research
on your experiences as a teacher (and learner), creating innovation in teaching ideas and focusing on student success as a reflection of your success as a teacher were the themes. Jorgenson states “Finding out who we really are takes a lifetime… until we set out to find out who we are, we cannot help our students begin to discover who they really are.”5
In this era
of high stakes testing and accountability, teachers of any discipline are constantly facing questions about how what they teach supports student learning. Unless music educators are reading, attending workshops and conferences, talking with others and sharing the discoveries they have made about the power of music for student success, no one will understand the value of what we do. Our work is so much more than a public relations opportunity to motivate the community. According to Jorgensen, “as teachers, our principal task is not to convey knowledge or even wisdom so much as to inspire and energize our students.”6
If we can do this, the door
to the world will be open to our students in any area they choose.
“It is imperative that we maintain hope even when the harshness of reality may suggest the opposite… We awaken in oth- ers and ourselves the need, and also the taste, for hope.”7
Finally, I asked my students what question they would ask a retiring music teacher about being successful? We all hope to have a long and fruitful career, whatever that means to each individual and those who have lived the experience are best situated to support our professional curios- ity. Questions were posed such as:
“Do you feel you made a difference to students and how they feel about music?”
“How did you overcome the obstacles to education that were out of your control?”
“How do you remain positive and successful within a rising amount of negativity?
These questions reflect some of the very reassurances that these same teachers wanted to offer to younger educators just starting out in the field. At what point in our careers do we become confident in who we are and what we are doing?
“I cannot be a teacher without exposing who I am.”8
Music teachers are first musicians, who love performing, listening and creating music and then teachers, who express their love of music through the experiences offered to their students. Those who call themselves MUSIC EDUCATORS value the openness that music provides through which we can share ourselves with the world.
Notes:
1. Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Heart, (Continuum Press, 2004): 73.
Sheila Feay-Shaw is an assistant professor at UW-Milwaukee Department of Music. Email:
feayshaw@uwm.edu
2. Estelle R. Jorgensen, In Search of Music Education, (University of Illinois Press, 1997): xv.
3. Answers submitted as an informal survey. For more information, contact
feay-shaw@uwm.edu.
4. Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of Freedom, (Rowman & Littlefield, Publishers, 2000): 72.
5. Estelle R. Jorgenson, The Art of Teaching Music, (Indiana University Press, 2008): 3.
6. Ibid: 251.
7. Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Heart, (Continuum Press, 2004): 106.
8. Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of Freedom, (Rowman & Littlefield, Publishers, 2000): 87.
Wisconsin School Musician
29
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76