Personal Strengths and Goals

            As a future music educator I believe I have certain strengths and experience that will help me in the field. Being a pianist is a huge advantage since it has such practical uses. Accompanying being one of them. My sight-reading skills are not perfect, but they are quite strong. For use in choir, piano skills, accompanying, and sight-reading are crucial. This would also enable me to teach a keyboard lab along with choir. I have started paying close attention to healthy voice use. It is something I feel I would advocate strongly amongst my students. Other strengths I have aside from playing piano include my experience working with children of all age ranges. I have worked with kids from age 5 to 19. All of them have different needs and require different approaches when it comes to teaching them music. Although I know I’m not an expert at this at all, I think I would feel comfortable teaching any group of students regardless of age.

            I have started to learn how to play the trumpet to at least have a basic understanding of brass instruments. I want to be prepared for anything when I go out and teach. I can pick up instruments easily, which would enable me to learn how to play other band instruments and have a rudimentary understanding of each. Nonetheless, I feel I need to work with more instrumental ensembles to feel comfortable to go into a band room and know what to ask of my students.

            I feel some of my weaknesses that I need to work on are conducting and creativity. For conducting, I can do many of the basic conducting elements, but I feel I need to find my own conducting style and I haven’t been able to do that in just two semesters of conducting classes. Even though in my previous job I had to play piano and conduct the ensemble, I wasn’t conducting all the time. It was mainly for cues and certain passages. If I could have some more experience with the baton it would definitely improve my abilities as a music teacher.

            In regards to creativity, I feel it takes me a while to think of ways to make things fun and exciting. Once I have something planned, I think I could handle teaching the lesson, but I wish I could access my ideas quicker. I never want to make my music class seem like work. I want it to be fun with reasonable boundaries and expectations; not to say it will be an easy grade, quite the opposite, but I want my students to have the desire to attend class and participate actively.

            Throughout the school year I want to focus on improving my knowledge of voice, piano, and trumpet. I would like to take classes for conducting and perhaps join an instrumental ensemble if time permits. I look forward to taking Elementary Methods to help spark my creativity. I want to do everything possible to become a well-balanced music teacher and to have the ability to give my students accurate and helpful information for them to succeed.