You Should Be Dancing*

Observation:  in the 1950's-1970's, it was the baton twirlers' mothers.  In the 1980's-2010's, it was the baton twirlers mothers wondering why  the band suddenly didn't need twirlers any more.  Those who figured it out became drum corp auxiliary (flags and rifles) mothers when their girls joined the corps.  Today it seems to be the Dance Moms (title in italics because of that vile show on Lifetime) who are giving arts teachers fits.They all seem to fit a pattern of behavior and attitude which will destroy even the best-laid arts education program in a New York minute.

POSIT: School arts programs exist to, among other things, provide creative outlets of various kinds to students, an introduction to careers for those interested in going that direction, and information to all students on the fundamentals of particular art forms--not necessarily in that order.  Further, local, state, and national organizations have created standards and/or best practices with the intention of providing a curricular basis.

For example, NAfME (National Association for Music Education, formerly MENC--Music Educators National Conference) has a list of nine such standards. To wit:

1. Singing, alone and with others, a varied repertoire of music.
2. Performing on instruments, alone and with others, a varied repertoire of music.
3. Improvising melodies, variations, and accompaniments.
4. Composing and arranging music within specified guidelines.
5. Reading and notating music.
6. Listening to, analyzing, and describing music.
7. Evaluating music and music performances.
8. Understanding relationships between music, the other arts, and disciplines outside the arts.
9. Understanding music in relation to history and culture.

This doesn't include competition standards and it doesn't ask the music educator to value or emphasize one type of music over another. This broad set of standards allows for teachers to be uniquely creative, to draw upon their own strengths and knowledge to enrich their student's knowledge and experience base.  One could even substitute the word "dance" or "choreography" in many of these standards, and chances are good that you'd be able to come up with a pretty strong curriculum if you did.  Then again, I'm not the dance education expert--but wouldn't you know, there's a group who is.

NDEO, the National Dance Education Organization, has developed its own philosophy of what dance instruction should look like at various levels, and has coordinated with NAfME and other arts education organizations  to create coordinated national standards for arts education.

I think it would pay for any parent whose child is involved in a K-12 school arts program (and an alarming number are not) to investigate these standards and decide for themselves whether or not their child's school arts program lives up to these standards.  To the extent that they do not, both organizations offer myriad ways in which the concerned parent might positively advocate on their child's behalf. 

Cheers...

*--Barry, Maurice, and Robin Gibb, Children of the World, 1976.

Happy Trails*

Sigh.

I had such high hopes for 2014.

One was that the Boy Scouts of America would do a better job adjusting to modern day conveniences like computers, networks, listservs, etc., and that they would once and for all, clarify their membership policy.  Looks like it's not going to happen on either count.  My son aged out six months ago, and I haven't been a leader there either, but I still get correspondence addressed to "chartered organization representative" inviting me to one function or another, in spite of repeated requests to remove me from their rolls. The local council as a whole isn't really good about using computers, although there are exceptions.

Second, I had hoped that the "alternative", now called Trail Life USA, would not get off the ground. Well, I'm going to allow the reader to judge for themselves if they choose to go to the website, but apparently the group is not for Catholics, Jews, Mormons, or members of other churches that have chosen to affiliate with the BSA through either chartering an organization or its individual members joining.  As odious as some people find the BSA, you'll find a lot to dislike with "trail life", whose motto appears to be "Walk Worthy".  Caveat Emptor!

*--Dale Evans Rogers, for Roy Rogers and Dale Evans, 1952.

America*

Academic applications so far: 12 in 4 states

Public applications so far: 5 in Michigan, many more in PA in the five county area.

Observations:
1) $8-9.00 an hour for a job that requires a Master's degree and gives no benefits is nothing short of insulting (not my current job, mind you).
2) If what I was told about college music teaching jobs is true--that if it's posted, it's already taken--what's the point? 
3) Ditto for the candidate whose background is unorthodox--like mine.  Consider that I've been:
A) a music teacher, kindergarten to post-college;
B) a hardware store manager (which is a LOT like working a library, believe me--give me five minutes and you'll get an INTERESTING "elevator speech"';
C) a hard-working free-lance musician for most of the last 40 years.  I'm truly a man who's "25 with 30 years experience"
D) a paraprofessional in a small rural public library for the last 2 1/2 years, dreaming of and working toward bigger and better things.

