Mark, Michael, and Patrice Madura. Music Education in Your Hands. Routledge, 2009.
This reading from Mark and Madura's book comprehensively lists and comments upon competencies and behaviors that the complete music educator must have. Those enumerated in the reading were experience, lesson planning, personality, teacher magnitude, modeling, familiarity with teaching materials, preparation in multiple teaching areas, and leadership skills. The reading also included anecdotes from (presumably) real student teachers in several sections, commenting mainly on how the skill or practice discussed in that section would improve their teaching. An example was one choral student teacher who tended to be buried in the musical score and make limited eye contact with students, and how as a part of his teaching personality, further engagement with the students would improve his teaching.
The discussion of the importance of experience contained particularly valuable commentary for my present status as a first-year music education student. As part of experience, observations and student teaching were referenced as a prime opportunity to gain diverse classroom experience. This idea started me thinking about how I could make my observations as experientially valuable as possible - by not only observing the classroom processes, but also engaging in different ways, based on what each teacher is open to. For example, I might play along in the band in a middle school band class, participate in an elementary music game, or help a high school teacher team-teach through moving around the classroom helping individuals. Later on, as I saw occur when students did observations with my high school teacher, I might find opportunities to step into the role of the teacher and practice executing a lesson plan. Of course, this is all based on what the mentor teacher is open to - I don't want to be out of line or step on any teacher's toes, so to speak. That small part of this reading set off a lot of thinking on my part.
Questions to ask Michael Mark and Patrice Madura:
What is a prime example of a music educator demonstrating outstanding leadership, and what can this look like at different levels or situations?
In your experience, does a prioritization of playing music primarily come at a cost of critical thinking opportunities such as class discussions?