Tag: learning

SubscribeStar Saturday: Chaplaincy

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This school year I began a new role at my school. My official title is “Chaplain and Chapel Coordinator,” which sounds both lofty and bureaucratic. Fortunately, it is neither.

My basic job is to organize the weekly Chapel services, which are Thursday mornings at our school. Initially, I thought I’d be delivering a short devotional or sermonette every Thursday, as our school chaplains have done traditionally. However, right before school began, the new headmaster told me he would like me to invite in members of our community to speak to the students; the Associate Head of School also requested that I invite students to perform music for some services.

Those were both fantastic ideas, and I was beginning to understand why “Chapel Coordinator” was part of my title: beyond merely giving a weekly devotional, I would be coordinating with multiple people from within and without the school.

With that mandate, I set about coordinating chapels for the first semester; at this point, I essentially have everyone scheduled through September; most of October; and most of November. I’m holding off on the two December dates, as those fall around the time of the annual Christmas Musical and the Christmas Concert, and I’m not sure what impact those will have on Chapel services just yet.

Today I though I’d give readers a glimpse into my new role: what I am planning, how it’s going so far, and what I hope to see unfold (lots of salvations, of course).

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Lazy Sunday CDII: Chapel Stuff

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It’s been a Chapel-filled week here on the blog, so I’m dashing off this quick Lazy Sunday before dashing off to play bass at church:

Happy Sunday!

—TPP

TBT^16: Chapel Lesson: Listening

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Today is the second Chapel of the new school year, and the first devotional I’ll be giving as the Chaplain! My plan is to play a saxophone rendition of the hymn “Softly and Tenderly Jesus Is Calling” and to tie that into my brief devotional.

That being the case, I thought I’d look back at this little devotional from a chapel way back in 2022, one that I’ve reblogged several times since then. It’s message is one we all need to hear regularly—especially me!

With that, here is 21 August 2025’s “TBT^4: Chapel Lesson: Listening“:

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Chapel Lesson: “Jesus Is Calling”

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Tomorrow is my first chapel devotional/lesson of the school year! The headmaster took the first one and gave a powerful sermonette to the students. I decided to build upon the theme of his talk while also incorporating my saxophone.

I recently played the classic hymn “Softly and Tenderly Jesus Is Calling” at my old church one Sunday night (you can hear a bass guitar rendition here), and I’ve grown partial to the hymn over the past few years. I’m going to play my alto sax arrangement for the students before launching into my brief devotional.

With that, here is the text of the Chapel lesson I’ll deliver tomorrow:

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SubscribeStar Saturday: Professional Development

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Koi Dance is out now on all streaming platforms and at https://tjcookmusic.bandcamp.com. It’s 90% off (!) with promo code koipond. That means it’s $1 for twelve tracks of great music (and that promo code is also good for everything on the site).

The school year is back in swing, and while I’m now on extra-super-secret-double-part-time (a little-known codicil in the modern working world’s constitution), I still have to complete some mandatory trainings each year. These trainings are rarely interesting, but nor are they particularly onerous; they’re just the boxes one has to check to appease that dread fiend Liability.

For example, each year my colleagues and I go through mandated OSHA bloodborne pathogens training. It’s a simple presentation reviewing procedures for dealing with a child (or anyone) bleeding all over a classroom. Believe it or not, that kind of thing does happen, although not for the grisly reasons readers’ minds might be conjuring up. It’s usually something benign: an unexpected nosebleed (yours portly had his share of those in high school) or a skinned knee. One time a pianist had a stubborn hangnail that got caught while playing and he bled all over the baby grand piano (it was pretty metal).

We also go through active shooter training, which is a grim reminder of the godless dystopia we currently inhabit. It’s useful to be reminded that the world is fallen and that there are truly wicked people out there. It’s also a reminder that law enforcement often view everything from the absolute worst-case scenario (“that big window is a death trap!”), which I suppose makes sense, given that they interact with the fallout of worst-case scenarios everyday.

This year I just had to attend a handful of these mandatory trainings, included the two mentioned above. However, due to a miscommunication from my admin, I attended an additional training that, were I still a classroom teacher, might have offered some marginal utility. Even in my new role as Chaplain, it had some relevant insights.

However, as with many such “professional development opportunities,” it presented something of a microcosm with everything that is wrong with the teaching profession.

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TBT: First Day of School 202[6]

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Yesterday was the first day of classes for the 2026-2027 academic year. It is the first “first day of school” I have not attended in fifteen-ish years.

Instead, today is my first day of the school year. I’m now the part-time Chaplain for my school, and I only go in (usually) once a week, on Thursdays, for the morning Chapel service. The new headmaster will be covering today’s Chapel, so I won’t give my first devotional until next week.

It’s a little surreal being “back-to-school” in this new role—and without truly being “back” all the time. But I love it so far.

I had to attend a few of the back-to-school trainings and professional developments, and while my school is incredibly mild with that stuff compared to public schools, it was a confirmation that leaving full-time classroom teaching was the right move. Admin was scrambling to finalize the master schedule (in part because there is a new schedule this year), and one colleague had a substantial, last-minute change to his teaching load (fortunately, I was able to give him all of my materials for the course, so he should be good to go). Everyone is magically expected to be ready for this week, and it’s a testament to the kind of miracles teachers pull off that most of them probably were!

