andrew hathaway - Castillero Middle School and Simonds Elementary School

Hi! My name is Andrew Hathaway, and I teach choir at Castillero Middle School and Simonds Elementary School in San Jose. We’ve been teaching in person this entire year, and my favorite thing so far is all the spontaneous music, laughter, and conversations that happen from day to day. With virtual teaching, I felt like there was a lot of radio silence and not a lot of room for sudden fun things to happen in each class, and I have seen the absolutely opposite this year. I’m learning to embrace the unpredictability, and it’s given me some of my favorite teaching memories. 

After a year of teaching online, the biggest challenge for my students was suddenly dealing with all the anxieties of a post-COVID world piled on to the normal anxieties of a pre-teen. Thoughts of “What is everyone else going to think of me?” suddenly clashed with “Is it even safe for me to be here in the first place?” It was a big process to get everyone out of their shell and deal with all of the pent-up emotions. One of my favorite tools is a website called MentiMeter, which allows teachers to pose an open-ended question that students can respond to anonymously. I’ve used it for both musical and non-musical conversations and always gotten a ton of honesty and vulnerability. 

My kids also love finding creative ways to just have some fun as a group again through games, trivia, and even some new sports. My tenor-bass group has insisted several times on going to play music-stand tennis if we have a bit of extra free time on a Friday, always with hilarious results. 

To my fellow new teachers: The past three years have been nothing like what I ever imagined this profession would be. As daunting as it may seem to enter the education field right now, I promise you that it gets easier. The work you are doing for every student that walks through your door is always going to be worth it.