During reading week, I had gone to my high school “Alexander Mackenzie high School” to visit Cher Alexander (one of my old high school music teachers). The point of this visit was to conduct an interview with her, with a purpose of getting a better understanding of how and why she had become a high school music teacher.
As an overall experience, I had found to have learnt a lot about both myself as well as Cher Alexander. I have known for a very long time (probably since grade eight) that I have wanted to become a high school music teacher. What was interesting to learn though was that not everyone knows exactly what they want to become before heading into university/ college. This was something that I had learnt about Cher Alexander. In the interview, she had said to me “So, throughout my four years there, did the Bachelor of music program and enjoyed the playing, the theory, the history and learning the new instruments. I think one of the things that was a huge teller of OK I do not think that I am going to be a performer, I do not think I am going to be a theorist, not going to be a composer, I think that teaching is the way to go. Because I have all this passion for music that I want to share and learning all these different instruments and being able to show people all these different instruments I think would be fun.” To be honest I had always assumed that right from the get go that she had wanted to teach music. It was very interesting and informative to have learnt that she had made this big decision while in the middle of completing her Bachelors of music degree.
I guess the biggest thing that I am taking away from this interview would be the fact of to do something you love is not work at all. The reason that this is what I am taking from the interview is because of all the joys that Cher Alexander has had over her 21 years of teaching. During the interview, Cher, had told me about what she had done in the first school she had ever worked in. She had created a vocal program within a very band and string heavy program. She had explained to me that the school did have a lunch hour choir but that was all. So, when she had created the vocal program, she had taken such joy from being able to show student that you can sing and earn marks for it just like in band or orchestra. What made her even more happy about the program was that for the first two years the program had been manly boys, which is not something that gets seen very often. This same goes for the Arts Program that she had created at ‘Alexander Mackenzie High School’. The program itself is not very old. My year being the 4th year to have fully graduated (2015 – 2016), this means that the program is still growing and developing. What Cher had said to me about both programs was just by starting them it had given her such joy just to see them flourish and grow as new students enter each new year.
From this incredible interview, I guess I have taken some special meaning form it that I wish to always include in my own life. This meaning would have to be just be yourself, because I had learnt that being a teacher can have a very rocky beginning and just always being yourself can help you to persevere to meet the goals that you want even if you can’t see the light at the end of the tunnel. Another reason that I want to be including this meaning into my life is because while I was in high school, I was a very social awkward person and did not feel comfortable in my own skin. What I have found is that to be a teacher this is something that a person should not feel because to be a teacher is to perform every day to an audience (your students) and to perform you needed to feel comfortable with who you are and not worry what others think of you. Therefore, this meaning of just be yourself is so important for me to include in my everyday life because it has taught me to literally just be who I really am.
This was an exciting experience that I believe has taught me that I teacher can come from anywhere. I want to thank Cher Alexander for participating in this interview and taking the time out of her day to do it with me.
Student Interview Reflection
When I think back to when we were doing our teacher interviews, I can see that between then and now there is this theme of music is in everything and can be everywhere. Both Morgan and Ben had said similar this with regards to this theme, Cher Alexander on the other had, did not outright say something like this but had kept on hinting towards this particular idea. Another theme that had come up between all three of my interviewers is the joy that music brings them. All three-people had outright said to me that music brings them joy, which I think is something that music should always do for someone.
I think that both of these themes are similar to one another, as well as they play off one another all the time. This playing off one another idea as well as the idea that they are connected really interests me because when you really think about it, my interviewers are right, music is everywhere and everything. It is just depending on how you look at it. It does not matter whether you are a student in university who is taking music as their major or not, everyone is able to interact with music and feel what they can feel from it whenever and wherever they want. This is how the joy theme is related to the first them, because anyone can feel music, everyone should be able to feel the joy that can come from making music or even just listening to music.
Like I had said in the above paragraph just because some is in university taking music as their major does not mean that someone is let’s say taking science does not understand music like the person who is in the music programs. Due to this idea, I think that this is why both of the themes that I have previously mention have appeared in all three of the interview that were conducted.
Overall, this experience has shown me that no matter who someone is or what they might be learning, everyone can feel music. They just feel it in their own way. After all this, it has also taught me not to judge someone’s musical background because everyone has experience music in a way that they want.