What a treasure trove of ideas and insights for the choral educator! Rick Bjella gives a list of ideas pertaining to three important focuses (foci?) for directors:
The Three I's that don't include me
The three I's that don't include me: involvement, investment, (through inside-out rehearsing), independence...leading to integrity
As a 1st/2nd year teacher with little established, it's a little intimidating to read through this list. It's easy to be inspired to do the amazing thing we get to do - teach (music!); or at the same time, feel insignificant under the pressure that is the awesome responsibility of teaching music. After all, Uncle Ben said it best, "remember, with great power, comes great responsibility."
There's the my emotional side for you, the idealistic college kid responding to this blog post. Now for the emerging adult (though may the child in me ever reign, Amen):
Many times when reading others work or insights, there is a large portion that can be ascribed specifically to the authors situation. For example, "that would be better suited for this age group and not mine" or "my kids are insert adjective, if I tried that, I'd get anarchy." The majority of the ideas might be more directly applicable to a secondary situation. However, it seems that Mr. Bjella has a good mind for techniques that get to the principal of the matter: student involvement, student investment, and student independence. For why else do we teach, but to grow little humans into people - real people. Oh, we do it through music, glorious music [and, especially for the boys (and teenage girls when boys aren't around) food, glorious food!] But if our aim is for little humanoids to become real boys and girls, the principal of the matter is the ontological objective. And here can be found great tools and ideas to get there! Enjoy!
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