So You Think You Want to Be a Clinician/Presenter...

This post came out of a discussion with my dear friend, Roger Sams (co-author of Purposeful Pathways) and several experienced clinicians and presenters. We have noticed several trends with newer music educators who want to be Clinicians and Presenters and want to help others and offer some free and unsolicited advice. 

 "Being an awesome music teacher is the opposite of being a rock star. A rock star wants the focus on them. An exemplary teacher always puts the focus on the learners. If you're still imitating others, taking their catch phrases and using them as your own, using titles or names that are already being used and claiming them as your own, quoting people, but not citing them, etc. you're still in the imitation phase. There's nothing wrong with being in the imitation phase, that's where we all begin, but you're not an expert yet." -Roger Sams 

Intention 

Enter into the era of presenting or being a clinician out of a SERVANT heart - a desire to center the learner, giving back of yourself and sharing the knowledge others have so willingly and often sacrificially given. Choose to lift others up and acknowledge the shoulders upon which you stand. Climbing any ladder while stepping on the hands that helped you is unprofessional, unethical, and will leave you feeling empty and unfulfilled. Check your intentions (and spend some serious reflection time) and ask yourself if you have truly moved beyond imitation into expert mode.  This often takes many years to happen.

Ethics and Morals 

Share what comes directly from your own experiences with teaching in the classroom. Consider that the majority of what you share should be your own material (and not just 60%- about 90%). Acknowledge others (even when it is simply, "inspired by a lesson as learned from ____"), cite sources correctly and in writing, ask permission before sharing something learned from someone else (and if they say no, that means NO), put the permission in writing (not a verbal acknowledgment), center others, and apologize when you make mistakes (and you will; I still do). Don't post other people's lessons on social media without permission or change one small thing and then share as your own. When sharing a song or lesson, make sure what you are sharing doesn't belong to someone else (it isn't always "folk" and/or in public domain). Share the full lesson - not a teaser page that acts as clickbait for teachers to feel pressured to make a purchase or as an advertisement for a TpT purchase. Content over cuteness and sharing over selling. Remember the sharing that happened during Covid lockdown? It is one of the things that makes our community of music teachers so very special and didn't happen in other education disciplines.

Value 

The value in sharing of yourself is that YOU are a unique and experienced music teacher with ideas that will help others be better at their craft and enrich their students musical education. Presenting at a workshop will not make you rich. Most teachers make about $600.00 per workshop. That might sound enticing but here's the breakdown: 

Notes and Slides Presentation: Between 4-10 hours preparing presentation notes, music scores, creating graphics, notes for participants, slides, Keynotes, Powerpoints, etc. 

Travel: Depends on location; just last weekend I spent over 24 hours in cars, ubers, and airports and airplanes traveling to Canada to present. 

Presentation Day: Arrive 45 minutes to 1 hour early to workshop site, 4-hour workshop, cleanup 30 minutes, lunch with the chapter board for 2 hours. This doesn't include the emails, texts, and additional time to work with the Chapters to contract, go over details, instrument needs, etc. 

Time: Between 36 and 42 hours, which doesn't include the full time away from home. That is $14.29/hour. to $16.67/hour.  And then you pay taxes on that. I sacrifice time with my family, my students, and even myself sometimes, but I believe strongly in serving and sharing. It isn't about me - it IS about the learners in the room - be they children or adults. 

Joy 

It is joyful to see the lightbulbs on teachers faces when, in the middle of a workshop, they see an idea forming or have a beautiful and emotional response to something they have just learned to do differently, more purposefully, and more joyfully. THIS is why we present - to share of ourselves fully by serving others. We do it with joy, with love, and with grace, hoping that we can help make a difference in a teachers' life, and ultimately, through them, with their students. 

Please don't be a rock star - be the beautiful, wholesome person you are who teaches and shares from a place of expertise, joy, creativity, and love.