Sigma Alpha Iota

sai-national.org • Summer 2025 11 Music Education hilarious to imagine me at eighteen years old, sitting at a piano in the practice room, with my trusty portable Panasonic battery-operated cassette tape player and headphones, making recordings of intervals and chords to play back over and over and over, to get my ears to learn. All of those struggles helped me become a more effective teacher. I have been teaching for forty-three years. I have loved it. I can't imagine a better profession. I have no current plans to retire, and I am trying very hard every day to get better. I am especially fortunate that my job, my favorite hobby, and my primary means of service are all the same thing: music. I realize that many people consider me to be pretty boring because of this, but that's OK with me. Another part of that message was this love of my career. As I experienced opportunities in the early part of my career, I would enjoy them, but would also think about them as "resume material." Yes, they were resume material; yes, they helped me grow as a professional; and yes, I was wise to seize these opportunities. But, more importantly, I realized that's the job—I love doing this, and wow, I am so lucky to have such a great career. I asked everyone to think of their roles as "friends of the arts." I listed some of the things I had had the privilege of doing in my career. I noted that I'm just doing the best I can. I listed those things not so anyone would be impressed; rather, so that they could think of my list as a template for themselves. I also told this story of how I finally realized I was supposed to be a teacher, and that my career could also be characterized by me finally figuring things out. My first revelation was realizing I was supposed to be a teacher. In high school, it seemed that everyone else knew what they wanted to be when they grew up. Even those career inventory tests didn't seem to help me. Music and teaching, though, did usually show up somewhere in those results. But here's what I should have figured out sooner: As far back as I can remember, while I was sitting in school and the teacher was explaining something, I would devise what I thought was a better way of teaching the concept. I would be thinking that if I were the teacher, I would explain the concept in this different way, and that the class would learn it better. My next thought, though, was always "why are you wasting time thinking about that? You're not going to be a teacher." I can still remember first semester freshman year in college, realizing that all that thought of teaching was to show me I was supposed to be a teacher all along. "So this is what I'm supposed to be doing," I finally realized. When I told my parents, they said they knew it all along, too, and were just waiting for me to figure it out. This was a huge relief, and I thought it was pretty cool. Another revelation came in my sophomore year. I was in the Introduction to Education class that had some field work, where—at least I thought—I was just supposed to sit in the back of Mr. Herbon's classes in Postville, Iowa, observe, and be prepared to help out a little if he asked. At the end of the term, though, I was shocked when he pulled out an evaluation form! He was nice, and explained that when I started student teaching, I should show greater initiative. He was correct, and since then I have always tried to take the initiative, seize opportunities, and when opportunities weren't there to seize, create opportunities. That reminds me of one of my favorite quotes: It's by Dr. James Croft, the late retired director of bands at Florida State University. He said (this is a paraphrase) "Every day, I believe something great will happen. And if it hasn't happened by noon, I make it happen." As I finished college and a fantastic experience student teaching in Mason City, Iowa—which is River City, from The Music Man—I knew I'd like teaching music, because I liked both music and working with people. What I learned next, though, is that I love the people the best. Although I love music, I love the people more, and they are most important. Of course, it finally dawned on me that everything I was doing is the job. It has almost nothing to do with supporting the resume. This is what is fulfilling in life; this is what I'm supposed to be doing; this is what it means to be a friend of the arts. I concluded my remarks in 2005 by pointing out that we're all friends of the arts, and we all have important roles to fulfill. In all of this, we are modeling music education in action. We are demonstrating cooperation, sharing, and humanness, which are some of the most important reasons to study the arts in the first place. All of this bodes well for the future of the arts and arts education. If we are models, I hope others will follow. Every day, we have the privilege of collaborating to create and share beauty. I believe we can also use music to model cooperation, sharing, humanness, kindness, Doebler presenting at Province Day Doebler presenting at Province Day Photo by Kelly Lorenz Photo by Kelly Lorenz

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