*People use the word "piggyback" frequently in conversation. As in, "To piggyback on that idea..." etc. I've heard it at least 2 dozen times in the past month, 4 times in the past 2 days.
*People use the term "bad news bears" frequently in conversation. Great news bears.
*9pm is domino hour on the streets of Inwood. Like, middle-aged men play dominoes on folding tables they set up on street corners.
*Ceilings and floors are paper thin. My upstairs neighbor watches the news, listens to heavy-bass hip-hop music, and may or may not play video games with machine gun sounds. Interesting fellow. I just wish he weren't so interesting at 1 in the morning...
*It's possible to lug around a guitar and a bag full of poster board through public transportation and not totally smoke everyone who comes in one's path. That may say more about my commuting skills than New York City.
*The Department of Education doesn't screen their music teachers for musical proficiency. Allow me to elaborate.
Our training days include a number of DOE (Dept of Ed) music teachers that are either co-teaching with ETM hires at our partner schools (schools with at least one ETM teaching artist) or working at schools formerly supported by ETM (who no longer need an ETM teaching artist because they finally got the DOE to give them a music teacher). Anyway. Many of these DOE teachers are just as competent as the rest of us--not to toot any horns but ETM is proud to be fairly selective in their hiring, and why wouldn't a music education organization?--but some... well... one...
Today I sat next to a DOE teacher who has been teaching PreK-1 at partner school new this year to ETM. They've hired a fabulous teacher for 2-5, but I will say that she definitely has her work cut out for her... The DOE teacher cannot match pitch (read: if tone deafness exists she's got it), cannot conduct a 4-beat pattern even with one-on-one instruction from four different people, cannot handle a guitar to save her life (guitars are hard to figure out at first... but not as hard as she makes it). Of course her incompetency reflects poorly on her own training (if she even has any credentials), but it seems that ultimately it reflects most poorly on the NYC DOE. How did this woman get hired??? Not every music teacher is going to be exceptionally proficient at every musical skill, but without the ability to sing, play a simple instrument, or display any semblance of coordination, she's going to have a tough time providing anything useful for her students. Littluns especially need superb modeling to assist in developing the foundation for the rest of their music education...
It's easy to second guess the situation and fall back on warm fuzzy excuses like "Well she must really be passionate about music" or "She must really connect well with the students". In reality, however, it IS important that a music teacher be a good if not great musician. Teachers who teach reading know how to read. Teachers who teach math know how to perform arithematic. Ridic.
But I digress... back to the illumination of little-known NYC.
*Sometimes waking up at 5:45am for an hour plus commute isn't so bad...
=)
KP
i really dislike the term piggyback. almost hate. haha. that's all.
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