teaching

I will admit, I was a little nervous I'd just made the decision to move to Dallas last week, and start up building a private studio. I've never been there, I've never taught privately (unless you count swim lessons), and I feel like I would have to do a lot of work, research, and practicing to get into shape to be the best instructor I can be.

But I have to relax. When I go into my schools to coach I can do some fine teaching, and I see myself getting more adept at communicating new or different ideas each time. I love the short, friendly interaction, me and a handful of students, that going in weekly to coach provides me with, because it's similar to what I liked about Blue Lake. I'm not the full time teacher, so disciplinary issues are not my jurisdiction, and I'm not responsible for grades either. This leaves me off the hook, so to speak, of stress, and allows me to really dig and teach these kids some fun stuff. I can try out educational experiments, teach avant-garde techniques, and play around with different instrument combinations. I've felt throughout this year that I would be stellar at private instruction, because I have more ease one-on-one socially anyhow. Coaching groups was hard at first- but I love it now. I would like to get the same kind of feel for private teaching.

This means I need to start a new regime of self-instruction, including picking up some texts on educational techniques, practicing my basic skills, and seeking out specific trombone knowledge. I'm tempted to rent a euphonium or tuba, and fiddle around on that to get more of a feel for how to teach the instrument.

I talked to Chris on the phone yesterday, and it turns out if I'm hired to help out with marching band, I'll have to be in Texas before August 2nd. This means I'm aiming to be out of San Diego the last week of July, and take three days to get to Dallas (be advised, Megan, this means I will be spending a day with you in Albuquerque ;). I'm thinking about aiming to arrive the same day Chris comes down from Wisconsin, so that he'll have access to a car until he can get one of his own. Once there it'll just be unpacking, organizing, and getting ready for the job, plus hunting around town for an organic grocery store, and some killer veggie restaurants (according to a fact sheet I read on Dallas, it has more restaurants per capita than New York City). I'll also need furniture.

I'm super excited- finally, I get to start planning for my fall adventures instead of sitting around here feeling lost and lonely. Even the technical, boring stuff excites me, like health insurance and car registration issues.

First things first, though, I need to plan a trip to Texas to do my interviews and select my schools. Can I get a wOOt?