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Statement of Philosophy

I was never supposed to be a teacher.

My father was a shop teacher who later moved into higher education administration. His father was an elementary school teacher and media specialist. And his aunt taught in a one-room schoolhouse on the prairie. I didn't know exactly what I was supposed to do with my life, but teaching was certainly not on the table. Nor was attending the University of Nebraska-Kearney, since that is where each of my teacher forebears had studied as well. I was not going to live in my hometown; in fact, I was going to leave as soon as possible.

My family was exceptionally supportive of my desires in all of this. Even when it came to my future profession, all of the generational pressure I felt was actually self-imposed. But as I progressed through my rebellious phase, I became more self-aware and settled into some core goals and strengths:

I loved music so much: performing it, writing it, listening to it. I became a top performer at my high school and gained a reputation as a young composer. Seemingly everything I did involved music in some way.
I had a passion for helping others learn and develop their potential. I took on Servant Leader as an identity and sought opportunities to give back to my community as an Eagle Scout and through other leadership development opportunities.
I consistently demonstrated academic excellence.
I wanted to use my strengths to make the world a better place.
I wanted to be challenged.
I wanted to chart my own path.
I wanted to do things no one in my family had done before.
I wanted to experience the diversity of the world and be a better person for it.

I was told frequently that I could be anything I wanted to be; whatever I put my mind to, I would be successful. The sky was the limit. I thought about rising through the ranks, leading a company or starting my own. Impacting organizations and industries. Maybe becoming the next great composer. But impacting the future of our society is what I learned was most important to me.

Education is where I was meant to be.

For me, choosing education is not an act of charity. I am not sacrificing some professional achievement. I truly believe that education sits at the top of the pyramid as the most noble profession, the best use of my skills and dispositions. Children need strong leaders in their lives - leaders who are willing to "eat last," as Simon Sinek puts it. They need access to adults who live ethically with honor and integrity. Children need to be around grown-ups who love to read and who embody a voracious appetite for learning new things. Children need to be believed in and nurtured. For me, passing over a career in education would have meant settling for a less impactful life - choosing a less impactful life.

I decided to be a teacher before I decided to be a music teacher, but to be a music teacher is surely the best job in the school. My detailed historical and philosophical perspectives of music education can be found below.

Re-Focusing Music Education for the 21st Century (high school research paper)
Philosophy of Education (MUS 468)

My mission as a music educator is...

... to create and maintain a supportive atmosphere in which all participants are able to experience various styles of music, build meaningful relationships with one another, share their creativity, and grow as humans, learners, and artists.

To realize this mission, I've challenged myself with ten objectives to meet over the course of my professional practice:

Instill in students a respect for and appreciation of the creative process of music-making and performance preparation.
Provide students with support and opportunities to develop their creative potential inside and outside of the classroom.
Expose students to a variety of musical styles from a variety of world cultures through performance and listening.
Foster an environment in which students and teachers are equal contributors to the creation of a musical product.
Cultivate an atmosphere in which participants hold each other accountable for their responsibilities to the group.
Support students who struggle to meet the musical, academic, and social demands of the group.
Facilitate the growth and development of student leadership in a variety of roles.
Encourage teamwork, school pride, group identity, and tradition.
Respond appropriately to changes in student needs, interests, goals, and motivation.
Establish a network of symbiotic relationships between teachers, students, parents, administrators, and the community.

So what of technology in education?

Our students deserve to be prepared to inherit an increasingly diverse, complex, and technological world. Given the ubiquity of technology in all industries - as well as the ever-mounting pressure on institutions of education at all levels to adequately prepare students to drive innovation, often in competition with each other - schools which have not formalized, evaluated, and adjusted their programs in response operate at a severe deficit of efficacy.

Technology is rarely an end unto itself anymore. Gone are the days wherein one segment of the population was responsible for technological innovation while the majority of people continued about their analog lives. Instead, all of us are responsible for innovating with technology. We do our students the greatest service if we can, working side-by-side with them, help them use technology to achieve various non-technology learning targets. Using the TPACK framework as a conceptual model, we must recognize that teachers are already experts in both their content area and nurturing pedagogy. As an instructional technologist, my job is twofold:

Work with educational administrators to secure and maintain a cutting-edge technology infrastructure and regularly evaluate systems and tools for their relevance, functionality, and instructional effectiveness.
Work directly with teachers to support their technological knowledge, technological pedagogical knowledge, technological content knowledge, and technological pedagogical content knowledge.

