Fellow travelers,
It's been a summer: International move. Cancer-in-situ diagnosis. Back over the ocean for surgery. Return over the ocean to resume trying to establish a new life in a somewhat new place.1
I am not teaching in a classroom this year. We realized my kid would need more support adjusting to everything and that we'd find a way to make it work on one full-time income for now.2 I always feel a bit weird about writing about pedagogical things or making pedagogical things when I am not actively teaching. I want to test out my ideas! Yet, I have always been working in and out of the classroom and I consider my time outside the classroom is important to informing what I do inside a classroom.
Before my previous job, I started working on a band method. I felt weird about that, too. But after looking at a bunch of existing methods, I realized that the authors were all university professors, who weren't teaching beginning band anymore. Most likely, they put together these methods while on sabbatical. People teaching full-time in a classroom don't have the time or energy to put together a band method, for the most part. And that's too bad, because I bet they'd have a lot of good things to contribute. Might as well bet on myself and what I can contribute.
I'll continue this year with our survey of two-chord songs, natch, and sharing more music pedagogy ideas as I return to working on the band method. Grab an instrument and join me, won't you?
Quite near where I grew up, but still quite different. It’s an interesting situation where everything is both familiar and strange. I suppose 15 years outside the country will do that.