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Welcome to Our Coverage of the 2010 IMEA All-State Conference and Festival.
PEORIA (Nov. 29, 2010) — The Illinois Music Educators Association All-State Conference at the Peoria Civic Center concludes Saturday, culminating in concerts at 1 p.m. by the all-state orchestra, band, and chorus, and at 3 p.m. by the honors ensembles. The final work will be a combined performance by all ensembles of Carmen Dragon's famous arrangement of "America the Beautiful."
Barbara Geer, president of MENC: The National Association for Music Education, spoke Friday to 45 high school students, aspiring music teachers, at the conference. They had been selected to participate in the "Future Music Educators Seminar" groups.
According to Ms. Geer, who travels the country on behalf of music educators and music students, it is rare on a national level for educators associations of any kind to work with high school students.
"Most states don't work with high school students in an arena like this," she told the group. "I have already seen friendships being made as I walked in, and that collaboration is a very good thing."
Jonathan and Lori Lauff from the Naperville Schools are presiding over seven sessions with these students, who have indicated a strong interest in pursuing careers as music educators.
Ms. Lauff said the students were first nominated by their school directors and then they had to write an essay.
"We got over 200 essays," she said, "and selected 45 students to come here."
Ms. Geer advised students to be themselves in the classroom — "You can't be anything else," she told them — and to always ask questions of their friends, mentor teachers, and even the staff at MENC's national office — she gave them the phone number.
She included in the informal seminar several personal stories about life as a music educator, experiences she has had during her still-running 44-year career.
"When I was growing up," she said, "we didn't have a piano. I wanted one for Christmas, so I would sit on the stairs at home, with my feet through the steps, and use the next step higher as my 'keyboard.' Eventually, my mom must have had to step over me so many times that I did get that piano one year."
As a way of encouraging students to leave options open, she described one time when she had to drive the activity bus for her school.
"One day the principal comes to me and says, 'I need to see you in my office.' " she said. When she got there, a small amount of fear present — "because that's not usually a good thing" — he told her that a woman had called in to complain she saw a bus going down the highway without a driver. Ms. Geer and the principal laughed, once the joke was out, and had a good time with Ms. Geer's self-described vertical challenge.
But even though she had not aspired to be a bus driver for the schools, she used the opportunity to recruit a few football players with a good singing voice for her chorus.
She described a student with whom she had kept in touch. This "Billy" started out as a bit of a troubled student, and she had even once asked for him to be taken off her chorus roster. But every year, he showed up in the group.
"Music classes aren't like math or history, where you'll do the same things every day," she said. "Your repertoire is different, your lessons are different, and even with the same students, you're working toward something different every day."
Based on personal experience and her tenure as MENC's president, which has led to opportunities to meet people from all walks of life, she offered a glimpse of the future for those who pursue careers as music educators. She said she has met governors, famous musicians, and even Kareem Abdul Jabaar, whose father was a jazz musician.
"Your music teacher — not so much your math teacher or your science teacher — is always there for you," she said. "They're the ones who give up their weekends and evenings to work with you. They're the ones who will remember you, and they're the ones that you'll remember."
She acknowledged, in an interview after the seminar, that students will face challenges as they embark on their careers.
"I would say their primary challenge will be financial," she said. "Some of them also may get to college and find some of the education classes too hard, and then they'll redirect their education, maybe toward music.
"But I could see in so many of their faces that many of these kids will succeed, and that's what the rest of us need to happen, as the U.S. Education Department has promised that arts education will be part of the reconsideration of [the Elementary and Secondary Education Act]," she said.
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