Episode #78 - Getting Our Music Together To Learn & Grow Together: An Interview With Cheryl Baker

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Welcome to the podcast where relationships, confidence, and

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determination, all converge into an amazing, heartfelt experience.

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This is Speaking From The Heart.

Joshua: 00:00:11

Welcome back to episode number 78 of Speaking from the Heart.

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Today we have Cheryl Baker, also another Toastmaster, who's joining us today.

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Cheryl is a veteran teacher of elementary general music, and

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she lives in the Virginia area.

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She started her 39th year of teaching this current school year; the 2023-2024 year.

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She holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts in acting and directing and music

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education, along with a master of music with an emphasis on Orff-Schulwerk.

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She's passionate about music in schools as well as appropriate new

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teacher education, which we talk quite clearly about the importance of music

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education in this episode, and how it brings so many benefits to others.

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As a result of this, she has begun giving webinars to new music teachers during

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the last two years, and as a result of that, has started her own business

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called Noteworthy Publishing, LLC, which provides coaching and dynamic interactive

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workshops and practical strategies for teaching elementary school music, which he

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has compiled into a book that's entitled Lessons From the Music Room, and we'll

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certainly share that link in the episode notes when it comes to that book, but I

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think specifically, it isn't just about music that we share within our own lives.

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It isn't just about the things that we can do in the general or the specific

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sense, but I think that we need to understand the importance of having

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those individuals that surround us, that we need to be able to connect with

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like-minded people to help not just create community, but to help us sing as a choir

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to that next song, to that next ability to play it safe and feel comfortable

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in playing it safe and being secure.

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But with that, let's go to the episode.

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All right.

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We're here with Cheryl Baker.

Joshua: 00:02:08

Cheryl, thanks for sharing your heart with us today.

Cheryl: 00:02:12

Hey.

Cheryl: 00:02:12

No problem.

Joshua: 00:02:13

Thank you so much for being here.

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I've been really excited to have you on the show.

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I know I've been rattling your cages like, "I need you on the show", so, but I'm

Joshua: 00:02:23

really glad that we finally made it work and you're here, so thank you so much for

Joshua: 00:02:27

taking some time to be part of it, and I already let the audience know about your

Joshua: 00:02:32

background and what you are all about, and I really want to launch into this as

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being my first question because I don't think I've had anyone on the show yet that

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has a musical background like yourself.

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What got you involved with the passion of music and being

Joshua: 00:02:49

able to teach people music?

Joshua: 00:02:50

Can you start us off with giving us a little bit of background

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of how you got started with it?

Cheryl: 00:02:57

Well, if you go back to the beginning of my life, my mother

Cheryl: 00:03:00

and father, grandmother, and most of my cousins and aunts and uncles

Cheryl: 00:03:05

are all in music or theater.

Cheryl: 00:03:07

Somehow they're musical.

Cheryl: 00:03:09

My mom played piano; she was in band.

Cheryl: 00:03:12

My dad played the guitar and sang.

Cheryl: 00:03:15

My stepmother loves music but doesn't know how to do anything, and my grandmother

Cheryl: 00:03:19

played piano for everybody and for all reasons in her little town in Montana, so

Cheryl: 00:03:26

I was surrounded by music when we were in the car, going somewhere, we were made to

Cheryl: 00:03:32

sing rounds and goofy stuff all the time.

Cheryl: 00:03:35

My dad would not let us play the radio so we could sing along with that.

Cheryl: 00:03:39

We had to actually sing our own song, so sort of like be a musical

Cheryl: 00:03:45

person, and it's like second nature.

Cheryl: 00:03:47

I mean, I'm very dramatic as well, so drama and music kind of go

Cheryl: 00:03:51

along with my personality as well.

Cheryl: 00:03:54

I was really shy as a child, but being in theater really brought out the

Cheryl: 00:03:59

crazy weird person that I am today, and therefore, it drove me into the place

Cheryl: 00:04:05

where I found that teaching was going to be something that I wanted to do.

Cheryl: 00:04:11

I mean, at first I wanted to be an actor/director in the theater, and

Cheryl: 00:04:15

then I realized I wasn't getting any parts, and so I said, "Well, maybe

Cheryl: 00:04:21

you need to have something that you can do as a job when you get out of

Cheryl: 00:04:24

college", so then I picked up the music and I had been doing that ever since.

Cheryl: 00:04:30

I still do theater things because I direct musicals and stuff with my

Cheryl: 00:04:34

kids and my students, but that's what kind of drove me into being a teacher.

Cheryl: 00:04:41

My mom was a teacher.