Top that, fellow candidates, and I'll see you in Philadelphia next week.

*--Paul Simon, Bookends, 1968.

Same Old Auld Lang Syne*

It seems only fitting that I end 2013 with this title, one of my favorites by Dan Fogelberg.  As I stated in my last post, I was on my back with excruciating back pain, muscle spasms, and honestly wondered if I was ever going to be pain free again.

Well, three weeks and two trips to the ER later (along with massive amounts of painkillers and physical therapy), I'm at least able to work for short periods of time. By turns it's been gratifying (the family gets along without me) and maddening (the family gets along without me) and I'm trying to get ready for the ALA mid-winter meeting in Philadelphia in 10 days to begin my job hunting in earnest.

Some thoughts on job-hunting:

1) I'm 53 (54 next month) and I realize that whoever hires me will do so at considerable cost.  I taught school for the better part of 16 years, have run a successful business, played and sung a dizzying array of music at an even more dizzying level, and received my MSLS degree last month with a 3.916 GPA.  Quality doesn't come cheap.

2) My dear wife and three teenage children  don't see moving with dad's every job change as the adventure that they used to. Son has a girlfriend, and daughters are involved in many facets of their school's lives.

3) To quote Jon Lovitz's character in A League of Their Own, "How it works is, the train moves from town to town, not the station".  Truer words were never spoken. While it would be really great if a job opened up in greater Philadelphia for which I was the perfect candidate and it was the perfect job with the perfect compensation package, chances are good that my next library job will be out of the area, and, to quote Patricia Wettig in City Slickers, "We'll jump off that bridge when we get to it".

4) It would be tempting to take a part-time reference or circulation position at a local library, or even a library managership at a public library.   But that wasn't why I went to library school.

More later.  Cheers

*--Dan Fogelberg, The Innocent Age, 1981.

(It) feels good to be back home again*

Sorry for the delay in posting...I've been flat on my back with horrible back spasms and pain for the last week.I'll do an end-of-year post by the end of this week.  Thanks for thinking of me.
Onward.

A Little More Homework*

I'm missing graduation tomorrow, due mostly to a lack of transportation, but also due to an impending blizzard.  I'm okay with it now, not because I'm a master of self-control, but because I got to see my son in his first acting performance, which he took on less than two weeks ago.

He's a senior at Norristown Area High School, and has been playing in concert band and working on stage crew for the fall and winter shows. Tonight was their performance of 13, which is a musical about a boy from New York City whose parents divorce and he moves with his mother to Indiana, where he attends Dan Quayle Middle School (!). Here's a link to the show's page at MTI:
http://www.mtishows.com/show_detail.asp?showid=000358

Long story short, he went from stage crew to stage manager to supporting cast member and did (proud dad spoiler alert) GREAT!!! I'm so proud of him for stepping up and doing the job.  He already decided to audition for the spring show. Where DOES he get it? Heh...

*--from 13: a new musical. Music and lyrics by Jason Robert Brown, book by Dan Elish and Robert Horn

I Can Cook, Too!*

I've had food on my mind a lot lately (LATELY? Please.  It starts on my mind and ends up on my hips...). I'm about to be a librarian, officially, and one of the things I notice in our non-fiction section is the number of cookbooks that have a cover photo of the chef/celebrity cook grinning as they play with utensils or for that matter, just posing next to their car (Guy Fieri) or bent over a pile of vegetables on the counter, looking not the slightest bit engaged in what they're doing (or supposed to be doing).  It's gotten to the point where I start judging the inside of the cookbook by the percentage of cover art devoted to the food as opposed to the writer of the cookbook or featured celebrity cook/chef. 

Am I crazy?

Who knows?

One of my favorite cookbooks of recent vintage is My Indian Kitchen by Nayak and Turkel (Tuttle, 2011).  VERY few pics of the author (I don't have my copy handy to be sure) but there is no doubt that the food is the star here. Stunning photographs of the food and its ingredients.  THIS is a cookbook for anyone who wants to prepare Indian food in their home.
Shy away from cookbooks that spend more time fawning over the author than the food.

*--from On the Town; music by Leonard Bernstein and lyrics by Betty Comden and Adolph Green, 1944.