Well, it was really foreign to me. Cause I, it was kinda late,
I guess in my senior year I decided to be music ed.
So it was kind of like,
I hadn't put a whole lot of thought into it, I guess, in terms of like,
being able to think about how I thought about it.
But like, so I just, I was, I was kinda scared.
I was nervous about it cause like,
just being in front of people and like teaching, and I just felt like,
I didn't know anything at that point. Cause I mean, I didn't.
And so I was kind of, I don't know,
it just seemed like very far off, I guess.
Cause it was like, I mean, I want to do this, but I, I don't,
I don't know how to do this.
So I was, yeah, I was kinda, I was nervous I guess, about it.
The number of teaching episodes we did.
And getting in front of the class is huge.
Cause that first of all, it gets you thinking, okay, I'm a teacher, I'm teaching students.
Cause we're like at that point we're so used to being the student.
And so, that like, changing your mindset and kind of just getting in,
like stepping into the role of it, of an educator, from a student.
And also that just helps
like so much being comfortable with yourself in front of people.
Cause once, I guess like, cause there's like the,
I'm trying to get like the levels of teaching are, so, there's like stages, I guess.
There's stage one where you're concerned about yourself.
And like stage two, you like, you feel comfortable with yourself,
so now you canfocus on your students.
But I think that helped a lot for me to get through stage one.
Just the number of times, like I was up in front of the class teaching.
Beneficial because, I felt like, well, I don't know.
Cause I've learned over the years now that
teaching is all about collaboration.
And I mean, cause like, you see a teacher,
like you observe a teacher and you're like, Oh I really like that idea.
I'm gonna use that in my classroom. And that's like, like bad handbooks.
I don't think any director writes their own data, him to be more like, it doesn't happen.
And so it's just, I mean, that's such an important thing in, like in music education.
And so that helps us cause I mean, we, like, we have our own thoughts,
but then to see how someone else sees a certain thing.
It helps a lot too cause you're like, Oh, I didn't think about it that way.
like that, I actually really liked the way you think about it.
So I'm going to start thinking about it that way too. And so it's cool.
But it also helps connect.
Like connects you with your peers, like in class.
Cause I mean, these are the people like, that you will know for the rest of your life.
I mean we'll be teachers together and, so it just develops that real.
I guess I just became more, more comfortable with it.
And I've learned that.
I mean, cause I, I mean,
I always thought like teaching was like an important, an important thing.
But I never really looked at it in terms of like the, like the impact,
I guess the teacher can have on a student.
And I think it was whenever we did the mock
school board hearing or so, that like really made me think.
I was like, wow, like we have such a huge impact on our students. I guess.
And that's something that I didn't think about before.
I thought of kind of how teaching is just like, Oh,
like I'm going to teach the students how to play a scale.
Or like I'm going to teach them just this knowledge about the subject matter.
But it's, so it's, I learned it's so much more than that.
It's like, we're like giving them not only skills and music.
And so we had, but we were like teaching them life skills
and we're giving them support and helping them like through, I mean.
So it's like we, we play a much bigger role than just, like feeding them the subject matter.
Great. I would say to not be shy about anything.
If you get an opportunity to teach, take it.
Like take every opportunity that you can to, to get experience, I guess, through it.
Because that's I felt like for me, at least that's,
that's the greatest way I learned, is through trial and error.
I mean, you get up there, you run a lesson plan
and you find out what works, find out what doesn't work.
But if you just, if you don't take those opportunities then, like you don't know.
Like you, you just, you don't worry as much.
So I would just say, take advantage of the opportunities that you get in the class.
And also just put, yeah, just give as much effort as you can.
And blogs and discussion boards,
stuff that kind of seems, like not, maybe not as important.
That they really, I mean, everything is really, I mean really important. It all adds up.