Cheryl: 00:04:42

My dad was a teacher.

Cheryl: 00:04:43

My stepmom is a teacher.

Cheryl: 00:04:45

They just don't teach music.

Cheryl: 00:04:47

My mom taught business classes.

Cheryl: 00:04:49

My dad taught math and social studies to middle school people.

Cheryl: 00:04:53

I deal with the little ones because they're cooler and they

Cheryl: 00:04:56

don't have as many problems.

Joshua: 00:04:59

They always seem to not have many problems and I even think

Joshua: 00:05:02

back to even some of my musical classes growing up and being able

Joshua: 00:05:06

to experience the different rhythms and sounds and musical instruments.

Joshua: 00:05:09

It's not something that I was really wanting to do and I stayed away from

Joshua: 00:05:14

that as much as I could, but I still remember those as being kind of a

Joshua: 00:05:18

eye-opening experience to, "Wow.

Joshua: 00:05:20

When you hit something or you strum something or you do some sort of

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action to the instrument, it creates a completely different tone",

Joshua: 00:05:28

but I noticed that you went on.

Joshua: 00:05:30

You got your Bachelor in Fine Arts, and then you got your Master's in Music.

Joshua: 00:05:33

Can you tell us a little bit about after you went through high school, graduating

Joshua: 00:05:39

and going through college, what was that like to kind of practice with people that

Joshua: 00:05:43

were just as interested in music as you?

Cheryl: 00:05:47

Well, in high school I was in band and I played saxophone;

Cheryl: 00:05:51

bari saxophone actually, and then I also picked up alto saxophone.

Cheryl: 00:05:55

I played tenor in middle school, and we got to do so many cool things in band, so

Cheryl: 00:06:01

that was really fun, and I was in church choir, so I had a lot of music background.

Cheryl: 00:06:06

When I got to college, I was a theater major, but I also did the music

Cheryl: 00:06:10

education courses and being around.

Cheryl: 00:06:14

Oh, let me just say music education is way more fun than being a music major

Cheryl: 00:06:20

because they have a little bit of an ego sometimes, and the people, and I was

Cheryl: 00:06:31

sort of the outlier in that conversation, or in that group, so I was a theater

Cheryl: 00:06:36

person peeking into music rather than a music person peeking into drama, so

Cheryl: 00:06:44

I loved being in musicals and that's really, if I thought it over again,

Cheryl: 00:06:50

if I was going to go back into school and do it all over again, I would get

Cheryl: 00:06:54

a degree in musical theater, because then it would still be drama and it

Cheryl: 00:06:58

would be music, because I'm so music.

Cheryl: 00:07:01

I mean, I did a solo for solo and ensemble once when I was a senior

Cheryl: 00:07:06

in high school, on my very sax, I played alto sax music, right, and the

Cheryl: 00:07:11

adjudicator said, "So you're going into music, right?", and I was like,

Cheryl: 00:07:14

"Yeah, no, I'm going into drama.", and he was like, "Why?", and I was like,

Cheryl: 00:07:20

"You know, because, nah; that's why."

Cheryl: 00:07:23

My band teacher said, "Don't go into music", and that made me question my

Cheryl: 00:07:28

choice, because I had told him, I said, "I want to be a band teacher when I grow up.

Cheryl: 00:07:33

I think that'd be fun", and look at me now .I'm in elementary music

Cheryl: 00:07:37

and I've been there for years, like ever since I started practically.

Cheryl: 00:07:42

The first two years I did K 12, which was elementary music, middle

Cheryl: 00:07:47

school and high school, and then the rest of the time, elementary school.

Joshua: 00:07:52

Do you think that there's a big difference between teaching

Joshua: 00:07:55

elementary school music or middle school music, and even high school music?

Joshua: 00:07:59

What are the differences?

Cheryl: 00:08:02

Well, the middle school and high school music classes are more geared

Cheryl: 00:08:07

toward performance in a specific genre, right, so you've got band, you've got

Cheryl: 00:08:12

orchestra, you've got chorus, you've got guitar, you may have a mariachi group.

Cheryl: 00:08:16

They have all kinds of stuff that you can do.

Cheryl: 00:08:18

They even have theory classes nowadays, some from the A&P classes and stuff

Cheryl: 00:08:22

like that, but general music in elementary school, it's like everything.

Cheryl: 00:08:28

It's all a little bit of this, a little bit of that, so we're teaching the whole

Cheryl: 00:08:33

child, and because I'm an Orff methodology follower, we're starting with what they

Cheryl: 00:08:37

can say, moving it into the rhythm, then moving it into the singing part,

Cheryl: 00:08:43

then moving it into harmony and playing on instruments and creating those big

Cheryl: 00:08:48

huge compositions that they naturally go, and then we add in some dance and

Cheryl: 00:08:53

folk dances and just general music.

