Here’s my first post regarding my new book, Lessons from the Music Room. It will be available as a paperback and as an eBook from most of the major book sellers. (See below)
Paperback
Available on ebook at the following retailer:
I wrote the book for several reasons. First, I have mentored many music teachers over the span of my career of 28 years (nearly 29 now). As I get older, I thought to myself, “Why don’t you write down all these great ideas for your mentees?” So that’s partly what got me started. Second, I have found that I regularly post on district discussion pages about cool things I have developed, things that worked for me, great tips on accomplishing a teaching goal, etc.
I have received good feedback from my fellow teachers that my ideas were usable and in fact, FUN to implement and they really helped. So, I know that I can make a difference with veteran teachers. And third, I wanted to help new teachers and veteran teachers to become the center of their school – the music experts of the community who create exceptional programs, are sympathetic and intuitive teachers and who make a difference in children’s lives for many years to come. I also wanted to help teachers avoid burnout and physical exhaustion because they are working so hard to keep organized and plan for all the concerts and special things that we music teachers do on a daily basis.
So, I wrote the book. My hope is that the book can be used as a supplemental text for colleges and universities in music education courses. I hope that new and nearly new music teachers can use some of my ideas to start the next school year off with a bang. Well organized classroom, well organized performance groups, good insight toward students who may have some behavior issues, and assist teachers to learn to work well with administrators and their colleagues.
I would like this blog to become a forum for topics relating to teaching elementary school or general music classes in middle and high school. I haven’t taught at those levels for a very long time, but children are children. They are people. People have problems and successes at whatever level they are in their journey exploring music. So, this may be helpful for choir, band and orchestra teachers as well. We’ll see.
In closing this blog post, look here for information that may or may not be in my book, and I hope to build a following so that we as music educators can help each other become the best teachers that we can be. I know I am still learning, and love new ideas and ways to do things.