band director loved the final product and used them in his show! The students' whose work had been used were so proud and even came to watch the percussion line perform!
Ceramic Totem Poles
One of Intro to 3D's projects is a ceramic totem pole. Students are asked to create three sculptures that can be stacked into a totem pole that represents them. A large number of students choose to represent their extracurricular activities as they are integral to their personal lives and identity. Some students included basketballs, soccer balls, baseball bats, and others include music notes, or microphones and instruments to indicate their involvement in music. Others have created bunnies or dogs to represent their involvement in 4H fair, and some include general activities they participate in outside of school like hiking or traveling. In this way, students use their involvement in extra curricular activities as a source of inspiration for their art projects.
I included this video because the state finals performance is the culmination every failure, success, frustration, and excitement each student experienced from July through October. What I love about this video, aside from watching my students put themselves out on the field and performing to best of their abilities, is the cheering at the end from our supporters. Concord Marching Minutemen do not perpetuate the stereotype of the school band geeks. What is so amazing about this high school is that they are a high achieving group of 150+ students (one of the largest marching bands in Indiana as we do not exclude any student from participating based on skill and it is so highly respected and recognized in the school system) that the whole community knows and respects. The support from the community is incredible. There is a group of parents who spend their evenings during our practices sewing flags, fundraising, polishing marching shoes, building props, preparing lunches/dinners, and providing medical aid. They travel everywhere with the band and we almost always have the largest pep squad in the football stands at every competition. When the students leave for state finals at Lucas Oil Stadium, firetrucks escort us to the bypass, parents and community members line the local roads with signs and pom poms, waving and honking their horns as the buses drive by. When the students get to their hotel in Indianapolis the night before their final performance, it is completely decorated with balloons and streamers, banners hanging around the inner lobby, cookies and treats in every hotel room... it is seriously incredible. When they won state in 2015, the community fundraised and donated money to make sure every single student who particpated in their state winning performance could afford a state championship ring. The community that stands behind Concord Marching Minutemen is an incredible example for our students and because the marching band is such a force in the community, members of the band are held to high standards. They have contracts that students have to sign before participating in band. Outlined are specific behaviors and appearances that are expected to be followed as they represent the band, Concord High School and the Elkhart community.
How has Color Guard Affected You?
I asked my students from color guard to fill out an assessment for me so I could gain a better understanding of how participating in marching band has affected them individually, socially and academically. One of my questions was "What has participating in color guard taught you and how has it benefited you in your daily life?" The responses were wide ranging and insightful. Isis said that, "Color guard has taught me responsibility and team work because if you forget a piece of equipment you don't get to go out on the field just like in school if you forget supplies you can't perform the best of you ability." Her response shows the direct correlation between being prepared for practice and being prepared for class and how that affects your ability to excel. Other students noted personal developments and realizations like "That I can help others," and, "I'm a lot more responsible and harder working," or, "to be confident, and just be able to express myself freely." Some other learned skills and qualities included time management, perserverance, and patience. The most popular response though was the development of confidence which I find incredibly important as the teen years are the most self-conscious, self-critical period of students' lives. To have these students find an extracurricular activity that builds them up in that way is amazing. These are all valuable skills and personal developments that will affect the way they look at and present themselves to the world, beyond that of color guard and high school.
My next question asked "How has your involvement in color guard affected your academic performance?" The responses to this varied more than I would have originally assumed. Concord has their students sign a contract before they joing marching band that outlines their expectation that every student particpating upholds a 3.0 GPA and has good attendance. The common pattern I read from the responses was that students who did color guard along with multiple other extracurricular activities and the few who also had a job to juggle felt "overwhelmed." Some students expressed they did not have time for homework some nights because of particpating in extracurricular activities. Iryna, who juggles guard, a job, and homework, expressed, however, that, "It made me manage my time more wisely for homework." Other responses included that participating in guard made them feel more involved in school, gave them a reason to keep their grades up, and that being around high academic achievers in guard made them want to be a high achiever too. Even if balancing academics and extracurriculars is overwhelming, it teaches them just that; how to balance an active and successful lifestyle.
My last question asked my students to explain "How has your involvement in color guard affected your social life?" The responses were more uniform in that it has helped them be less shy, that the team is now their main source of friends, and that they have met a lot of new people through guard and marching band. The most profound statement, in my opinion, was that, "It made walking into the lunch room a little easier." Every freshmen dreads going to their first lunch in high school. The great part about extracurriculars that have summer camps, like marching band, is that it gives incoming freshmen an opportunity to make friends with each other and upperclassmen, so they know they are bound to see one of the 30 faces from guard when they walk into the lunchroom instead of searching for their one friend from junior high who may have a different lunch period. Part of the great impact of color guard as mentioned earlier was the development of confidence. When you are confident in yourself, people are drawn to that, and it makes you more outgoing. This can dramatically impact the course of a student's high school career as a happy social life is integral to being academically successful in more ways than one.
The goal of education is to prepare our students to become productive, contributing members of society. Extracurriculars are crucial to developing social, personal, and life skills that they will carry with them beyond the walls of our schools. The responses from my students has reinforced this belief.