Avoiding that kind of chaos is pretty sweet. I’ve had a small dose of it, as the time for Chapel kept shifting around as the admin continued to make tweaks to the new schedule, but I’ve found that being proactive and trying to nail down details with them in writing and in advance goes a long way in the CYA department. Also, I don’t really have to work anymore, so I have ultimate outcome-independence. Being able to say, “no, I don’t think I will” is pretty liberating, albeit counterintuitive to an innate people-pleaser.

Well, here’s to doing the fun part of education with almost none of the baggage. Woooooooooot!

With that, here is 18 August 2025’s “First Day of School 2025“:

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TBT^65,536: Back to the Grind 202[6]

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Teachers at my school reported back this past Tuesday. While I am no longer teaching full time, I also had to go in for a day of professional development and training. Unlike my full-time colleagues, I am not present for the various registration days, when kids come in to get their textbooks and what-not.

It’s a tad surreal, but I’m not complaining; I rather like working from home most days. I’ll soon be sharing my weekly chapel sermons/devotionals here, so stay tuned.

One thing that will be an adjustment is not putting together tests, quizzes, handouts, slides, and the like. I was compiling all of my materials for World History for the teacher who is taking that class on this year, and it was a massive folder. The sweet lady who is taking over my Music Ensembles—she is an accomplished singer-songwriter and will do a great job—and I have been coordinating on how to prepare for concerts, etc. I created a Google Drive folder for her with lead sheets and tabs and what-not from the past fifteen years, and it ran to 800+ files. Granted, some of those are *.doc files that I then converted to PDFs, but that still comes out to around 400+ unique files—quite a bit of music.

It’s kind of wild to consider how much sheer content a teacher, especially a history (and, apparently, music) teacher produces. One of my former colleagues and friends once compared us to content creators: we’re basically churning out multiple fifty-five-ish-minute podcasts or YouTube videos every day. I’ve likened it to being an overworked cruise ship entertainer without access to the buffet: you’re giving several performances a day. In education, though, the cruisers are more weekenders out of Orlando with Carnival, not a five-night voyagers on a classier line like Royal Caribbean.

Well, here’s to seeing what this new role and school year hold. Classes resume on 12 August 2026—in six days—and then we’re off!

With that, here is 7 August 2025’s “TBT^256: Back to the Grind 202[5]“:

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No New Music Tuesday

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Happy Tuesday, dear readers!

No New Music Tuesday today, I’m afraid.  With the school year winding down, several aspects of the job are winding up as we enter into exam review season.  I’m attempting to squeeze in one last mini-unit covering the Renaissance, the Protestant Reformation, and European exploration in the span of three lessons, so my unstructured time has been spent putting together slides for  those quite vast topics.  We’ll see if I can speed run the biggest events of 1300-1600!

The point is not an in-depth analysis of these major movements, but to keep the students a taste before they head into United States History next year.  The first part of United States History examines the political, social, and religious context of late medieval/early modern Europe, as that context is significant in the exploration and colonization of the Americas.  I’d like the students to finish the “story” of World History in such a way that it dovetails with the “story” of United States History.

I’ve tinkered with my latest composition, “Japanese Trapdoor Snails,” slightly, but have hit a bit of a block with it.  As with writer’s block, the solution is simply to write—in this case, music.  To do that, though, I need to have a bit more unstructured time, and what I’ve had has been dedicated to more pressing matters.

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Lazy Sunday CCCLXXXVI: Spring Concert 2026 Posts

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A quick Lazy Sunday today, dear readers, looking back at the recent Spring Concert.  I’m looking forward to (God Willing) a relatively normal week of work!

Rock on—and Happy Sunday!

—TPP

SubscribeStar Saturday: Spring Concert 2026 Postmortem

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The 2026 Spring Concert is in the books!  It was my “swan song,” featuring  a total of twenty-six (26) pieces:  ten selections from the Middle School Music Ensemble; three solo pieces; one small group performance; and twelve tunes from the High School Music Ensemble.

Before the concert, I estimated a total runtime of about two hours.  It was slightly more, clocking in a bit closer to two hours, ten minutes.  That was a bit longer than I prefer, but it was worthwhile to get in all of the performances.  Yes, I could have shaved at least one tune from each Ensemble (and I know the ones I would have cut), but the sets ended up being very nicely balanced.

My High School Music Ensemble in particular had a good mix between the various singers in class.  It’s a blessing to have several singers, and it allows for the blending of voices in fun ways, but I like to make sure every singer who wants to sing lead gets a roughly equal proportion, with heavier weight towards seniors.  I think I achieved that, with every singer getting at least two songs.  For the Middle School Music Ensemble, I had one young lady who took lead on most tunes, but I had quite a few boys sing solos or with one another.  Another young lady sang our concert opener, “Eye of the Tiger.”

Overall, the concert went very well.  Even with the length, students and parents were thrilled.  Several parents expressed dismay post-concert that it would be my last.  The kids maintained an impressive degree of stamina throughout the experience.  There were naturally a few flubs, but even those the students handled like pros.

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