“We rise to great heights by a winding staircase of small steps.” - Francis Bacon

1. Recognize that watching your exceptional learners take teeny tiny steps will be one of the most fulfilling and joyful parts of your job. 
2. Exceptional Learners function best in a classroom that is structured and consistent. 
3. They may just not like your class since it is so different from their “regular” classrooms. 
4. Remember they will not progress at the same pace as your typical students. 
5. Their progress is going to be slow, tiny baby steps. 
6. Watch for those small steps and really celebrate them when they happen - it is a success for both your students and for you!
7. Use your teacher-powers of observation and really pay attention to these students so you can celebrate their success and also keep track of what is working for them and what is not. 
8. Keep a journal - it can be small and only have a few notes, but it will be helpful. Suggested pocket journals from Amazon: https://amzn.to/3YjLCnn and https://amzn.to/41JyoTU 

I’ll be running a FREE masterclass on Saturday March 11th at 10:30am EST: Unlocking the Keys to Teaching Exceptional Learners in the Music Classroom - 5 Secrets Revealed. Click here to join me (or get the replay): https://storiesthatsing.net/freemasterclass 

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TRANSCRIPTION:

I am in another ginormous classroom, not the ginormous classroom I always talk about, but this is another one. And I don't know what it was about Broward County. The schools that I worked at in Broward County in Florida had these massive, huge music rooms. They were amazing. I had like these two huge closets and I had my own office with a door that shut and it was a really nice office. It was like cozy. And then I had this classroom where I had my movement area and I had my instrument play area and I had my teaching area and I had my storybook lesson area. And it was so awesome. And I haven't had a beautiful classroom like that in a really long time. I make do, of course, like everybody else and I feel so blessed to have a classroom, but I digress. So I'm in my story area, my kiddos are all sitting around me.

It was just crowded with pre-K kids. And I'm gonna digress again. If you don't teach pre-k, I so totally feel sorry for you because they are the best students to teach. They're always excited and they love you so much and they love to hug you and they're always smiling and joyful and they are, in my opinion, so easy to manage. And if you don't know how to manage pre-K students, please reach out to me on any of my formats because I am so happy to help you with that or check out my blog or coming up soon. I am going to be talking a little bit about classroom management for littles on this podcast, so I'll be sure to keep you posted on that. But anyway, let me get back to my, but anyway, so I'm seeing smiling faces and excited eyes and joyful wiggly bodies and I'm hearing joyful children's voices echoing.

And one little boy piped up and echoed back the chant we were doing and a new aid that hadn't been, she wasn't new, but she had not been in my classroom before, looked over and was like, oh my gosh. And so I afterwards I was like, what happened? And she said, he does not talk. I've literally never heard him say a word. And he was an exceptional learner and I was not aware that he didn't talk because he was quiet in the beginning. But pretty quickly he started echoing back. Now he did not talk my ear off, but he was so inspired by the music that I was only place, my classroom was the only place where he set a peep. So that made me feel so amazing. And everyone was so excited when they, when they heard, not only did it, not only did it make me feel amazing, and this is why, because I knew that I was reaching him through music. It had nothing to do with me. It had to do with the activities that I was doing with the class. And that just made me feel like a rockstar teacher who can resonate with that. I mean, what better way to feel like a rockstar teacher than for something like that to happen? So this week I put a motivational quote, I love motivational quotes and if you're not,

So this week I put a motivational quote out to my email community. And if you're not part of the Happy Music teacher email community, make sure you get onto my email list. It is stories that sing.net/lesson plans sampler. And you get three lesson plans just for joining. I will put a link to that in the show notes.

So I put out this quote and the quote is, we rise to great heights by a winding staircase of small steps by Francis Bacon. And that's so resonated with me. Of course, I've been talking a lot lately about my exceptional learners because I'm getting ready to do my free masterclass on Saturday, March the 11th. If you are hearing this after the fact, feel free to reach out to me, feel free to reach out to me and I can send you a link, the replay, whatever it happens to be that you want. If you are listening to this episode after you can send me, if you're listening to this episode after March 11th, send me an email genetic stories that sing.net and it's spelled with one N and two Ts. And I can send you the replay. But if you're listening before, make sure you join my masterclass. There will be a link to that in the show notes as well. But it is stories that sing.net/free masterclass. So back to what we were talking about.

I feel like working with exceptional learners and watching them take tiny steps towards their goals are some of the most fulfilling, are some of the most joyful and fulfilling things you will ever get to watch in your classroom. Now things must be structured and consistent. So how do we make those tiny baby steps? How do we rise our, how do we rise our exceptional learners to great heights? The way we do that is by first of all being structured and consistent. Your class must run the same way every single time you come in. I don't mean the same activities, but the structure should be the same.

