A little departure from my usual sort of post. I was checking on my blog for the first time in a couple of months and noticed I had reached 100K views! When I started this blog nearly 10 years ago (August 24, 2015, to be exact, with the help of my sister), I had no thoughts of how many people this might someday reach; I just wanted to document the resources and bulletin boards I was creating for myself and share them out if they could be helpful to other elementary orchestra teachers as I entered my fourth year of teaching. Teaching elementary orchestra is a pretty niche topic, so it's kind of amazing that there have been that many views (in my opinion)!
Celebrating is not something that comes easily to me--there's always a new to-do list with something that needs doing, and I don't like being the center of attention, but hitting this milestone made me take pause for a moment and reflect. I took some time and browsed through past posts (this makes 118 posts total!) to recognize for myself all the hours of work that went into creating all the resources and posts over this last decade--gosh, that's a lot of bulletin boards and repertoire packets and arrangements!
I remarked to my sister that it's hard to comprehend that big of a number and what sort of effect these posts might have on orchestra teachers and students around the country (and world!), and she made a analogy to compound interest--sharing over time and continuing to add on a (somewhat) consistent basis leads to a lot of growth. A ripple effect, for sure.
So, I guess my advice here is to take some time to celebrate yourself--your work, your effort over time, your achievements all add up :)
I keep a Google Doc of positive emails that I have received, but then I rarely take the time to read through them. As part of this 100K celebration, I thought it was about time to revisit that document, and it was very touching to read through emails from parents, staff, administrators, bits from student reflections etc.--as well as comments from this blog--over the years. Keeping those positive notes and drawings from students in a drawer or bulletin board to look back on during difficult days or storing them in one place in a digital format, like a Google Doc, is great when you could use a reminder of the positive difference you're making in the lives of so many others over the course of days and months and years. It adds up!
Thanks all who have checked out teachingelementaryorchestra.blogspot.com over the years! And thanks to all who have commented either on this blog or on Facebook groups for orchestra teachers that I am a member of--it means a lot! I've even received a phone call at school from an orchestra teacher in Colorado, who tracked me down to thank me for my "Jingle Bells" arrangement--so cool!!!
I hope you have found something on here that has given you a bit of inspiration or saved you some time or or gave you something new to think about or reaffirmed something you were already doing! As usual, let me know if there is anything in particular you would like to see, and I will see what I can do!
And if anyone's curious, here are the most popular posts, by total views:
