& News From Our Division Chairs
President Elect William McDevitt
856-794-6800 x2539
billnjmea@aol.com
Random Thoughts I looked over some past “Random Thoughts” and found the one below. It was only two years ago, but the
information is still true. When I get to the point that it isn’t – I’ll know that it’s time to join the ranks of the retired! I’ve revised it a bit to reflect the current year. As every Labor Day approaches, I get excited at the thought of the new school year. After 12 years of public educa-
tion, four years of college, and 28 years of teaching, I still have trouble getting to sleep the night before the start of my 29th year. The difference from now and then is that I didn’t buy new clothes and school supplies for the start this year. I remember the excitement of entering the classroom and seeing who my classmates would be and who my teacher
would be. Now I do the same thing by looking at my class lists before the first day. I look for familiar names and ask other teachers if they have had the students that I don’t know. One thing that I learned early on is to disregard the ramblings of the teachers that offer the negative comments about these students. I have always tried to act as if I am meeting the students for the first time – no baggage attached. Many times, by using this approach, I find that these students aren’t really as bad as they were previously described. I used to look forward to entering the classroom and going through the new supplies that I ordered. That doesn’t
happen much anymore. The budget for my entire department is now less than I spent my first year in my current posi- tion. We are definitely doing more with less. My department is the only one in the school that has more student course requests than teachers to fill the requests. Yes - the Arts are alive today in public education. Everyone knows that and understands our value. Why, then, are we not seen as being as important as other subjects? The job of advocacy will NEVER be a “mission accomplished” for music educators. We have lots of tools that can
help us in our fight, but we are going to have to do the job ourselves. The band will go before the football team. The string program and the choir will go before honors courses. Athletics and honors programs don’t ever seem to need advocates, because the question never seems to be asked. We, however, are constantly being called upon to justify our programs. And even knowing this, we report to school on the first day with the same excitement and anticipation that we had on the first day when we were children. I think that if I had to come up with five things that I would like to see in my lifetime, one of them would be that music would be put on the same level as English, Math, Science, and Social Studies. I would like to see the public af- firm what it already knows about the value of an education in music and let music teachers do their job without having to justify their existence on a daily basis. We make our jobs look so easy that it seems like anyone can do it – but we know the truth. Very few teacher put in as much time on the job as the music teacher. Very few teachers are in their classroom during the summer as much as the music teacher. Then again – very few teachers are continuing to practice their passion every day that they walk into the classroom. I wonder if I’ll be able to get to sleep the night before school opens this year?
continued on page 8 TEMPO 6 OCTOBER 2014
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