Goober Music Teachers

What are they saying?

Goober Music Teachers is the name that Waynflete School Choral Director Jarika Olberg and York High School Choral Director Rob Westerberg gave their blog that they started in November 2011. Each of them write posts and sometimes one starts the post and the other responds to what was included. It is a great way to build knowledge, think more deeply about teaching practices, and collaborate on ideas. And what a great way for ongoing professional development!

Recently Rob wrote a post called the dirty word which is all about assessment and the Maine Arts Assessment Initiative. The post starts with this…

Assessment. In the Arts. In Music. Could there be anything worse? I mean, come on… squelching creativity? Interfering with students’ sheer love of the art? How about the time it takes from class time to actually DO assessments? And how in the world do you assess aesthetics?After all, if the group sounds great, isn’t that what really counts? When the Maine Arts Assessment Initiative decided to run a statewide Arts Assessment Conference in the Fall of 2011, some of the discussion centered around what in the world to call it because, it was pointed out, “if we call it an ‘assessment’ conference, no one will want to come!” No doubt about it: assessment is a dirty word.

Or is it?

If you’d like to read more of Rob’s post on this topic you can find it at http://goobermusicteachers.wordpress.com/2012/03/03/the-dirty-word/

If you’d like to read other posts that Rob and Jarika have written you can go to their Goober Music Teachers blog at http://goobermusicteachers.wordpress.com/