It was really broad.
It was really just, my thought was I really loved band
and I really want to make other people love band
and have the same experiences I did.
So it was definitely more general than, than it is now.
It was, I didn't really understand exactly everything that
it was going to take to be a music educator.
I knew it would be a lot, but it was more like,
well, I know I'll have to teach them how to play music,
but not really anything else like,
Oh, what, what about the music? Or what about the composer?
What about the style? What about the genre?
or the, anything other, the historical content things.
So definitely really broad.
That's, I know whenever we introduced ourselves as a teacher,
that was a big moment.
Because at first I was like, that's no big deal.
I'm just going to go up and say my name.
And I was like, I'm Ms Fanthorpe.
This is weird. I was like, Oh, that's weird.
So it was kind of an eye-opening that like, wow.
In about four and a half years, that's what I'll be saying.
And then whenever you go to field experience,
that's actually what you're saying.
So then you're like, Oh, okay.
It's different. I'm not a student exactly anymore.
How does it change your perspective? It's just a name.
It is. But it's like, Oh,
I'm actually here to become a professional educator
instead of just be a student,
and then become a professional educator.
So. And I know you had mentioned all the time.
I even looked over my notes a little bit.
And one of the big things I put in bold were,
you said, you're here to learn for your students, not just for you.
And I was like, yeah, that's a big thing.
Cause it's not just for me, what I'm learning.
So it kept me more engaged for sure.
Cause I know we had the two hour class on one day
and that, that can be really long and other classes.
That I found out later, but it never felt like two hours then.
And I always remember,
we never sat in the same spot for two hours.
We were always getting up and getting in different groups.
It was never in the same group either.
And then getting to interact with your peers
definitely made you more responsible for what you were learning.
Because you couldn't just sit there and take what you were saying
and write it down and be like, okay, that's right.
You actually got other people's views.
And you can think even if you didn't verbalize
what you were thinking,
you were still having a lot going on in your mind
while you're listening to your peers.
To me, it wasn't as beneficial.
I enjoyed it because I enjoyed being able to put my thoughts down
on my own time and write it down.
But for me it was being more in the classroom
and interacting with other people
than it was typing something out on a blog or responding.
Do you think it helped sometime that you had an opportunity to think about
that in your blog or on the discussion, on the discussion board
and then we'd bring those topics up and talk about it
- and so it kind of primed the pump maybe. - Yeah.
Definitely helped because I could think about it first
and then be like, collect my thoughts and make it coherent
and then bring it back to class and think about, and verbalize it then.
As you read some of your peers' stuff online,
you know, in the discussion board in particular and things like that,
do you ever find yourself feeling, feeling like, yeah, that that's something
I really think about or, you know, that's something definitely I,
you know, I don't see it that way.
That's not, not the opinion that I have about this?
And it started to spark some things in your thinking at all?
Sometimes I, at first it didn't
because it felt like everyone was kind of like,
ah, I don't know what I'm doing yet.
So I'll just make really general comments.
But then it got to where you get more specific feedback
on what you were saying.
And you're like, Oh, I didn't think about that.
Or, what if, especially for field experience,
well we weren't in field experience yet.
But when we did observations,
it would be like, Oh, I didn't, I didn't think about them doing that
and how that would affect their students.
I think it got stronger.
It didn't really, I still wanted to teach so that didn't change.
But the idea of what it was going to take to be a professional educator,
rather than just some music teacher that kind of knows what they're doing.
it brought up a lot in my mind that I was thinking,
wow, I really don't know every,
like I definitely don't know everything I need to know.
And I still don't.
But it just opened my eyes to like, wow, I have so much I need to learn.
And I need to cling to it as much as I can while I'm here.
And in all of my classes, it's not just in intro.
So it's definitely okay to have a lot of questions,
and to feel like you don't know anything.
Cause I know when I first,
that first semester you just, you just start taking theory
and you haven't had any musicology classes and everything.
And you're like, okay, I don't really feel like
I know a lot of this stuff, but I need to.
So it's okay to feel overwhelmed at first.
And to know that you are going to have an opportunity to learn all that.
But it's up to you to actually take ahold of it all
and understand it.
It was a, it was a big class.
Because it was a big moment for me in that class.
Cause it made me, it pushed me out of my comfort zone a little.
Because I was definitely quiet and shy.
And so having to get up and speak in front of people,
it was like, Whoa, I'm going to actually have to do this.
And that was a big thing
and I really enjoyed it and looking back now,
it's so easy for me to get up in front of people and talk.
And they might say my thoughts as I get tongue tied now.
And just learning.
Wow, there's so much more to learn here and it's not just for me.
And that's something I think we need more of today is learning.
It's not all about you. There's other people.