Where the Heart is

"I didn't know my language would come to me"

Vijay Gupta delivered us Ava's words; a Tanzanian woman entranced by a song sung in Swahili during the Street Symphony series. First-class musicians had unexpectedly transported her home in the middle of Los Angeles.

Hearing Vijay Gupta made me feel that way as well. In Los Angeles I performed as a member of the Doctor's Symphony with this same virtuoso as the soloist, our organizations joined to raise funds and visibility for his revolutionary project. What kismet to see him twice, both times at the start of life chapters! In this recent tour he described Street Symphony as an "in-reach" program providing the homeless and incarcerated with some of the world's finest programming.

After his performance of a Bach chaconne (dedicated to the late Oliver Sacks) Mr. Gupta opened the floor for questioning. I asked something to the effect of "How do you give readily yet maintain personal balance when coming into close contact with intense situations/populations?"
He promoted the term "in-reach" over outreach with the emphasis that he feels enriched by his bonds with the audience and does not see the experience as strictly providing.

I left wondering how I can be a better humanist? In which mode of service will cultivating the highest version of myself be enough to benefit society?

"I am a very simple man. I am a man first, an artist second. My first obligation is to the welfare of my fellow man. I will endeavor to meet this obligation through music, since it transcends language, politics and national boundaries."
-Pablo Casals

He reiterated ideas of "What I need and what you need..." and "Their story is your story..." which cements the reciprocity and authenticity of street symphony.

Mr. Gupta added that "Music's purpose is making connection."


Works Cited
Gupta, V. (2015). The Arts and Social Healing. [Presentation]. Lecture presented for the community of the University of Texas at Austin. Austin, Texas.

Street Symphony. (2015, November). Street Symphony. Retrieved from Street Symphony website: http://streetsymphony.org/

Doctors Symphony. (2015, November). Los Angeles Doctors Symphony Orchestra. Retrieved from website: http://ladso.org/

Oliver Sacks. (2015, November). Oliver Sacks. Retrieved from Oliver Sacks website: http://www.oliversacks.com/

Casals, P. (2015, November). "I am a very simple man." Retrieved from Great Thoughts Treasury:
http://www.greatthoughtstreasury.com/node/534392

Surpassing Ourselves

During college I was sent a care package of foil-wrapped Dove chocolates with small idioms on the inside. One read, "Worry wastes wisdom." The chart above is every bit as sage however, calorie-free.

Frame the word "problem" as an objective without a pre-meditated way to achieve. It can be satisfying (which coffee shall I order?), dastardly (400 page thesis), creative (gardening) or banal (data entry). Many problems are simple, and others are rather complex (Bereiter & Scardemalia, 1993).

In The Martian starring Matt Damon, astronaut Mark Watney is abandoned on Mars after an emergency evacuation of his crew. Notice whether your first reaction is, "HOW WILL HE SURVIVE?"versus,"HE'S FINISHED!"

Let's return to the chart, as a reminder the problem is: You are on Mars until further notice. Tension arises in: "Can you do something about it?" If you answer "Yes." you might identify with Mark Watney and think, "How will I survive?" If you answer "No." you may conclude "He's finished!" but continue to suffocate in your own anxiety.

Imagine you've automatized all information necessary to be an expert botanist and astronaut. Surviving Mars remains a daunting undertaking.

Mark Watney initially ponders the overwhelming question of "How will I survive?" but swiftly moves beyond obvious solutions of how to maintain. Many of us would not advance further than conserving remaining resources at hand.

During these breakthroughs, I realized my tension arises from an artificial "NO," when I believe or know there really is something that can be done! On a personal level I ask, "Am I worrying or problem solving?" I try to parse the two by noting whether I am pondering a realistic solution (action-based) versus entertaining a specific scenario (dialogue-based, usually inclusive of an imaginary argument reliant on fixed points of discussion).