And your activities and the way that you react to things should be consistent. Now, they may not like your class, they may not participate at first, they may never participate, they may be anxious, they may cry and scream they they're getting used to your class. Some kiddos will never quite get used to your class. But I find that what happens is, first of all, let's talk about why they may not like your class or why they may not participate. It's noisy, it's chaotic. It's a different classroom than their classroom that they're in all the time. And there are unique sounds and unique feels, unique textures, unique sight. And kiddos with exceptional and exceptional learners have an especially big struggle with anything that is unique or different. A lot of students have problems with textures, they have problems with um, anything chaotic because it's very overwhelming to them.

So some kiddos, like I have students in my one school that I teach at that is just exceptional learners and students with behavior challenges and the students that are medically fragile. I have kiddos that never come to music because it's just too overwhelming for them. But if those students in your classroom are coming to music, then you just need to know that their teacher thinks that they are going to adjust and you need to kind of work with them to help them adjust. They're not gonna progress at the same tempo that you're typical. So let's talk about the differences between, let's talk about the differences between your typical students and your exceptional learners. First of all, they're not going to progress at the same tempo that your typical are going to progress at. Their progression is going to be rather than over weeks or days.

It's going to be over months and months and months and sometimes years. So you, you have to be careful about your mindset and make sure that you are not expecting that you are not looking for that, you are not looking for fulfillment over the steps that they're taking because sometimes their progress is going to be in really tiny baby steps. You wanna watch for those steps and you wanna make a really big deal out of them. Here's why. For them, it helps them to feel wonderful. They realize you care and they realize that you're noticing them. A lot of times your exceptional learners are in the same space as your typical learners. And that makes it really tricky. I think it's also a good idea, this is an aside, but I think it's also a good idea to partner them up with someone who is warm and loving and caring.

And it doesn't necessarily have to be their aid. It could be another student. In fact, it's better if it is another student for you. The reason that you wanna make a really big deal out of those small baby steps is because it helps you to shift your mindset from being worried about serving them properly, being worried that your activities are not appropriate for them. Being worried that they aren't learning enough, being worried about the amount of time you have with them. You can't help the amount of time you have with them. And these are things as good teachers, and I know you're a good teacher because you're listening to this podcast to learn more, these are things as good teachers that if we focus on those things, it is going to be super difficult to move forward and away from that. So shifting your mindset is a big deal.

And one of the ways you can shift your mindset is by observing those tiny baby steps that they're taking. The other reason. So we're shifting our mindset from all of that worry to seeing them make great progress, even if it's in tiny baby steps, feeling great about the progress that you're making with them and feeling like you're making a difference. We became teachers to make a difference. I know you became a teacher to make a difference and I know you are a fabulous teacher. So focusing, so focusing on those tiny baby steps is going make you feel a lot better than worrying over, oh my gosh, my, oh my gosh, they're not participating, I'm not doing right by them. They're not learning anything. I'm going to tell you that they are learning, they are learning partially through osmosis. They're listening, they're watching the other students, they're hearing the music, they're hearing the instrument play. So even if they are not participating, they are still doing some learning through osmosis. So here is, so here is a good way to watch them progress. You need to use your spidey senses of observation. You need to watch their faces, their body language, read their eyes, notice when they look calm, notice when they're participating. And if you can notice what is happening in your classroom to help them feel calm and participate. So I think that one of the best ways,

So I find that my spidey senses of observation have really been honed since I've been teaching in the school that I'm teaching at this year. And for example, it is so fulfilling to watch a kiddo who has not done something in your class, do something in your class. For example, I had a student last week, I was handing out the drums and I truly thought he was completely non-verbal. I had no idea he could talk. And he looked down and he saw me with the drums in my hand and he said, drum. And I said, yes, drum. And he said, drum. And um, I, I was just like blown away because I didn't know that I have another student. So I'm sitting in my classroom every day, actually it's the stage. And I have this one very tall boy, he's a teenager. I, he, he's in my um, class that's all of the teenage people.

And he literally sits in the corner and he puts his head in his hands and he curls up into a big ball. And I don't know if it's because it's overwhelming or he just is afraid to try or what the deal is, but I talk to him every week. I hand him an instrument every week. I tell him a little bit about what we're doing. Every week I make my class very structured. We start in a certain way. We go through class in a certain way. So everything is very structured and my students know exactly what to expect from one class to the next, from one activity to the next. And two weeks ago when I was singing goodbye to my students, I looked over at him and he had his eyes on me and he waved at me and I was like, oh my gosh, Brandon just waved at me and I made a really big deal out of it with um, with the paraprofessionals. And I was like, Brandon, thank, oh.

