Well, I’m already going into the 4th week of the school year, and this is my first post… I didn’t post anything over the summer because, well, if you’re a teacher you know – I was soaking up every minute of my time off! A lot of people that aren’t in the education world like to dismiss the idea that teachers work a lot of hours during the school year because hey – they have summers off.

First of all, many teachers use time in the summer for things like professional development (something we are actually required to do a certain amount of) or preparation for teaching classes the following year. There is usually not enough time during the school year to plan big picture things, and even if you’ve taught a course a few times before, you can always improve it and tweak your lessons to make them more effective.

The first few weeks back are always hectic — getting back into the routine (for me that means waking up at 5:30am – not fun!), learning student names, remembering all your passwords and combinations for things… I was absolutely exhausted every day after school for the first week and a half before I seemed to get back into the groove.

I started keeping notes on my phone of blog-worthy happenings in my classroom, and now I am finally getting to post about them on a Sunday morning while on my laptop in a coffeeshop (where I am supposed to be grading and lesson planning). Ahh procrastination, not just a habit of the student, but also sometimes the teacher..

So, I am assuming that most of you have heard about the wildly popular Broadway musical called Hamilton, yes? Well, I am teaching an American history class that begins with the American Revolution, and you can bet that I am bringing those songs into the classroom! I downloaded the soundtrack at the beginning of the summer and am obsessed with it. I’m pretty sure everyone who listens to it is in love with it. You catch new things every time you listen because it’s pretty fast-paced and modern (some songs even include rapping), with the ability to teach you so much about history in an engaging way.

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Some of my students have already listened to the music, and when I announced I would be playing some songs as they relate to what we cover in class, they could hardly contain their excitement! This made me so happy! Of course there are some students that roll their eyes at me because they think musicals (especially educational ones) are lame. I am convinced they will come around if I play them enough songs!

A couple Fridays ago I had a student come talk to me at the end of 8th period after I had played a Hamilton song. She asked me “What’s your favourite song from the soundtrack? I NEED to know.” I couldn’t help but smile at this. I told her that it’s so hard to choose because there are so many good ones. We spent a few minutes scrolling through the list of songs and chatting about which ones we loved the most. She told me hadn’t ever really been that interested in history, but the music from this soundtrack had just captivated her. I think this is amazing! It makes a case for something I’ve thought for a while — that if we could make catchy, modern songs with lyrics that taught about academic subjects, students would retain more of what they’re learning AND enjoy it! Does anyone reading this know of anything like that that’s out there? If so, please share!

Back to lesson planning I go…