Back to Mars, named for the Roman God of War...Mark breaks down his mega-task into increasingly smaller questions. How long am I expected to live? What resources do I have? How can I make any or all of these resources renewable? I am a botanist, perhaps I can make a garden. This series allows him to imagine hyper-inventive solutions, such as growing potatoes from astronaut poop.

Experts see the big picture and become energized, rather than defeated. They assess a massive challenge and are able to create steps. Whether by force or intrigue, they reinvest themselves into greater learning. Their erstwhile highest prior knowledge becomes the new baseline and additional skills are sought.

Take your fundamental knowledge for granted, stop worrying and work it out!



                                                             Works Cited
Scott, R. (2015). The Martian. United States: 20th Century Fox

Bereiter, C., & Scardamalia, M. (1993). Chapter Four: Expertise as process. In Surpassing ourselves: An inquiry into the nature and implications of expertise (pp. 77­-120). Chicago: Open Court.

Unknown. "Worry Chart"

Brain imPLANTS

Take a moment to enjoy the mimosa pudica also known as the shame plant. I’ve been feeling empathetic to this plant since our introduction at a recent lecture from the outdoor series Science Under the Stars.

I have a glorious track record of becoming overwhelmed in the subject of music theory. Despite many genuine efforts, I often fallen short of my hopes and expectations. This included shortcomings during grad school diagnostics, resulting in my enrollment in graduate music theory review.

In hindsight, I probably could have talked my way out of it. But to me, part of returning to school is an opportunity to address and surmount ails musical or otherwise academic. So with that in mind I happily accepted the challenge.

At the beginning, I was feeling pretty great! I had all A’s in my homework, asked questions in class, did the reading and reviewed heavily for the first exam. When the exam came back it read D+.

Talk about cognitive dissonance. I was devastated. I sulked my way through the remainder of class and afterwards collected myself and emailed the professor to meet during her office hours (thus completing the trifecta of professors visited).

If you watched the video, it would be the equivalent to hovering lighters all around the plant. But you may also notice that over time, the plant recovers.

This event coincided with other midterms-namely my Psychology of Learning exam, partially concerning Carol Dweck’s growth/fixed mindset theories. To quote my professor, “A growth mindset is a view that your ability is not fixed because you actually become more able by having it that you've learned new things, that your mind has responded to new challenges.” Since sensitization to the theory I’ve seen it everywhere, including in how programmers approach their work.

Homework is usually intended to be helpful in the long-term. I recognized I’d already assigned theory as something I am “bad at” and therefore would be doomed to struggle perpetually. So I embarked on a path to morph my mind!

This is not in itself a solution, but part of one. I’ve also requested to have three times the homework my classmates are assigned to ensure I practice the concepts from class everyday.

What do you tell yourself you are bad at? Do you think this must be true forever?

Works Cited

The Cat’s Travels, Nik. (2008, January 7) “Mimosa Pudica-The Sensitive Plant.” [YouTube]. Project: Report. Retrieved from:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BLTcVNyOhUc

Schallert, D. (September 22, 2015). “Sept 21 Group 2” [Right. So this new label of growth mindset is a new label for what Dweck used to call (or still calls in her research pubs) a mastery orientation, in contrast to a fixed mindset which is the popular label for performance orientation. I would say it like this: A growth mindset is a view that your ability is not fixed because you actually become more able by having it that you've learned new things, that your mind has responded to new challenges. what do you think of my re-wording?]. Retrieved from: https://utexas.instructure.com/courses/1145877/discussion_topics/2495474

Kaptur, A. (2015, October). Effective Learning Strategies for Programmers. Allison Kaptur. Retrieved from: http://akaptur.com/blog/2015/10/10/effective-learning-strategies-for-programmers/

Popova, M. (2015, October). Fixed vs. Growth: The Two Mindsets That Shape Our Lives. Maria Popova. Retrieved from:

https://www.brainpickings.org/2014/01/29/carol-dweck-mindset/

Science Under the Stars. (2015, October). Plant Defenses: Attack from all sides. Retrieved from

www.scienceunderthestars.org

The Novice Equation

Hey, I want you to overanalyze something

I'm sorry, what, are you serious? I am so good at this.

