Well, I’m sitting here in a motel room in San Antonio. I am trading some of my time with a band director friend. I came here to teach trumpet and horn sectionals yesterday since I’m on spring break this week and he had it last week. In turn, he’s going to come in next week and clinic my band. Basically what that means is that he’s going to rehearse them for two hours and tell them stuff they can do to make it better.
It also gives me a chance to step back and listen more closely. When I’m conducting and everything, I hear things, but not everything. This is why I record my band regularly. As an aside, if you have an iPhone, I have found that iTalk Recorder works great for my purposes. Plus it’s free. For that matter, you could use it to record voice memos, song ideas, speeches, etc. For free, it’s hard to beat.
I’ve written about clinics before, but I’m wondering what other educators do that is similar. Is it something that is isolated to the music business? Bringing someone in from a different school to teach your group? Do coaches bring in other coaches to work with teams? Do English teachers bring in other English teachers to teach a specific story or something? Maybe the closest correlation would be with taking field trips? Like a science class will go to a museum or observatory or something. I don’t know. Interesting.
So what are you doing over spring break this year?
Oh yeah, you have got to check out the Carnival of Education today. As soon as I get settled at my parents house this evening (after some disc golf with friends and church), I will be sure to dig in to it a bit more.
