One of the appealing reasons to attend UW-Parkside is its Institute of Professional Education Development (IPED) and its innovative co-teaching classroom model for pre-service teachers.  This model gives education majors unique, hands-on classroom experiences that go beyond the standard, pre-residency, 40 to 80 observation hours.  Most pre-service educators start spending time in classrooms from the first semester of their freshman year.  By the time they get to their residencies, they will have spent anywhere from 180 to 220 service hours in different classrooms across Kenosha and Racine Counties.  This dearth of pre-service experience helps to ensure that residency hours are spent honing education skills rather than beginning to acquire them.  This allows for a level of work-force preparedness and skill that is higher than many other teacher education programs.

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The pre-service co-teaching model applies to music education majors as well, although we don’t start our co-teaching experiences until after we’ve officially been accepted into the music education program (usually around our sophomore or junior years).  We then have the opportunity to teach at the elementary, middle school, and high school levels, allowing us to be certified as PreK-12 educators with either a band, choir, or orchestra concentration.

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I was very excited to participate in my education at such a fundamental level.  I’ve done my fair share of teaching one-on-one at the school-age level, generally Pre-K through 8th grade, but I have spent the majority of my adulthood chomping at the bit for the opportunity to resume my education and so I could get into a classroom and start learning how to teach in a choral setting (my original plan when I started school).  I was hungry for these experiences and I couldn’t wait to get started!

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As it is with most things, sometimes the best-laid plans don’t always go the way we think they will.  I spent a semester in an elementary school, a semester in a middle school, and two semesters in two different high school settings.  The first high school experience was truncated by time conflicts between a core class I was taking and when my mentor teacher was available.  The second-high school experience saw me sitting the back of the classroom taking field notes for the majority of the semester instead of actively participating in the choral education process.  It was extremely frustrating.  Rather than let these opportunities pass me by, I knew I had to get creative if I wanted to realize the skills I needed to acquire in these classrooms. 

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My first high school co-teacher was sympathetic to the situation and when I asked if I could come back to his classroom and continue to observe for a week or so after my semester was over, he agreed.  He offered to let me teach his ensemble a song over the course of that week, and I jumped at the chance.  I’m so glad I did.  It was an amazing experience, and one of the first times where I felt I was truly in my element as a burgeoning choral director.  I am deeply grateful to my co-teacher and his class for allowing me that small opportunity, because it made a huge impact on me and my teaching.

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My second high school experience was a bit more complicated.  So, in order to gain the experience I knew I would need, I turned to the group I had been singing with as a volunteer for the last 15 years, Coriolis Acapella, in Evanston, IL.

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I had been asked in the past by our current director if I would be a co-director of this group, but I had declined at the time because I was in school full-time, teaching in the afternoons and evenings, and still trying to be present as a spouse, and a mom to our pre-school-aged daughter – I just didn’t think I could find the time or energy to fit it in.  However, I knew that I would regret it if I didn’t try to find a way.

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I sat down with our director and asked him if he was still interested in having me co-direct the group.  He gave me an enthusiastic yes.  I proposed to teach the group one song and asked if he would be willing to mentor me through the teaching and conducting of the piece, which he also agreed to.  With his guidance and that of our other co-director, I was able to successfully lead the group through the learning of a difficult piece of music and have my conducting debut with them at the end of that semester.  It was an absolutely amazing experience.

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I also had the added benefit of being able to collaborate with our director and co-director on different logistical and artistic aspects of running and leading this type of ensemble.  It was a learning experience that was so much richer than I could have possibly foreseen.  It solidified my determination to one day teach a group of my own in a similar fashion.  I can’t wait to get out there!