I was like, oh my gosh. He just waved at me and I made a really big deal out of it. And I looked over and I smiled at him and I waved back and I said, thank you for waving at me. And I think that really made an impression because this week, this past week, I handed him moras, like I handed to everybody else and I put them on the floor cuz he gave me like a sign like, no, I don't want them. And I said, well I'm gonna put them on the floor because maybe you'll want them. So if you decide you want them, you can pick them up. And he picked them up like seconds later and he started shaking them. And I was like, thank you so much for shaking your meas. And so later that day, now this is kind of funny because he didn't wanna use the streamers and I was starting to pass out streamers and he got up and he picked up all the streamers outta my hand and he put them back in the box exactly like I would have.

So I know he's been observing me and he closed the box, which was hysterical. And I was like, okay, obviously he does not want to play with the streamers today. But I said, well you know what, maybe the other students would like to play with the streamers so I'm gonna get them out. And I did give him one, he did not touch it, but at least he was participating a little bit. So it is so fulfilling to really watch your students and observe what they're doing and observe what's happening week to week. Now something that's really tricky as a music teacher teaching, I don't know, I've got 26, 27, I think I've got 27 classes every week. You may have way more. When I taught in Florida, I had 1,550 students and we did 30 minute lessons and I don't even know do the math on that one. How many, um, how many classes a day I had, but it was a lot. I think I had like eight or nine a day, which probably is more like your situation. But

What I had trouble with was remembering from day to day. So I started keeping a journal and I know what you're thinking, Jeanette. I do not have time to keep a journal. So I really, I have back to back classes just like you. And what I do is, as my students are dismissing, I make sure they're lined up silently. And then I've got on my phone, I've got a Google doc that I use. So that's one thing you can do and I find it really easy to just use my little thumbs and type in on. Um, so I've got the classes by each class and then I've got just a little note and I keep notes every week. If you set it up beforehand, get all the classes in order and do the dates, et cetera, it's really easy to just jot down a couple of shorthand notes.

Now, if you are a pen and paper type of person, then I am going to link a couple of tiny pocket journals into the show notes. And these are awesome. They're small, they literally fit into your pocket or you could put it, um, I've got this little bin that, um, I, if I was using a pocket journal, I love my Google sheet, but if I was using a pocket journal, I would take it out and I'd have my little pen right there with me. And again, I would have a page for each class and I would just write down notes because that makes it super easy. And if you don't wanna do it for every class, I do find it really awesome for every class because that way I'm not like boys and girls, where did we get to in this lesson this week? Cuz otherwise I'm like, I don't know where people are cuz people are in different places. Or if a class misses, I can just write down missed due to a field trip or whatever. So it is a really awesome way to keep track, but if you don't think you have the bandwidth for that, and no judgment here, I mean, you know, you do you, this is what works well for me. But what I like to do is

If you don't think you have the bandwidth to do it for every single class, then do it for your classes that have exceptional learners. Now, one quick bonus tip. When you are teaching exceptional learners along with your typical students, I happen to be blessed with, I have,

I have one class of kiddos that comes all by themselves. I've got, I think there's like six of them, seven of them, something like that in my big school. And that is amazing because I really get to focus on them. If you do not have that situation and your exceptional learners are in with your typical learners and you don't have any private time with them, two options. First of all, request private time with them because you would be amazed. It is the most joyful, wonderful day of my week. I absolutely love it and my students love it. And it is amazing. If you don't have room in your schedule or you just, you know, don't have the bandwidth, don't wanna do that, then your next option is, like I said, pair your exceptional learner up with a student who's gonna be patient and kind and helpful.

And there are strategies that you can put into place that are good for all students. But if you don't wanna put them in place for all students, you can put them in place just for your classes that contain exceptional learners. Now what you're gonna find is that your typical learners are going to flourish with these types of strategies as well. So you're gonna end up wanting to use these strategies with every class. Would you like to find out more about these strategies? So if you'd like to find out more, be sure to join my free masterclass. And if it is after March 11th, be sure to reach out to me at stories that sing, sorry. Be sure to reach out to me at jeanette@storiesthatsing.net and I can send you a replay because it's good stuff. Let's do a quick review.

The quote we're working on today is We rise to great heights by a winding staircase of small steps. So things must be structured and consistent in your class. Remember that your students who are exceptional learners may not participate, may be anxious, may scream and cry until they're used to your class may scream and cry all the time. And in that case, maybe you wanna have a discussion about what you can do to help them. They will not progress at the same tempo. Their progression is going to be in small baby steps. Make sure you make a big deal out of those small baby steps for you and for your students. Use your spidey senses of observation and if you feel so inclined, keep a journal.