Texas Bandmasters Association 2010: Miscellaneous Thoughts Day 2 & 3 Music Education by Joel Wagner - July 29, 2010May 29, 20160 This week, I went to San Antonio for the Texas Bandmasters Association convention. I attended some really good sessions and took a few notes on my iPhone. Without spending a lot of time to expand on these notes right now, I thought I would post them so maybe someone else can benefit from them. After the convention, I'll sit down later and flesh them out a bit more. Here are the notes from Days 2 and 3. Meet with parents prior to testing 5th graders Parent orientation at beginning of year 4-6 weeks into school year Take a class period to discuss procedures Teach basic reading skills and introduce counting system early (8th notes asap) Open cases on the floor –
Texas Bandmasters Association 2010: Miscellaneous Thoughts Day 1 Music Education by Joel Wagner - July 27, 2010July 27, 20101 This week, I am in San Antonio for the Texas Bandmasters Association convention. I attended some really good sessions and took a few notes on my iPhone. Without spending a lot of time to expand on these notes right now, I thought I would post them so maybe someone else can benefit from them. After the convention, I'll sit down later and flesh them out a bit more. Here's Day 1. Raise your level of absurdity. If something doesn't sound stupid, you won't address it.Come up with a warmup rotation. Same concepts per day of week. Lip flexibility, scales, tone production, articulations, intervals/listeningSame with journals. Music appreciation, rhythmic dictation, music/rhythm copying, free writing, theory exercisesAll bad behavior is fear-based. Fear
Creating Really Useful Educational Opportunities General by Joel Wagner - July 25, 2010July 25, 20101 If you've read much on my blog, you know that I do not have the traditional mindset of most educators. I have no problem with kids dropping out of school as long as they are doing so as a means of furthering their education. I don't think that a college education is essential for success in the world. In fact, I know that it's not. I recently was watching to a TED Talk by Cameron Herold (@CameronHerold on Twitter) that challenged me and also reinforced some of my previously-held views and articulated them in a way that shed new light on them. The talk was entitled Let's raise kids to be entrepreneurs. You should watch it. If nothing else, you
Don’t Quit Teaching… Why Teachers Quit by Joel Wagner - July 24, 20104 Don't quit teaching. It could be that every single struggle you've ever faced as a teacher has been leading you to an amazing breakthrough that will happen this year. Make it happen!There may come a time in your life when you just get burned out from teaching or you come to realize that teaching people is not your gift. I won't argue with you, but I do want to encourage you to stick with it. It's a common desire, and I think that all educators have flirted with the idea of, packing the bags and moving to Argentina just to escape our chosen profession. Or maybe that's just me. But whatever the case, now is not the time!FearI'm not a
My (Totally Unexpected) Love Affair With Running Personal by Joel Wagner - July 6, 2010July 6, 20106 I used to hate running. But I tried it this year and have become convinced that running is the gateway drug of the fitness world. You can walk forever without feeling the need to do anything more. I find it exceptionally difficult to make a concentrated effort of running and not have visions of marathons, triathlons, or being in South Africa playing for a World Cup team. Back in January, I came up with this crazy idea to set out to run a 5K. I say it's a crazy idea simply because I was somewhere around 100 pounds overweight. Simply the thought of running anywhere was absolutely unreal. But I have a handful of friends who run marathons and I