Abstract
The advocacy efforts of the National Association for Music Education (NAfME) have caught my attention. The website’s advocacy page is impressively extensive, and every recent issue of Music Educators Journal (MEJ) touches on the subject in some way. In the five semesters that I have studied music education, I have noticed a certain upswing in arts promotion. There is good reason for this: With a nationwide budget crisis, music educators have little choice but to defend the very thing to which we have dedicated our lives.
I appreciate the fact that certain issues of MEJ have a theme, and that the “From the Academic Editor” section summarizes the theme and its impact on music education and on education as a whole. Everyone is pushing advocacy hard at this point—with good reason—but it would be easy for everyone’s attention to drift away from the actual music instruction. MEJ seems to be managing this delicate balancing act effectively.
The more that I think about it, the more I feel that time is the real issue. Teachers need more time to teach. Students need more time to learn everything they need from the education system. Music educators need to fight for more time, but they also have to make good use of the time—and other resources—that they have in order to be truly successful teachers.
I have been told frequently by professors, older peers, and practicing teachers that the bulk of what will be valuable to me as a teacher will be learned in the field. Of course, an undergraduate program will provide me with instruction in pedagogy, musicianship, and professionalism, but these mean little without practical experience. There is barely enough time to learn even those basics.
Photo courtesy of the author
I think that the same can be said for our professional publication, MEJ. It is undoubtedly a valuable resource for music educators at any stage in their careers. It goes beyond the act of teaching to dissect the reason behind it. I have enjoyed reading the wide array of articles that have been published on topics ranging from celebrating diversity to overcoming improvisation anxiety. I feel that these articles have broadened my view of the profession. However, other than having some better perspectives for developing my philosophy on music education, I have not been able to apply what I have read yet. I always find myself thinking, “I will have to remember this when I have my own classroom.”
During the school year, my peers and I spend much of our time going to class, doing schoolwork, and improving our own musicianship. There is some downtime, but I am often at a loss when determining how best to spend it, and I know that others ponder the same question. The summer in particular holds much greater opportunities for time investment. Most of us want to earn money, but we usually want to do it in a way that will further our careers and will bring us some level of enjoyment as well.
The summer after my freshman year lasted four months. I enjoyed spending time with my family and old friends, practicing on my own, and working at my minimum-wage high school job. By the end of it, though, I realized that I had not done anything substantial to benefit myself as a music educator. Once I returned to school and noticed how happy I felt to be back, I decided that I should never spend that much time being idle again. This resolve was reinforced by the stories that I heard from my friends about their productive, career-advancing summers.
In January, I sent in my application to be a cabin counselor at Blue Lake Fine Arts Camp in Twin Lake, Michigan. I got an interview, completed it, and received the job offer. I took it, feeling a little uneasy about taking such a leap of faith. It would be my first time working with groups of kids, sleeping in a real cabin, using outdoor showers, leaving the East Coast, and spending that much of my summer away from home.
So, I spent two months in the woods with high school and middle school students (mostly girls), almost 200 other counselors, and some actual teachers. I grew in my art, lived in a cabin with eleven girls at a time, worked closely with other counselors, observed and assisted teachers, and did a little bit of teaching myself. I could go on for quite some time talking about my experiences there—it was an unforgettable summer!
I know that the average music educator does not do his or her job under conditions as were found at Blue Lake, but what I learned there about teaching, professionalism, identifying problems, adolescent behavior, relationships, group dynamics, teamwork, and resourcefulness will definitely transfer to my future. In fact, I feel that I am not applying everything that I learned because I am still trying to absorb it all. I hope that I, in turn, taught the campers a few things along the way. I am confident that I made good use of my summer, and I am aware that I have much more to learn once I start teaching in a school.
Now when I read MEJ, I tend to relate the articles to experiences that I had at Blue Lake. When I read articles about English as a Second Language (ESL) learners, I think of Perine, a high school dancer from my cabin who received some basic English instruction from me and my other campers. I think of the woodwind class that I assisted when I read about woodwind issues, and I think about the ensembles that I worked with when I read about ensemble issues. I think about certain other campers when I read about disabilities and socioeconomic disadvantages. I love having a context for all of it.
Gaining real-world practice has absolutely helped me to better reap the benefits of MEJ. Still, I cannot help but wonder whether, had I known more about what I would encounter at Blue Lake, I would have been able to take more away from my experiences there. I think that MEJ should include more information about music education opportunities outside of the traditional classroom. There are summer arts camps and programs all over the country, and I believe that they can create a nation of better music educators. College students need to hear about them and about how best to make the most of their experiences. Should they be ready to take notes during ensemble rehearsals that they assist? Should they bring their batons? They should for Blue Lake, and they probably should for most other arts camps as well.
Since it is a journal for the entire music education profession, MEJ is not aimed at college students, nor should it be. But I think that it would benefit undergraduates and seasoned teachers alike if it could have more information on teaching experiences that can be gained outside of a traditional classroom. Based on what I learned from the teachers at Blue Lake, they believed that taking their skills to a different location, season, and lifestyle gave them the chance to improve their teaching. I remember some teachers who made family camping trips out of these summer jobs and some who needed to retreat to the wilderness for their own well-being. Some teachers just wanted more to do during the summer, and the extra income was a definite plus.
Obviously, teachers earn that summer break with all the hard work that they put in during the school year. But if a teacher wants nothing to do with summer camps, she would do well to encourage her students to attend. There are thousands of students at all grade levels who are serious about music, yet do little to continue participating in music when the school year ends. I was one of those kids, and I wish that I could go back and change that. Most of the students I met at Blue Lake were the top musicians, artists, actors, or dancers in their communities. Some of them enjoyed camp more than others, but I did not talk to a single camper who did not grow as an artist from attending. It was certainly a more productive endeavor than watching television for two weeks.
MEJ has done and is continuing to do a lot to prepare future music educators. The advocacy efforts are top-notch, as they should be. But I hope we remember that experience and time have been, are still, and always will be essential to becoming effective teachers. If MEJ does what it can to further acknowledge these aspects of teacher development with all of the good that it already does, the budget cuts will have quite a force to reckon with.