It is now halfway through the school year and though it will never be ideal, I have settled into teaching from a cart and the routines that I have created to be successful each week. If I were to speak to someone just finding out that they will be teaching on a cart, I now have wonderful resources to share that can provide so many starting points when they aren't sure where to turn next.
Creating a Pinterest board has opened my eyes to many points that I didn't even think about when beginning this process. One point that particularly struck me is that our emotions and value as a teacher are often pushed to the side in order to make the start of the school year go remotely smoothly. Our mental health as music educators should be our top priority. Throughout this process, I have found a fellow music educator who is focusing her work on stress management for music educators and will be working as a coach in the future. My suggestion after going through so many emotions over the past six months is to reach out and share your feelings. Don't keep them to yourself! We are valuable, they need us, and the work we do is important to developing the whole child.
After combing through many blog posts, Pinterest boards, and teachers pay teachers resources, a common theme of being organized has presented itself. When your mobile classroom is as big as a few tile squares, keeping everything organized, prepared, and visible is very important to the success of your lessons and engagement of students. As it would be in any teaching situation if you aren't prepared, you will lose the focus of your lesson quickly. Viewing many teaching cart concepts helped me to organize my own cart in a way that I could have all of my materials accessible and feel prepared when strolling into each new classroom. It doesn't always go smoothly, but I have done the best I can to be ready for each new day.
I will always hope for a change in my teaching situation to gain back my amazing classroom, but until them, the resources I have found will continue to help my experience of teaching from a cart. I also hope to continue to share ideas, tips, and tricks to help others in their cart journey! We can make beautiful music from anywhere!
