music education

 (please take this lightly, it is really not that big of a deal to me personally. It literally happened in the past and I have moved on. I just hate that it happened in the first place. haha)

I am terrified to do music ed. It's not that I'm scared to teach, in fact its something I want to do. Please allow me to start with, I want to do music education. I would also like to say that I would prefer to do it as my master's degree. Im not really sure why everyone is super pressed about me saying it. I don't mean it as the power struggle as a performing musician but more along the lines of one day I want to have a flute studio. Everyone I've asked has literally said that most people have a performance degree to be "labeled" as qualified to teach their preferred instrument.  However it's not something I want to do as a "female woodwind player" or even if "I'd be the perfect ASSISTANT band director." Someone really important in my life told me this. 

For context I said, "I want to teach flute, nothing else really. Teaching middle school or high school band doesn't interest me and I would prefer to stick with something I love. I do fine in my music ed classes, however I dislike that we ONLY do things catered towards elementary children. (the purgatory of boom whackers) Also, the idea of teaching a bunch of teenagers how to play brass instruments is something I genuinely would not want to do, not that I couldn't, but because I know I wouldn't be happy and I would probably regret it later on in life." Without hesitation I was told, "You know, you don't have to be a band director, you could be the assistant. They do less work and focus on mainly the woodwinds. Plus you are a woman who plays a woodwind instrument and thats usually what the assistant director does." 

Heres some cute children playing boom whackers. 

I know its not really that big of a deal, but it is still my future. I hate that stereotype. However, they made a valid point, that is usually what happens in public high school bands. It just hurt that what I said was taken out of account and just simply pushed onto the stereotype. They are in many ways right, you have to start somewhere, then build your way up. I can see how younger Jaimee didn't fully take that into account but I wouldn't say I didn't have it on my mind. I'm just mad that I can't argue it, even with it being 2023 and things like this have been normalized and now starting to change, it just hurts to be told this. 

Heres a photo of a lovely lady conducting a public school.

Luckily, I would like to think I'm not the kind of person who breaks down at the hands of a negative comment. My options are open and I'm still young so I have nothing to worry about right now. Like I said before it is 2023, change is normalized, and I can look forward to the future and see where it will take me. Even if I'm destined to start as an assistant band director, thats not something that I will let hold me back. I want to do my best to create a standing where I can happily do what I love. Playing flute and teaching others how to love playing flute.

Now that you've made it this far, I would like to say that I'm still happy. Im still pursuing music, and like I said in one of my previous paragraphs I'm still happy with continuing music education. The whole point of this blog was to bring up how gender is involved in the music community and it honestly upsets me that in the day I posted this more people focused on what I'm trying to do instead of what was said. 

 

Here's my favorite band piece. When I'm serving my time I hope to one day have my class play this :)