Hello Ms. Lee!
Congratulations on your first real, grown-up job! This is a big step! Remember that you decided to become a music teacher because of your wonderful experiences working with students at Blue Lake Fine Arts Camp and because of both the exemplary and not-so-exemplary teachers you have had both as private instructors, ensemble directors, and teachers in the classroom.
Remember that all students are in the process of becoming. Very few, if any, will pursue music as a career, however, all of them deserve to be challenged, accepted, and offered opportunities to discover more about themselves and the world they live in. There is a difference between giving students attainable goals and stifling their personal and artistic development.
Instrumental music belongs in the schools because it is essential to the well-being of humanity that students learn to appreciate beauty, think outside the realm of a language, and develop a deeper respect of and appreciation for the human spirit and the great deeds it can achieve. One of the greatest accomplishments of the human spirit is music and an education that lacked an experience with this elemental part of humanity would be incomplete.
Remember as you start of this year that all large wholes are composed of smaller pieces. Take all large obstacles one piece at a time and the whole will turn out well. Remember that your responsibility is great, but it is worth it to provide students with experiences like the ones that have formed you into who you are today. Remember that all students are in the process of becoming, don't judge the results too soon or too harshly.
Sincerely,
Kira Lee (2012)
Kira,
ReplyDeleteI am super impressed by your blog! You strike me as a very high achieving person who has her act together . . . and intelligent to boot! With those characteristics I am sure you be immensely successful. You alluded to it a bit throughout, but I would like to encourage you to enjoy the process as much as the result. You are quite right that most of your students will not become professional musicians, but then again that is not our goal. We are spending time with young people, sharing our expertise, to allow them to discover their own impressions of how/what making music means to them. I am glad that you brought that up, because I have worked with teachers who were accused of trying to make their students all turn into professionals—an overstatement in my experience, but a valid concern.
Very well written blog!
1.5/1 NS