Have you ever heard "it's what's on the inside that counts?"

Yeah sure. It's what moms and teachers say to make us stop judging the physically unfortunate.

But did you ever think of what that might mean for us?

So, you're calling us ugly?

Um, yeah maybe a little. You know how sometimes we don't get along?

Only when you drag us into stupid situations like music theory tests, or new towns, or talking to the way more physically fortunate, or invite the principal to watch class-

-Yeah, I get it, thanks. Okay, well it turns out that sometimes those conversations are making us bad at stuff. Like when I'm trying to remember things-

-You mean, when you're fishing while our colleagues die of boredom triggered by the pregnant-verging-on-overdue pause in your presentation. I think someone in the corner is sleeping behind a book...

This is unbearable. Seriously, when we are both this fired up it makes it impossible for both of us to be effective.

Well, it's called cognitive interference, so that sounds like a you thing to me...

Yeah, thanks. I've been looking into how we can both be functional players here.

*****

As teachers we have 2 major modes to manage (not talking ionian):

intrinsic cognitive load-your content knowledge, e.g. How to solfege and perform the square dance in mirror-image

extraneous load-stupid interruptions, e.g. the loudspeaker

intrinsic + extraneous loads=germane load (potential effectiveness)

Anything aside from the learning target falls into the extraneous category, leading to a weak outcome of your germane load.

The stronger your intrinsic knowledge of the subject, the more room you have for the extraneous portion of your teaching equation-leading to better teaching. Your extraneous portion of the equation can include helpful tasks such as checking for understanding,  scanning for general student affect, and cracking a joke while juggling 3 Sousaphones (like I do).

This is a reason why new teachers struggle. Their intrinsic portion is constantly being challenged/reinforced (ugh, should I chuck the solfege and just have them sing "loo" No, that sounds like a toilet, what if a British family moves to school?!). PLUS the extraneous onslaught (BTSA, 200 new names, how to take attendance, where is the bathroom, where do I enter grades, must I take the students to festival, what's for lunch? MMMmm lunch...was that a spit wad through a trumpet mouthpiece?)

How does the brain deal with this?

It compartmentalizes and stereotypes situations into manageable pieces while numbing your memory in order to prevent total meltdown.

Which means you may be susceptible to the following thoughts/impulses: The trumpets are naughty, the boys are screwing around (especially trumpet boys), the flutes are talking, everyone's name is Brayden and Jennifer, the solfege sounds good, always use the middle bathroom stall in the staff bathroom, In-n-out for lunch again and no we are not going to festival or playing the music from Frozen.


Chuck your illusions of remembering anything from class properly into the middle stall of the very reliable bathroom. 

Is it just me or did I totally blow it when the principal came to check on my teaching?

Yep-you probably did blow it in front of your principal, and guess what? Your ability to remember whatever just happened in class, is not what just happened in class. Sorry.

You will blame all spit wads on Brayden in the trumpet section. Bias is a coping and compartmentalizing strategy.

AND THE MORE YOU MAKE IT TRY TO STOP, THE MORE IT WILL HAPPEN
MUAHAHAHAHA

Okay, now here is where I will throw you a life-preserver.

You are not alone. Or special.

Sorry, let me try again.

In a teaching setting there is not time for self-reflection or slow solutions. It is time to make decisions. Make time for written reflections on your day or even video/audio tape portions of your rehearsal and listen to them when your heart rate has slowed a good 30 clicks. Preferably after a nap when your mind has settled (tip: prop up a big book/score during a staff meeting and put your head down, make sure it's in your content area).

Enjoy the fact that mindful practices such as journaling and continued pursuit of knowledge will keep strengthening the intrinsic portion of your equation.