Cheryl: 00:08:56

You've got to be an expert at a lot of different things,

Cheryl: 00:08:59

which is exactly who I am.

Cheryl: 00:09:02

They say jack of all trades, master of none.

Cheryl: 00:09:05

I don't say that I'm a master of none, but I know a lot about a lot of things,

Cheryl: 00:09:09

but not everything about everything.

Cheryl: 00:09:12

I can play the piano, I can play guitar, I can sing, I can do percussion

Cheryl: 00:09:17

and know how to lead a dance, but I learned that while I was teaching,

Cheryl: 00:09:21

so I didn't know that before.

Joshua: 00:09:23

I think that being able to have that generalization allows you

Joshua: 00:09:27

to have a little bit of everything, but at the same time, as you're doing

Joshua: 00:09:30

that for kids of that age, which you're looking at probably first grade through

Joshua: 00:09:35

maybe fifth grade elementary, correct?

Cheryl: 00:09:38

Kindergarten through sixth grade.

Joshua: 00:09:39

Kindergarten through sixth grade, that-

Cheryl: 00:09:41

In my district right now, Fairfax County, we do K 6.

Cheryl: 00:09:45

Other places in Virginia do K 5.

Cheryl: 00:09:48

Some don't even do K at all.

Cheryl: 00:09:50

When I was in California, went first through sixth grade, and then in

Cheryl: 00:09:54

Nevada it was K 5, so it just depends.

Cheryl: 00:09:58

So many people think that sixth grade belongs in the middle school, so.

Joshua: 00:10:02

I have seen some in even Pennsylvania where I live that have

Joshua: 00:10:06

different sort of makeups as well, but I generally see it K through five as well,

Joshua: 00:10:10

so even then, having that generalities and even starting young, I've always

Joshua: 00:10:15

heard, like it's so important, especially to start young, so you kind of have that

Joshua: 00:10:19

other side of your brain, not the literal side, not thinking about and processing

Joshua: 00:10:24

things or having those critical arguments.

Joshua: 00:10:26

A lot of those things can be developed from even music for that matter, having

Joshua: 00:10:30

that side of your brain where you have that creativity; that artistic quality.

Joshua: 00:10:35

Cheryl, you were mentioning about California, which is interesting because

Joshua: 00:10:37

as I was scrolling through your website, I noticed that you have lived abroad,

Joshua: 00:10:42

and I don't think I even knew this.

Joshua: 00:10:43

You lived in Great Britain.

Joshua: 00:10:44

You also lived in Chile.

Joshua: 00:10:46

Was that because of your music background or was that because of something else?

Joshua: 00:10:49

I'm kind of curious of what led you overseas in the first place, and then

Joshua: 00:10:53

had you come back to the United States, which, thank you for coming back, but I'm

Joshua: 00:10:57

interested as to why you were over there.

Cheryl: 00:11:00

Well, the story goes, I was living in Las Vegas at Clark County

Cheryl: 00:11:05

School District and my school, they started doing some dumb things to me.

Cheryl: 00:11:10

They decided that I needed to have two 30 member kindergartens

Cheryl: 00:11:15

at the same time; on my stage.

Cheryl: 00:11:19

One day, I had a class that came in the first class.

Cheryl: 00:11:22

I had two kindergartners back to back classes.

Cheryl: 00:11:25

One was 60 members and one was 30 members, right, and so one kid, they're

Cheryl: 00:11:30

all doing exactly what they should be, which is amazing for kindergarten in the

Cheryl: 00:11:34

first place, one kid leans forward, the other lean kids back, and they both bang

Cheryl: 00:11:39

their heads together and they're crying.

Cheryl: 00:11:41

"Wahhhhh", and I'm like, "Oh my God.", then you have to deal with that, and

Cheryl: 00:11:44

then, the next class is that somebody had an accident and went to the bathroom on

Cheryl: 00:11:49

the floor, and by the time they left, I sat in the little chair and just cried.

Cheryl: 00:11:54

I'm like, "Oh my gosh.

Cheryl: 00:11:55

This is too hard to do.

Cheryl: 00:11:57

These are too hard", and so I said to my husband, "I think

Cheryl: 00:11:59

I need a break from education.

Cheryl: 00:12:01

Can we go somewhere in the world?", because he used to work for Morrison

Cheryl: 00:12:05

Knudsen, and they had places all over the world, so I said, "I need a break from

Cheryl: 00:12:09

education, or I'm going to get in trouble.

