For this installment of Growing Young Professionals, we will discuss contracts with none other than Dr. Jenny Neff, Associate Professor of Music Education and Director of the MM in Music Education & Summer Music Studies Program at the University of the Arts. So, what are contracts? Most people [...]
I started a new job this fall at Boston University and I love it. I am an Assistant Professor of Music (Music Education). My job is mostly to work with graduate students on interesting, challenging topics and publish research in my area of expertise. Basically, my dream job [...]
Like most, if not all, music institutions around the world, the lockdown resulting from COVID-19 necessitated a swift move of all of our teaching to online, and a consequent steep learning curve especially for instrumental and ensemble teachers who had never had to operate in that kind of [...]
In this installment of Growing Young Professionals, we will be talking about Human Resource Management! So, what is HRM? Most young professionals have heard of a Human Resources (HR) department, but not many have interacted with one. Most large scale organizations (school districts, businesses) have an HR department [...]
I am often called “just the music teacher.” And I may or may not also be tired of non-teachers looking at me and asking, “Soooo, how are you actually working during COVID?” I will never forget it. One co-worker even asked me, “So Darlene, what do you do [...]
Hello, and welcome to F-Flat’s new blog, Growing Young Professionals! The purpose of this blog is to answer practical and logistical questions young professionals, more specifically new teachers, have when entering the work environment. Often, the collegiate experience heartily prepares you to teach your subject in a standard [...]
I hadn’t seen my students since March 10th. I hadn’t heard them sing together or in public since we closed down back in March. In fact, I was at an American Choral Directors Association Southern Conference went everything went left. I didn’t even get to tell them goodbye. [...]
This post is a response to the post "The Essential Work of the Arts". Taking Action If you can agree that arts, in general, are important, then we can move to action items: what do we do as teachers of the arts? How do we harness our anger [...]
Silver Linings I’m an optimist at heart, so some of you are going to hate the cheery tone of this post, particularly since there are a million difficulties and things to complain about right now as we do our best to teach music during a pandemic. But, here [...]
Have you ever had a year like this year? I would say that not EVERYTHING of this year has gone wrong, but many, many things have not gone according to plan in my life. I am sure you all relate. Was there a graduation, wedding, or baby shower [...]