Stay organized and have a script or agenda to minimize anything which detracts from the intrinsic equation. Can you use your TAs/section leaders/parent volunteers better? What can you do to make your students more self-sufficient and maintain meaningful engagement to your learning goals? Who is on site to assist you with copies/student behavior concerns/grading?

Take comfort in the fact that your students are experiencing similar overload. How can you help them express their intellectual or emotional challenges with better ease?

Also, coffee, dark chocolate, naps and laughter.

Works Cited/Inspired

Feldon, D. F. (2007). Cognitive load and classroom teaching: The double-edged sword of automaticity. Educational Psychologist, 42, 123-137.

Reifinger, J.L. Jr. (2012). The acquisition of sight-singing skills in second-grade general music: effects of using solfege and of relating tonal patterns to songs. Journal of Research in Music Education, 60(1), 26-42. doi:10.1177/0022429411435683

How to Train Your Pet Chimera

This post originated from my desire to learn 88 words from the vocab builder of my Kindle.

If you have a Kindle (I call it my "Kihnd-ee" and have superglued googly eyes above the amazon arrow) I highly recommend this feature. All you have to do is keep your finger on a word you don't know and it'll give you the definition! I've often caught myself NOT clicking on a word because I felt like I should know what it means and felt badly about it.

After recognizing this negative self-talk for the bully it was-I decided not only would I look up the words as they occurred, but at some undetermined point of my life I would actually learn them.

One of these words is "Chimera." I pronounce it kEYE-Meh.-Ruh -feel free to learn the right way and don't bother trying to explain it to me in true IPA form.

In Greek mythology the chimera is the head of a Lioness (think Nala) the body of a goat and a serpent's tail (for me, rattle snake). ALSO IT BREATHES FIRE.

It represents "a thing that is hoped or wished for but in fact is illusory or impossible to achieve."
(source: google? it's the first result in a gray box and you can't see the actual origin although I suspect it's the Oxford dictionary)

YIKES. Definitely something I needed a word for these days. Am I experiencing/a/some/many Chimeras right now?

The same day I was pondering this definition I was also in the midst of trying to get my grad life together.  I was trying to maintain professional countenance (duh another kindle word) despite logistical setbacks (apartment woes+schoolaucracy=financial inferno). I'd had some naive moments already and was trying to stave off further peccadillos by reading selected works from my profs (abstracts only, duh. JK.).

In this initial research I recognized a horrific mistake; I'd accidentally registered for something in psychopharmacology or neuroscience. CAN YOU IMAGINE THE ADD/DROP PROCESS NOW? THE FEES? THE PAPERWORK? MORE SIGNATURE SCAVENGING?! I'M NOT GOING TO PASS THIS UNLESS I GET CREDIT AS A TEST SUBJECT.

Then I realized it was okay, a happy case of 2 researchers with the same last name at the same University. JKJK HAHA NO NEED TO PANIC

My interest was piqued when I scrolled to Self-kindness when facing stress: The role of self-compassion, goal regulation, and support in college students’ well-being by Neeley et. all (am I doing this right?)

In this study, the researchers were looking to build upon an existing study involving goal-redirection and happiness. In other words people who were able to re-direct their goals were happier. 

Example 1: You are going after the fine specimen from your kickball rec league. Oh how you adore their physique, sense of humor, how they squat devotedly during plays at shortstop...

Oh snap! They are taken?! :( 

...but their friend in left field is single and suddenly you realize they are seriously rocking that scrimmage pinnie. 
PLEASE TAKE THIS MOMENT TO APPRECIATE THE INTENTIONAL OMISSION OF GENDER PRONOUNS TO ENHANCE AUDIENCE RELATE-ABILITY.

My first reaction in this reading was, "Is science telling me to lower my standards for happiness? Are you inferring I want a pet hamster and not a chimera? This is malarkey."



Example 2: You are going after the fine specimen from your kickball rec league. 