Learning targets for our students are regularly undergoing revision and technology programs and initiatives must respond. The best technology integration knows which tools are most developmentally appropriate and best suited for each learning target. It intelligently synthesizes innovative digital experiences with tasks that cultivate higher-order thinking skills. It protects student safety and privacy. It provides for equitable learning environments that reduce bias and stereotype threat. And it redefines the role of teacher and student, such that students become constructors and excavators of knowledge while teachers design learning conditions and facilitate exploration.

But sometimes technology is the learning target.

The following has been adapted from Computer Science and Literacy at Overton Public School: A Scope and Sequence

According to a 2013 report by the Immigration Policy Center of the American Immigration Council, "the U.S. economy is capable of absorbing more high-tech professionals than the U.S. educational system produces" (Immigration Policy Center, 2013, p. 1). The report promotes two other key positions. First, the demand for highly skilled STEM workers is not being met and is coming from "industries like Professional and Business Services, Healthcare Services, Advanced Manufacturing, Mining, and Utilities and Transportation" (p. 2). The second is that "to create the best possible science and engineering workforce, the United States must reform both its educational and immigration systems" (p. 2). It is under these circumstances that direct attention should be paid to the inclusion of technology into the K-12 core curriculum.

But the field of technology is broad and diverse, such that it is common for stakeholders to exhibit misconceptions about what should be learned about it in schools and what actually is being learned. The K-12 Computer Science Framework quotes a 2007 report of the Computer Science Teachers Association (CSTA) Certification Committee:

Many states did not seem to have a clear definition or understanding of the field "Computer Science" and exhibited a tendency to confuse Computer Science with other subject areas such as: Technology Education/Educational Technology [...] Industrial or Instructional Technology [...] Management Information Systems [...] or even the use of computers to support learning in other subject areas. (K-12 Computer Science Framework, 2016, p. 13)

If policymakers, administrators, and teachers do not understand the difference between computer science and other forms of learning and doing with technology, there is little hope that students will exit high school sufficiently prepared or encouraged to choose a technology-related career path.

According to the K-12 Computer Science Framework, "Computing education in K-12 schools includes computer literacy, educational technology, digital citizenship, information technology, and computer science" (K-12 Computer Science Framework, 2016, p. 13). The document goes on to define each term (pp. 13-14):

Computer science is the study of computers and algorithmic processes, including their principles, their hardware and software designs, their applications, and their impact on society.
Computer literacy refers to the general use of computers and programs, such as productivity software.
Educational technology applies computer literacy to school subjects.
Digital citizenship refers to the appropriate and responsible use of technology, such as choosing an appropriate password and keeping it secure.
Information technology often overlaps with computer science but is mainly focused on industrial applications of computer science, such as installing software rather than creating it.

In my practice, I prefer to delineate three technology learning domains: digital citizenship, computer literacy, and computer science, combining (for simplicity) educational technology with computer literacy and information technology with computer science. The success of these learning programs will be determined by a comprehensive collection of learning targets, accessible learning materials, and equitable and engaging teaching methods that are expertly delivered. More information about my approach to these topics within each of the three learning domains can be found below.

Thinking back on my goals...

It ultimately did not matter where I lived or where I attended school. I have realized that I did not hunger for a place but for a purpose. I found that purpose as an educator and technologist. I found it first in the daily practice of musical performance with young artists. When others heard a cacophony of train-like sounds emanating from my beginning band classroom, I heard the moment when everything *clicked* and a child played her first note - and I saw when she smiled to herself. When my advanced players finished a beautiful piece and took just five extra seconds to savor the serenity of the silence that followed, I stood in those seconds with them. Outside of my classroom, I found purpose in the vision that I could bring to the leaders and systems under which my colleagues and I worked. My purpose was confirmed even before the end of my first year, when my school board invested over $100,000 in that vision, and my supervisors and colleagues let me know how much they valued my contributions. I am not one to flout my accomplishments or seek accolades, and any recognition I have received has not inflated my sense of self-importance. But the feedback I have received about my work has told me one thing: whether a music educator or instructional technologist...

... I am doing exactly what I was meant to do.