Rule?
(7) Listen and observe. Apply those things that you see succeed and apply them consistently. Conversely, if you see a practice that misses the mark, reflect to make sure that you aren’t using unsuccessful practices in your own classroom.
(8) Forgive yourself and oth- ers. We all make mistakes,
BRANDES, CONTINUED from pg 9
education; influence employers to hire artists and designers to drive innovation. To learn more about STEAM go to:http://stemtosteam. org. You can sign a petition to en- courage Congress to add art and de- sign in Federal programs that target
STAFFORD, CONTINUED from pg 17
teachers were astounded at what they could do. One other colleague of mine gave up a planning time and came in when her class was learning to dance T’Smidje. The kids LOVED it. They saw her in another light, and she saw what we were doing and how teaching a dance correlated with many of the math skills fifth grade was learning.
Once your colleagues get a taste of what you do, see the connections between your curriculum and theirs, and also understand that you
occasionally fail to plan ad- equately, draw unfair con- clusions, etc. We need to make it a regular practice to forgive. When we are bitter and unforgiving, we have difficulty seeing our students’ needs, experienc- ing their joys in and out of the classroom, and helping them through their strug- gles. Forgiving seems to be
the STEM fields at htt://petitions.
moveon.org/sign/support-stem-to- steam-1.
Advocacy work does not take a va- cation. I have additional advocacy agenda items to share in the fu- ture. These are challenging times but with your help MMEA will make a positive impact on the future of
respect their situations as much as you want them to respect yours, you will often find fierce advocates who will be willing to explain to parents and administrators what music has to offer.
In general, advocacy does not have to be blatant. Being yourself at your best and letting music be itself at its best can often be the best advocacy tool. Get ready to plan for some great professional development in January! Stay tuned………
..in the meantime, enjoy the beginning of your year. My year is going to be quite different, as I take a year’s
pretty easy until MAP test- ing season . . .
(9) Have fun teaching! Why am I beginning my twenty- eighth year of teaching? Because it is SOOOOOO
fun!!!! I love the kids, the games, the songs, the play
parties, the instruments, and the joys of helping them become musicians!
music education in Missouri. Again it is a pleasure to serve the MMEA membership. Please
contact me
with concerns, ideas, suggestions or news about your program that you would like to share, brandesgm-
mea@gmail.com. MMEA is about you, the practicing music educator.
Help us help you.
sabbatical to complete a required residency at the University of Kansas (don’t hold it against me!) for my PhD. This is going to be a different world for me. I miss my classroom and I miss my students, but I am excited about all the new information I will receive from working with preservice teachers and through research.
Reference
Rauscher, F.H., Shaw, G.L., & Ky, K.N. (1993). Music and spatial task performance. Nature, 365,6447, p. 611.
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