Oh how you adore their physique, sense of humor, how they squat at shortstop...

Oh snap! They are taken?! :( 

THIS ALWAYS HAPPENS TO ME! Ugh, I think I'll wait in the friend-zone until their partner inevitably blows it! I am so undesirable I don't know how my shadow even hangs around. That's it, I'm going to eat that whole cheese block when I get home.

Goal Disengagement-When you do not replace a tantalizing morsel with something else. (FYI cheese block was not a re-direction...mmmm, cheese.)

Make sense? We are generally better off with goal-redirection, granted it's hard to remember this is an option in the heat of the moment.

Also, perceived availability of help and services to undergrads staves off unnecessary melt-downs.

Just knowing you have a trampoline under you as you walk a tightrope makes you perform with more success than the image of the grand canyon.

Other Talking Points/Review: Be nice to yourself even when nobody else can hear you (practice positive self-talk), ask for help (seek a trampoline), remember everyone else goes through this bologna (acceptance of the human condition), avoid catastrophizing, (although not explicitly recommended) MEDITATE, and seek alternates (goal-reorientation).

TL,DR: If you have a "pet chimera" this study recommends you either re-purpose it/genetically modify it or perhaps set it free.


Someone once told me that YAHOO stands for: You Always Have Other Options

YAHOO!

Office Hours

It's the first week of school and I already know I am full of too many ideas.

Probably too many to subject onto some poor professor(s).

Also too many to keep inside.

This blog is intended to quench my thirst for the possibly non-academic things I want to ask my teachers (or say at them while they scream on the inside for office hours to be over, or the "Dean to call"-"Sorry, very urgent, must go now.") I will also be forthcoming about what happens when my own ego gets in the way.

I am so excited for homework! I am wrestling with a deep-seeded (seated?) desire to impress my colleagues and professors with caustic wit and further discuss everything I half-assed browsed in bulletproof musician, regurgitate the dregs on what's left in my Madsen and Madsen memory bank and fully brag on what I accomplished in my last teaching position.

"Look at me, I'm so effervescent and charming!" *Sparkles emit from a dazzling smile, and you'll also notice my winged eye-liner is absolutely precise.*

I love learning, but it is admittedly pathetic to yearn to eat up everyone's time with desperate attempts to be insightful.

During this syllabus week, I have a mobile of check pluses and red pen marks with the triple-underlined word, Yes!!! orbiting and packets of finished extra credit assignments fluttering about, and airplanes buzzing around my brain taking a polly pocket-sized-me to conferences to present. Obviously I didn't pay for my private jet to the Mid-West clinic (where I'm a keynote speaker) because the University is sending me FO' FREE by sheer fact that I am so extraordinary. On the plane, I am giving the final touches to my article, to be published by all of the best research journals.

This is translation for, "OH MY GOD WHAT HAVE I DONE TO EVERYTHING I THOUGHT I KNEW ABOUT MYSELF."

Thank you Pinterest for bringing me the following idiom, "Confidence is quiet, insecurities are loud."

With this, another imaginary self with a large burlap bag jumps onto the desk next to me and tries to stuff all of the flying papers, red pen marks and airplanes away before anyone sees the ostentatious display.

Yesterday, my advisor gave an amazing talk through his VERY FAMOUS PODCAST oh my gosh, so cool. Hopefully you can tell by this ambiguous advertising that there is no way I could have known as a new transplant to new town and University that I should on some level be obligated to attend such an event.

Back up to a few hours before: I do not have Friday obligations (YET) and decided to "explore what the city has to offer" as recommended to me by the very same Dr. Duke...

This brought me to Barton Springs for the first time, where I performed a very nice cannonball into a natural pool.

SO, as I stood freshly tanned and water-logged in my kitchen, I receive a text that roughly tells me that my mentor will appear on stage in 15 minutes.

Uh, yeah? Didn't you see it on the website? 

