Re: The best ever arrangement of Air on a G String

"Slogoin" <larry@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
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On Aug 15, 9:57 am, "Steve Freides" <st...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
"Stanley Yates" <i...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message

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"Slogoin" <la...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
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On Aug 14, 7:36 pm, "Stanley Yates" <i...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Economics!

Most CGists who teach college could make more money in other fields
with much less effort. If you are teaching for the money you have
not
learned the basics of econ 101.

Why do most music grads think that just because they have a degree
in music they are qualified to teach?

--------------

It's not about making money for the sake of making money. It's about
making money to support one's artistic calling.

SY

And it's about bringing music to many who will never have careers in
music but nonetheless love it. It's also about creating an
appreciation, and perhaps a love, for music in people for whom none
exists before their contact with a music teacher. It's not difficult
to
wax evangelical about these things - all people, IMHO, ought to have
something of a musical education, whether they plan to do anything
with
it in terms of their livelihood or not. It is a "core" subject, IMHO,
part of anyone's basic education.

* Why do you see it as a core subject?

I think you'll have to ask the ancient Greeks that question, or look at
the YMCA motto (maybe it's their old motto by now) of Mind, Body,
Spirit. I believe music is an integral part of being a well-rounded
human being. It touches on things no other subject touches. The
question is rather like asking why it's important to read and write
one's native tongue because speaking it is sufficient. I can't answer
that one any better than I just answered yours.

I will add, per the YMCA motto above, that I believe learning to use
one's body athletically is just as important as learning music, and
again one needn't aspire to being a professional athlete any more than
one need aspire to being a professional musician. Mind = school, Body =
exercise/sports, Spirit = music/religion/philosophy - at least that's
how I see being a well-rounded person, and I see the job of an education
as trying to produce a well-rounded person.

This is why things like the fact that
every third grader learns to play the recorder in our local schools
pleases me to no end! They also all play an instrument in fifth grade
in the band or orchestra, another very good thing!

As to qualified to teach, that's a can of worms. For a starter, those
who can teach well privately and those who can teach well in a
classroom
setting are often not the same people. I also don't believe that
_anyone_ is a good teacher, either privately or in a classroom, until
they've had a few years of experience. I consider my own efforts in
both areas at the start to have been pretty awful, and I'm confident
that I've learned and gotten better from my experience and will, I
hope,
continue to learn and continue to get better as I continue to teach.

* If it's true that teachers take time to learn how to teach what
* does that say about a turn over rate in public schools of about
* 5 years?

Exactly what you think it does - they're quiting just when they're
learning how to do the job well.

* The other thing I wonder is how much the extra two years of
* college studying education helps teachers learn the art?

Don't forget that there are a lot of different kinds of music teaching.
My wife started out on the mus ed track and was taking courses that
included learning how to play all the instruments in a typical school
band and orchestra so that she could teach them. For what I now do and
also for what she now does in music education, those courses are
completely unnecessary.

OTOH, I have a course in group dynamics that she didn't (I took it just
because I wanted to) and I found what I learned there quite valuable,
although I have to confess I don't think I made the connection in any
useful way until I'd been teaching for at least a few years.

Last but not least, I'm not sure it's two years worth of extra stuff.

* Learnwell has said he has no California teaching credential
* yet he seems to have been very successful at teaching a
* difficult subject.

As I said, neither my wife nor me has ed credentials, although my wife
did take a course or two about five years ago as part of what's called
the Alternate Route to getting ed credentials, and she thought the
course was great and that she learned a lot. (If you follow the
Alternate Route, you take a few courses then must secure a job that will
sponsor/mentor you while you teach and simultaneously take the rest of
the required courses. It's most often used by people with professional
expertise that school districts want to hire but that don't have ed
credentials.)

I teach college classes and one-on-one lessons both at the college and
at home; my wife teaches at a private middle school that didn't require
ed credentials - they hired her because she'd taught at a nursery school
for 4 years (also didn't require ed credentials) and at the community
college (again, didn't require ed credentials, just a masters degree).

* Why do we require two years of education classes if so
* many music teachers have no training in education yet
* seem to do well?

Why do birds suddendly appear every time (every time) you walk near?

Sorry, wrong song. :) Couldn't resist, not trying to belittle the
subject but it's Friday afternoon and I'm a little battier (sp?) than
usual.

I don't know the answer to your question, and I don't think the answer
is specific to music. If you ask a lot of people in a lot of fields,
they'd tell you that their formal training was, at best, only partial
preparation for their eventual job responsibilities. That's life - it's
like trying to teach people how to be parents. Lord knows there is no
training possible that can even remotely prepare you for that one, so
you learn "on the job." We all learn on the job in whatever our field;
that's the way it's always been and the way it always will be. Training
seems to help, so those entrusted with giving the training do the best
they can and we thank them for their efforts.

* Do you have any training in education?

Training, yes, but formal, no. I lived in a co-op house with a bunch of
ed-psych majors for a year in the 70's and worked with them a bit as
well, and I gleaned a lot of knowledge from that, but I've never had a
course in the subject of education.

But this is all part of the beauty of teaching music to non-musicians -
there is no career to be worried about at the end, just helping people
enrich their lives.

-S-


.

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