Interview By Grace Antis
The Falconer was able to sit down with our newest choral teacher, Ms. Mills, for an interview to get to know her and how she's enjoying it here at Mashpee Middle-High school. This is not only her first year teaching at this school, but it is her first year teaching out of college, so she has many bright ideas and hopes for our school that we hoped to get insight on.
The Falconer: How are you enjoying being a teacher here?
Ms. Mills: I love it! There's lots to love, I say it all the time, every day here it gets better and better. I’m happier and happier.
Falconer: What did you expect coming to work here?
Ms. Mills: Well, because I interviewed here and got to see like administration at first as well as Mr Balestracci, Mr Looney, and Mr T in my interview, it just seemed like they have such individual teaching styles and appreciated the teacher for who they are and the student for who they are. It has lived up to what I was expecting.
The Falconer was able to sit down with our newest choral teacher, Ms. Mills, for an interview to get to know her and how she's enjoying it here at Mashpee Middle-High school. This is not only her first year teaching at this school, but it is her first year teaching out of college, so she has many bright ideas and hopes for our school that we hoped to get insight on.
The Falconer: How are you enjoying being a teacher here?
Ms. Mills: I love it! There's lots to love, I say it all the time, every day here it gets better and better. I’m happier and happier.
Falconer: What did you expect coming to work here?
Ms. Mills: Well, because I interviewed here and got to see like administration at first as well as Mr Balestracci, Mr Looney, and Mr T in my interview, it just seemed like they have such individual teaching styles and appreciated the teacher for who they are and the student for who they are. It has lived up to what I was expecting.
Falconer: Do you have any upcoming plans for the program?
Ms. Mills: So, I do our chorus concerts from winter to spring, they are different from each other and also different from how it's been here and at a lot of other schools and how it usually is. We are going to just focus a lot on the winter concerts being like fourteen songs that we’re doing compared to most concerts that have about five and now every single student in chorus whether it be high school or middle school gets a solo. They pick the songs with me based on a theme, they pick their solos out, and it's really about getting them used to performing in front of people, comfortable with themselves as a performer, with their own voices, and then to further extend that to the band. I'm starting a club, which is house band that has about 24 people who are in it, and it's a band that they will switch out as players and as singers, and will perform at events in Mashpee and at restaurants to kind of represent the school, a kind of cover band like a wedding band so that's like the first thing.
Falconer: Where did you go to school?
Ms. Mills: Bridgewater! Bridgewater State University.
Falconer: When did you start playing music?
Ms. Mills: I started singing... well my mom says I always sang ever since I was a baby, but I started doing chorus when I was in first grade and I never didn’t do it, so all the way from me first grade joining chorus all the way through elementary school, middle school, high school, college to me teaching chorus here. So, it's been part of my life for years and when I when I was in high school, I was about sixteen, I started a band and I started performing at restaurants and it was such a big part of my life and helped me grow as a musician to be out there performing and out there working with other musicians, which is why that's something that i have been wanting to put in here to help them grow. But I would say it's just something that has always been a part of my life. I can't remember a time where I feel that I wasn’t doing music.
Falconer: Is your whole family musically talented?
Ms. Mills: Not really. My parents really loved music growing up, but they didn’t play instruments, they didn’t sing. My dad is a pretty decent singer, but I don’t think he like studied it to become pretty good. They were so supportive of me since I was little, since they noticed that I liked music they put me in lessons. They brought me to all the groups I was in and went to all my shows and all my gigs so I think it's just that I had such a supportive family of the thing that I loved that I was able to develop.
Falconer: They don’t play any instruments, do you play any instruments?
Ms. Mills: Yes. I play piano. I play guitar. I love the ukulele. I play the ukulele a lot. And then other than that as a musician especially when I got to college and being around my friends who played instruments I dabbled in a lot of instruments, but I don't play a lot of them well. But I like to try every new instrument because it's always different from instrument to instrument so it's exciting to learn how music is created y'know, in all different aspects.
Falconer: What's your favorite type of music to play?
Ms. Mills: I love all types of music and I really pride myself in--not saying that I do it really good--singing multiple genres. I think that's an important skill that I strive to really do well at and that's what I try to bring to the chorus as well but I always think that it feels really natural and easy when I sing jazz music it just fits my voice type, it just feels easier and it feels good.
Falconer: Do you have a favorite genre to just listen to?
Ms. Mills: I think it changes a lot I go through like a classic rock mood, sometimes I listen to jazz a lot but I think right now I’ve been listening to a lot of Stevie Wonder.
Falconer: When did you know you wanted to be a music teacher?
Ms. Mills: When I was in middle school I had the most amazing music teacher, and I think she just brought music energy out of everyone, and the second I met her I just thought that was what I was going to do and it never faded from my mind. I never thought, “Oh do I want to be a music teacher?” I just knew in middle school and having met her and being part of that program that that was just what I was going to do in my life so that was kind of the plan the whole way.
Falconer: Do you have any other creative outlets besides music? Like dancing or drawing?
Ms Mills: I am very big into swimming.
Falconer: When did you start swimming?
Ms. Mills: I always took swimming lessons when I was young, and I am competitive--in a healthy way I say--and my sister in high school did swim team so I wanted to join and the first day that I joined at practice I beat her best time. Which kind of fueled my competitive spirit and it just became like my second love. It was always me being all about music in school, taking all the music classes, then going to swim practice, going to extra swim practice, then going to voice lessons. That's just kind of what I did, and then I was a swim instructor which taught me so much about how to work with kids as a teacher too, and I was a swim coach, I just stopped coaching the swim team which I am very sad about because I coached the swim team for four years.
Falconer: If you aren’t doing that as much, how do you spend your weekends?
Ms. Mills: My weekends usually consist of me performing. It sounds like I work all week, then I work on the weekends, but it’s so enjoyable for me to be performing out. I play with a guitarist. It's the two of us. Usually what I do is a lot of acoustic stuff now. So that’s what I do Saturday, and on Sundays I usually do farmers markets but it’s become too cold, my Sundays are now free. And if I’m not out I’m usually with my friends, and we do at least every other weekend a game night.