Music foundation helping music educators stay in field
Constantly picking appropriate music and teaching students how to play instruments can be a challenge, especially for new teachers. That’s why Jon Locke founded the Foundation for Music Education three years ago.
“It’s very difficult to get started as a young band, choir or orchestra director. It’s a really steep learning curve those first couple of years,” said Locke. “Hopefully it (the foundation) allows them to get a little success under their belt and know that not knowing everything is OK.”
The Foundation for Music Education is based out of Lubbock and in addition to mentoring new teachers, it raises money for scholarships for music education majors. People can create a scholarship endowment through the foundation for any music education major of their choice, and current music teachers can get involved by volunteering to be a mentor.
The foundation is hosting an event called Stars Under the Stars at the Buddy Holly Center on July 11, hosted by David Gaschen and Jeff Klotzman. There will be live music, food and a bar. All money earned goes directly into the foundation and helping new teachers.
Locke said being someone who teaches music and instruments involves much time outside of school hours and is hard work. He learned that after 12 years as a band director. Just because someone is a good vocalist doesn’t make them a good teacher, which is why Locke was inspired to start the foundation.
“As a young teacher I would have died to have some kind of a resource like this and somebody to help me with what was going on,” he said.
It’s especially difficult for band directors because they have to teach the marching band, which is seen by the entire community, so that teacher must know what he or she is doing, he said. Plus, the band is year-round and the band director is in charge of the entire operation for the whole year. All band directors can normally play one or two instruments and must be able to teach how to play all the instruments.
The foundation mostly helps new teachers by matching them with successful, experienced teachers in their area through the Music Education Resource Network to provide mentoring. New teachers can go to their mentors for advice and possible shortcuts to become a more successful teacher in less time.
Two receptions are held at the state conference each year where they encourage young teachers to come out and meet people in their field, but most of the aid for new teachers is done on a one-on-one basis.
“We just get the teachers matched up so they can help each other,” said Locke.
The foundation doesn’t help graduates get jobs and most of the teachers being helped are in the first year or two of teaching. There are approximately 80 mentor teachers right now, each working with two to five new teachers.
All the money made by the foundation goes directly into scholarships, and Locke doesn’t get paid as president of the board of directors.
The main goal of the foundation is to help new music teachers feel comfortable in their job and, especially, to stay in the field. Locke said band directors too often quit their job soon after acquiring it.
“It’s a hard job and teaching just doesn’t pay monetarily,” he said. “A lot of people get into it and they just say, ‘You know, this is a lot more work than I thought,’ and a lot of times they’ll be good musicians — good performers — but that doesn’t mean they’re going to be a good teacher, and if they’re not very patient with it as they’re getting into it … they’ll wash out.”
