Intrinsic Motivation

I teach K-12 Music, and every job has one or two classes that continue to exceed your expectations.  Yesterday I taught one of mine.  I had a very long, complex rhythm written on the board.  I was expecting them to read the first line, but they, as a class, insisted they could read all five lines!  I said alright, counted them off and they read it all with about 75% success.

I was shocked they were able to do that, so I said, "if you can all read it perfectly, no mistakes, I'll call my mentor teacher and let you do it for her."  And they read it perfectly, so I pulled out my phone, and called my mentor teacher and told her in a message what my class had done and they said hi.  She called me back later, and said how awesome it was that my students were able to do what they did so accurately.  She was very excited.

That class runs off of motivation, but more and more it's become intrinsic than extrinsic.  They do well in my class because it makes them feel good, they want to succeed for personal reasons.  Extrinsic motivation would be if I gave each of my good students candy for doing well.  If they sing something as I expect I would give them a reward for a behavior I already expect.  One way the student gets a reward for doing  something I expected of them, the other way the student isn't rewarded for meeting my expectations, but succeeds and exceeds my expectations because of their desire to do well in my class.  Intrinsic motivation can change the dynamics of a class and change attitudes, which is the singular most important thing in everything you do.

Cliffhanger and Cashin Mine Hiking Trip

Teaching has been very tough, and even more draining emotionally and mentally.  I finally had a three day weekend to recuperate.  I awoke at 7:30 a.m. to my phone ringing.  It was Pete, the math teacher in Norwood, calling to see if I wanted to go for a hike.  So, I said "heck yeah man!" and off we went.  We were heading to a series of really old Mines over by Paradox, which is by the Utah border.  When we arrived near where the trailhead was Pete decided to cut off a mile of hiking by basically bouldering our way to the trail, about 200 feet below.

We clambered our way down to the trail, and began walking down the canyon.  The canyon walls were full of cool holes, caves, and various formations.

We arrived at the first Mine, which was pretty obviously marked from the trail.  The debris trail from the Mine was obvious, and we hiked up to it to check it out.  We both are more than 6 feet tall, and we were both able to stand up inside the mine.  It went a lot farther back than we ventured.

The second mine we encountered was very obvious.  It was much bigger, definitely ran a bigger operation, but looked pretty unstable so we didn't go in.  We began seeing obvious copper signs in the rock here.

Further on we found one more mine that was really big, very impressive, but also very unstable.  We walked up to it but didn't go in.  There was another mine right next to it, and it had some of the most impressive signs of Copper I've ever seen.

Beyond that we came upon the workman's living quarter.  It consisted of about 6 cabins in varying condition.  Some looked like they hadn't been inhabited since the 1800's, while another had insulation dated to the 1980's.  It was very interesting.

Beyond the buildings we came upon what we thought was the granddaddy of the mines.  The entrance was just mammoth, carved out of the rock.  It had a door, and we could easily stand inside it.  I was very uneasy, because the mine was definitely carved under a rock overhang, and looked pretty unstable.

As we started walking past the big mine Pete said, "well there's the mill!".  I said, "what mill"?  He said "what mill?  Seriously?".  And then there it was.  And it was absolutely Mammoth.

The mill used to process copper and silver, and I was surprised to see that such a big structure was still standing, especially since it was built back in the 1890's.

We walked through it, which I won't ever do again, and came out the other side where we saw three more mines.

The lower mine is just in front of Pete, and the upper mine is directly above Pete.  We checked out the lower mine first.

That mine we really impressive.  It had a railroad track going into it, and, as you can see, the rock was so Copper rich they looked blue.

The upper mine wasn't as cool as the lower mine, but still was impressive.  All of the mines out here were just massive, and after researching the mine when I got back home I learned that it was a really big Copper and Silver Mine during the late 1800's and throughout the 1900's.  It was a splendid hike, and a great way to spend a day off.

Getting Started

Well here we go!  My first blog.  I'm excited to see how this will look a couple of years from now.

I've created this blog to keep track of my first two years of teaching.  In July I accepted a position teaching K-12 Music in the beautiful but small town of Norwood, CO.  It has been a crazy ride so far, but it's going well.