As I am about to embark on my last week of classes for the foreseeable future (unless I decide I want another degree — ha!), I will pause to ruminate on a few things. First, I have noticed a marked change in myself in the last few years. Whereas in the past, I thought I would always want to be a student and would love to keep earning degrees in different subjects I love, the practical side of me has emerged and would really like to have a real job. Not only do I covet the income that comes with a real job, but also I want the responsibility of having my own classes to teach. I've developed many ideas in graduate school about how to teach, what pieces I'm excited about having my students analyze, and how I want my classroom to feel for the students, and I'm beyond ready to implement those things in my own way. Being a teaching assistant has been great for a lot of reasons. I've gotten to shadow some cool teachers with different ways of approaching a topic. I've had the fun of teaching an eartraining lab without all the massive preparation that goes into structuring a class; let's face the fact that while I'm taking classes, I don't have time to prep really effectively for an entire course. It's been nice to have a sheet of materials handed to me each week and just to throw in a few of my own ideas and style.

Frankly, though, when it comes to my goals as a professional, I've seen and experienced a lot of things I don't want to carry forward. I don't want to go into a lot of detail here, but I've decided that teaching at a large public university is not my ideal employment situation. Sure, it would be nice to have only two courses a semester, but I want to be in a school with a real sense of community and tradition, somewhere with an honor code, and DEFINITELY a school where I wouldn't be given a class of 100 and told to "teach" them music theory. Music theory is not a lecture-based discipline. Actually, I think every discipline is better when it's not lecture-based and when the students are engaged and participating members of a class instead of bleary-eyed persons being talked at. But for students to learn why analysis will help them as musicians (the real challenge in getting them through music theory classes), they actually need to practice it often, get feedback on their attempts, and be able to have real discussions in class about important analytical issues, and these things simply don't happen in a class of 100 (or even a class of 70, which is what we're down to now).

I have no idea what kind of job I'll actually get when I'm on the market, but with a little luck, I'll have the luxury of picking a region AND a type of school I want, instead of getting a first job I don't like and then moving again in a few years.

I have one week of classes, one term paper, and one final exam standing between me and the end of coursework. And yet, I have so much ahead of me before I finish my degree. It's daunting, but what will carry me through is that image of an ideal classroom, where students sit in a circle and argue with each other about their analyses of a particular piece, and I get to sit back, interject a pointed comment every once in a while, and smile.

Labels: getting older, school

• posted by erica 4/29/2006 10:40:00 AM
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