Re: Re: Teaching and reality


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Posted by mjg on December 19, 2003 at 00:56:57:

In Reply to: Re: Teaching and reality posted by Gary Press on December 18, 2003 at 11:03:01:

Schools aren't businesses, they are bureaucracies. Especially state funded schools. That is why "State University" has such a huge _______ studio. Yes, they have to keep filling chairs and more and more of them to support more and more bureaucratic nonsense. For example, in the state of Florida, a student pays between 10-15% of the actual costs of schooling. I remember laughing about paying $100 for 16 weeks of hour long private lessons or $50 for 16 weeks of half hour lessons. This professor was then carrying about 20-24 hours of class time and getting paid $36,000 a year. Do the math. The state is paying this gentleman well over $40 an hour for his time. I'm paying him just above minimum wage. You simply cannot run a business,i.e. an orginization built for profit (even non-profits make money), the way a state runs a public university.

I agree with really having a heart to heart with your students before they go to college. Knowing full time orchestra players helps, in the sense that at least vicariously you can relate experiences.

Ask them:

Would you be willing to live in a car if need be for short periods of time?

Would you be willing to subsist on the poorest quality of food available.

Would you be willing to practice 6-8 hours a day? Not ensemble playing. Just practice for your own good?

Would you be willing to take playing jobs that may not seem up to par with your skills?

Would you be willing to learn all aspects of playing the tuba, not just a list of thirty to forty-five excerpts and half a dozen solos, that is, would you learn how to walk a bass line and play over changes?

Would you be willing to spend years of your life on the audtition circuit?

Would you be willing to be professional at all times and try your best to network with people.

Would you be willing to play "pop" music on a sousaphone for a living?

Etc.

The older I get the more important classes like speech, english compostion, history, and economics become.


mjg



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