I drove like a maniac to the nearest conservative parking space (not too close where I would encounter other frantic parkers, but where I knew I could cut through campus in 4 minutes), rear-end parked like a B0$$, took my heels off and sprinted through the campus, and plopped down just as applause ramped up and lights came down.

I caught myself nodding furiously through the whole talk on sustainability, as if this approval contributed anything to stage discussion or its flow.

Early on, the concept of "go-brain" is mentioned, where we become isolated on our one fixation, be it food or sex (this article just became provocative). We ignore everything else until that need is met and then snap out of a stupor and wake up to our real surroundings.

I've been working on meditation for 5 months, which I believe tries to curb this impulse. I'm not very good, but that is another blog.

Question 1: Please explain go-brain as it relates to the exercise of meditation!

Question 2: Have you read Taleb's Antifragile? What do you think about his take on retroactively fitting/justifying a story to an event after it has occurred?

Question 3: Do you have go-brain? What gives you go-brain? How do you stop it?

OKAY so today...I am working on homework for a research methods class. We are tracking what we do with our time in large blocks. Perhaps this will be shared later.

We are reading Dr. Duke's Senior Research Award Acceptance Speech-published in the Journal of Research in Music Education in 2010. His topic is "What if Research Was Interesting?"

He discusses the strength of his mentorship with Clifford Madsen (I sheepishly recall upon graduating, I may have exchanged a pink-covered version of this text with a classmate for recreational beverages). In my mind's eye, the scowls of my most beloved professors peer over my shoulder disparagingly.

The article delves into the application of science in Music Education and I flash to the point this week where I looked at the scholarships available in the National Science Foundation and sulked; feeling there was no way I would qualify without contorting myself/passions/studies in some unnatural way.

Question 4: Where is my link between music and science? Am I a scientist?


           "Many people, after learning about some recent research result, ask So what? But So what? is               a flip, and wrong, question to ask. The more penetrating question is What does this explain?"

             (Duke, 2010)

Now my head is on fire because the motto and crest of Upright Citizens Brigade is obscuring all words on the screen.

I believe translates to, "If this unusual thing is true, what else is?"

To me, I'm thinking of "Yes, and..." an improvisational comedy rule, where you never refuse an offering from your partner, rather you always build upon their idea to help something develop and grow.

WHAT OTHER BEAUTIFUL LESSONS ARE EMBRACING EACH OTHER OVER TIME AND DIMENSION!?


Dr. Duke discusses a novice teacher's development from a dry lesson sequence and adjusting her sails to become more naturally inquisitive and activity-based. Using human curiosity as a vehicle instead of a textbook format.

I'm thinking: I LOVE DOING THIS! I DO THIS ALREADY, OH MAN I MUST BE A REALLY GREAT TEACHER, WOW! <---Hi, ego-let me get my burlap sack.

AH! Drop the sack! *Clouds in the sky begin to part*

Dr. Duke imparts knowledge to those of us at the beginning of the journey (how appropriate)

"Read, read, read. Read the best work you can get your hands on. And today it is possible to get your hands on just about anything online without even getting dressed. (Back in my day, we had to walk to a library. Imagine.) There’s simply no excuse for reading mediocre work. You don’t have to. There’s superb work at your fingertips. Read great science, read great history, read great literature, read great news reportage. Immerse yourself in intellectual excellence every day. This isn’t to say that you can’t or shouldn’t partake of the delightful pablum you recognize as unrigorous. I enjoy a good Keith Olbermann screed and a David Sedaris essay and a Mariah Carey song from time to time. But do that stuff all the time and it’ll make you stupid. Write, write, write. Writing is hard. And if my experience is an indication, it will always be hard. The trick, if you can call it a trick, is to come to enjoy the difficulty of it. One of my favorite pithy quotes about writing I learned from my friend and former colleague at Texas, John Trimble, who wrote what I think is the best book about how to write that’s ever been written (Trimble, 2000). The quote is from the great sports writer Walter W. “Red” Smith, who said, “Writing is easy. All you do is sit in front of a typewriter keyboard until little drops of blood appear on your forehead.”"

