Voices of Music Teachers regarding Professional Development

Arts educators need specific professional development. Generic professional development alone will not work for arts teachers. Arts teachers also need more than one type of professional development as the narratives in the stories in this article make clear. The first music teacher provides narrative support for Bowles's research finding that music teachers are willing to and do seek and pay for their own professional development. The author also highlights what may be typical of large urban districts: (a) even content-specific professional development focuses more on "cheerleading" than on teacher learning (or student achievement), and (b) it may be hard for the large urban district to meet the variety of needs of all content specialists due to the sheer numbers of teachers and variety of teaching contexts. The experiences of the second teacher support the need for appropriate mentor and induction experiences for beginning arts teachers. It specifically provides support for the concept of two types of assistance for music teachers: general schoolwide and content-specific assistance. It leads the reader to believe that flexibility in design may be one of the keys to successful professional development. The story of the third teacher supports research that suggests that state music organizations should take a proactive role in providing content-specific professional development, which should not be left out of teacher in-service education. It is one's mastery of content that is a cornerstone of one's ability to teach. In addition, this particular story supports the concept of learning communities--places where arts teachers come together and focus on important issues of teaching and learning. (Contains 4 notes.)