Philosophies
I have broken down my philosophies into two different sections; general education and music education. While I believe that the two are intertwined, I believe that combining them would not do them justice in their own idioms.

Philosophy of Education

The purpose of education in our schools should not be to score the highest on a standardized test. The purpose of education in our schools should be to create and foster active learners. The old fable tells us that if you give a man a fish, you feed him for a day, but if you TEACH him to fish, you feed him for a lifetime. Similar to the man in the fable, if we focus on fostering test takers and high scores, we only fulfill a shallow and short lived satisfaction. For more long term results, we must instill the joys in the process of learning. The idea that the teacher should be the only expert in the room is both discriminatory and antiquated. Education in our schools today, in an era where information travels faster than we can imagine, should be based in a community of learners. We must give our students credit for their pre-existing knowledge and use it to foster a sense of collaboration. Living in the 21st century means that we must foster an education based in community and collaboration, both on a micro level (school community, local community, etc.) and a macro level (cross-culturally, international, etc.).

Philosophy of Music Education

Music education should be focused on three elements; performance, creation, and analysis. All to often, music education is synomous with how well a given ensemble performs on their latest concert. If we wish to engage students in upper level thinking skills, we need to foster their ability to create and critically anaylze. In this sense, secondary music educators can learn a lot from quality elementary teachers in how they treat the limited time they see their classes. If we only emphasize the performance of music, we create a society of musicians who can only perform what has already been written. If, however, our students can create and critically anaylze what is happening around them, we create a self-motivated musical and artistic culture that will continue to thrive long after our students exit our classrooms.