This next paper is my beginning paper on why I wanted to become a teacher in  the first place.  this paper was written my senior year of high school and talks about the main reason that led to the decision of me becoming an educator.

The main reason I want to be a teacher is, to help guide students to the path of success. I firmly believe that teachers are the gateway to the next generations future. I learn best when I teach others and this gives me an opportunity to continue my passion in music past college. I want to make a difference in the struggling kids life, and give them a positive role model.

I believe that if I guide students on the correct path, I can make a serious change in the future. Teachers are one of the first major influence’s in a child’s life.  If I could get the child thinking critically and making good decisions in the classroom, this will give them experiences in good manors and problem solving skill’s, that can help them pursue their passion with a strong mind set and knowledge of that passion.

Teachers are the gateway to their students success in the future. I want to be a teacher because I want to make my students have the most options available to them. Giving my students these options will set them up for success and will help fulfill my need to help others. Being this kind of teacher, is what I have in mind when I am creating a lesson. I would not be here without the teachers that did the same thing for me when,  I was that age. Becoming a teacher is just another way I can pass forward the legacy of helping others.

Becoming a teacher gives me a opportunity to further my learning even as a teacher.  For me I learn best when I explain things to others. I personally never want to stop learning and I have come to realize that you can learn a lot from your students in a variety of ways. Whether it be inspiration, a way they taught themselves or how they associated the thing they were learning with something similar. I also believe becoming a teacher would not only allow me to learn from the students but also give me an opportunity to inspire others to make the best out of themselves and possibly want to do the same for others.

As a teacher, I could help the kids who struggle, to understand and who don’t have positive role models to look up to.  When I was in Middle School I was coming out of homeschooling and I was having some rough times in a couple of classes. My teachers took time out of their schedule to make sure that I got all the help that I needed to be successful in the class. My teachers doing this gave me the confidence to improve. These teachers  also played a very big role in why I want to become a teacher today.

This next paper is a paper i wrote after completing my Virginia Teachers for tomorrow student teaching experience.  This paper is based of the question of how that internship changed my views on teaching.

Answering the question, How Internship has Changed Me,  is not easy; because I wouldn’t say it changed me but only furthered my love and passion for teaching. When I was little my Dad used to bring me into his class, busy or not it was like I had a second family. When I was there, with my Dad, I saw his students light up with joy whether he was cracking jokes or he was just being him. Seeing him change lives, right before my eyes, was something magical and something I knew I wanted to do since then.

Internship has given me practical experience as a teacher.  I had the opportunity to participate in real time learning. I was able to conduct lessons. I learned a lot about classroom management. I was able to see students at their best and worst. I was able to form relationships with students so I could better teach. Learning from Mr. Hall’s real life experience has been excellent. For the first time, I watched a great teacher work, through the eyes, not of a student but a future teacher. I am sure his mentor ship will stay with me my whole career.

Internship is a early stepping stone in my teacher education process. It gave me those magical moments and the sense of changing a life for the better.  Those moments, when I see them understand. Those moments, when I know I have succeeded as a teacher.  I got to feel like I was impacting the future and helping others now, to secure the present and ensure a better future for me and many others. When someone ask how internship changed me, I ask why wouldn’t it? I went into this program seeking a chance to participate in real classroom teaching. Being in internship, has given me those real experiences with kids. The chance to help students understand information and have an impact on their learning, has been  priceless.

The question at hand, how has internship changed me. Internship is the best thing that has ever happened to me, from the student interactions to the work experience that I get from this is astounding. When I entered the classroom for the first time the kids were super accepting and ready for me to teach and learn,  which only made my job that much easier and very fun.

This next paper is my Historical what if paper that discusses what the world of music would look like without the national standards of music being set in place.

Historical what if

Throughout this paper I will be talking about the national standards of music education and why it is important and how it would be detrimental if it never existed in the first place.  The national standards of music education are a set of standards that breaks down the individual grade levels by what needs to be learned.  This article also lends a hand to the educator by giving them teaching strategies to teach the material in a way that the kids might better understand.  The article also gives extra material that can be taught if you are dealing with an extraordinary class that will help further their knowledge on the information they are learning as well as set them up for the future knowledge that they will learn.  Although there are many important articles that progressed the music education field; I would argue that the national standards of music education are most important out of all of them.

National Standards for Music Education is a very important document within the music education field.  During the 1980’s there was a call for reform for curricular subjects one being music.  The national standards of music were highly influenced by MENC although the standards of MENC were not adopted by all states the standards were raised to a better level.  Before these new standards were set in 1994 the standards were often low and misconstrued from the different grade levels often leaving different classes in different spots in terms of progression. With the new standards enacted brought a new set guideline as to where the students should be by each point in their education path with check points set in place to evaluate their comprehension of the musical material.  Without these set standards in the music education field the profession might not exist at all and would be in shambles.

If the national standards of music education never existed, the world of music education would never be the same.  Music education is a very important part of many peoples lives in some form or another. If the national standards never existed, the bar for how music should be taught would have never been set in the first place. With these major standards not put in place the popular musicians that we know today may never exist further ruining the music education field.  If the major figures in music today never existed, the future educators that could possible further the field of music education may not be inspired to become educators.

With the national standards of music not set the new bar of what needs to be learned would never be set.  With the new standards not set the world of music would be in an extraordinary crisis with the old standards not bringing the students to the set level.  Without the set standards most music teachers would have a hard time setting a class level by having many different students at different levels in their education.  While the music education field is in shambles most of the school systems would start to wonder why this is happening possible leading to cutbacks and possible closer of music programs at the state level!

With the inevitable decline in the standard of teaching in the music education field cutbacks would eventually follow a short while after the decline.   After a few months or so I would imagine that cutbacks would happen causing a severe hinder on the teaching process.  With the hindrance after the cutbacks most programs would eventually be disbanded due to the obvious decline in profession.  With the loss of major amounts of programs in the united states the world of music education would eventually crumble to pieces till there was essentially nothing left.  The absence of the national standards of music education would basically send the world of music education back the stone age.