Please excuse the absence of proper citation, as I don't know how to do it yet

There are remarks on writing as reflection, and I am both happy that I write this blog post, and I'm also haunted by the words of a former boss. 

"Be careful when you put something in writing, it lives a whole 'nother life..."

AHH IS THIS THING A MISTAKE?!

Then I'm soothed by this:

There is a fascinating phenomenon related to human creativity that was first reported by Simonton in 1977. Now known as the equal-odds rule, it states that in scholarly and artistic endeavors “quality correlates positively with quantity, so that creativity becomes a linear statistical function of productivity” (Simonton, 1996, p. 235; see also Simonton, 1999). Simonton observed this phenomenon after exhaustive analyses of artistic productivity and published research in a range of academic disciplines. In other words, across the span of an individual’s career and among different individuals in a given discipline, the number of important works tends to be proportional to the total number of works produced. It would be understandable for us to imagine that the writers and scholars we’ve heard of, precisely because they’ve produced important works, are very smart and creative and thus produce only important works. In fact, Simonton has found, they also produce more works, and the ratio of the number of important works to total works is relatively constant across their careers. It’s not that productive scholars who are making meaningful contributions are sitting around thinking hard and then cranking out important paper after important paper. That’s almost never the case. Instead, productive scholars are producing lots of work, much of it forgettable, but some of it quite lovely. The function of producing all this work seems clear: Each time you conduct an experiment or write an essay or conduct a survey or document historical precedents and you show it to people, you get feedback, some of it wonderful and glowing, some of it (if you’re lucky) incisively critical. And that ongoing stream of feedback shapes your thinking and your writing and your planning. It helps you become a better scholar.  (Duke, 2010)

Dr. Duke discusses statistics and how it's not an end-all/be-all on research. To which words from the first day of high school AP Stats bubble up, "There are lies, damn dirty lies, and statistics."

Next comes the advice to talk to all types of people about your work and receive feedback, both positive and negative. Followed by the importance of research buddies.

Then, to grow thicker skin. Should I be taking B12 for this?

"Hang out with kind, smart, interesting, interested people. I’m very explicit about that list of adjectives, and the people you hang out with should each be aptly described by all four."

:)

"Go to Professional Meetings" Yes please.

"Write research that will be read with interest by people outside of music education." 

Challenge gladly accepted

Finally, this post ends with the following quote.

"Alice Roosevelt Longworth, Teddy Roosevelt’s oldest daughter and quite a character, who said, “First you’re young, then you’re middle-aged, then you’re wonderful.”"

I take a moment now to thank my professors for the anticipatory setting of a pitcher for my very thirsty mind, and having some sage advice ready for me at the starting line.

Judith Anne Jellison's article is next and I feel guilty knowing that I've eaten a hot dog at her house before consciously knowing the greatness of her contributions.

My heart opens up and bleeds on this one; it considers the state of elementary music education and where it is(n't) going. I've ridden this rollercoaster and I feel I've done everything in my power to positively contribute to this void. 

All ideas of airplanes and papers drop dead from the air and I remember the classroom piano and all 450 people I left behind. I think of colorful carpet squares and little hugs at the knees and sixth grade boys losing themselves in practice and the warm round resonance of the donated bass drum and the richness of wooden Orff Bass xylophones. Images of 6 inch square neon scarves all bundled up and subsequently released to make tiny explosions of color while we outline the form of Camille Saint-Saens. Buckets and rhythm sticks. The joy of having a student come up with a solution/suggestion better than what I'd planned. 

I pray for the person I chose to continue my work; that I have left behind a sustainable blueprint behind so that she may find happiness, satisfaction and joy in her hopefully long tenure after me. I wonder why I thought I belonged anywhere else.