Cheryl: 00:12:12

I'm going to say something, do something, that I shouldn't do, so I need a mental

Cheryl: 00:12:17

break from there.", so I said, "Can we go someplace in the world that speaks

Cheryl: 00:12:21

English?", and that was Great Britain, so then we thought we were going to

Cheryl: 00:12:26

stay over there for up to four years, and it ended up being one year, not

Cheryl: 00:12:30

even a whole year, so then we came back and then we were in Vegas again for

Cheryl: 00:12:34

a little while, and then we got the opportunity to go to Santiago, Chile,

Cheryl: 00:12:41

and I didn't need a break, but we decided just to go because they really thought

Cheryl: 00:12:47

it would be cool, and I said, "Hey.

Cheryl: 00:12:48

We can learn Spanish.

Cheryl: 00:12:49

That'll be great", and that's where I wrote my book.

Cheryl: 00:12:54

I started writing my book while I was there, because when you don't

Cheryl: 00:12:57

work, and it's in the mid part of your career, you're like, "Whoa.

Cheryl: 00:13:01

What do I do with myself all day long?", and I couldn't work because I didn't

Cheryl: 00:13:05

have a work visa in Chile anyway, so I did volunteer at a school for the blind;

Cheryl: 00:13:11

Helen Keller School for the Blind.

Cheryl: 00:13:13

We had our Bechtel wives group.

Cheryl: 00:13:15

We did a little afterschool thing, and once they found out that I did music,

Cheryl: 00:13:19

they were like, "Ooh, we're just going to make our lesson all around you", and

Cheryl: 00:13:22

I was like, "Okay", so I would bring my guitar and what they would sing, but they

Cheryl: 00:13:26

spoke Spanish and we spoke English, so it was an English activity after school

Cheryl: 00:13:32

for them, but that's why we went to Great Britain and then I came back and I was

Cheryl: 00:13:38

fine, and then another opportunity came.

Cheryl: 00:13:41

Now I'm the person in my family that travels the world.

Cheryl: 00:13:44

I've been to Europe several times.

Cheryl: 00:13:46

I've been to India a couple of times.

Cheryl: 00:13:48

It's where my husband is from.

Cheryl: 00:13:50

It's like somebody says, "You want to move somewhere or travel somewhere?"

Cheryl: 00:13:53

I'm like, "Yeah, sure, whatever.

Cheryl: 00:13:55

I'm up for that."

Joshua: 00:13:57

Do you think that those traveling experiences had an influence on your

Joshua: 00:14:01

music and even the delivery of your music?

Cheryl: 00:14:06

I think it gives you a better understanding of culture throughout

Cheryl: 00:14:09

the world and who people are and how they interact with each other.

Cheryl: 00:14:15

I have a lot more empathy for foreign people coming into the United States,

Cheryl: 00:14:21

having gone through the naturalization process with Narayanan, with my husband,

Cheryl: 00:14:26

and he came from India and became a naturalized citizen after we got

Cheryl: 00:14:31

married and learning about his music, and then learning about what was cool

Cheryl: 00:14:37

in Great Britain, learning a little bit about what they did in Santiago.

Cheryl: 00:14:42

I'm just very interested in cultural music all over the place and any

Cheryl: 00:14:47

culture that's in, you know, we have a mixture of kids in our schools here in

Cheryl: 00:14:51

Virginia because it's so metropolitan.

Cheryl: 00:14:54

We've got people from everywhere.

Cheryl: 00:14:56

My school, in fact, is a Korean immersion school.

Cheryl: 00:14:59

We have a program where there's one class per grade that is a half

Cheryl: 00:15:03

day Korean instruction and half day English instruction, so we

Cheryl: 00:15:09

do a big deal on Lunar New Year.

Joshua: 00:15:12

Yeah, well; yeah, definitely.

Joshua: 00:15:14

You probably spend a lot of time on that as a result.

Joshua: 00:15:18

Cheryl, I want to pivot a bit because I know that we were talking a little

Joshua: 00:15:23

bit before the show about you starting Noteworthy Publishing LLC, your

Joshua: 00:15:27

business, so obviously you're a well established music education teacher

Joshua: 00:15:32

in school districts and teaching kids.

Joshua: 00:15:34

What led you to wanting to start a business that was centered around

Joshua: 00:15:38

that, and maybe at this point too, would be also a great opportunity

Joshua: 00:15:42

to talk about your book Lessons From The Music Room, which I know also has

Joshua: 00:15:47

been something that has been a project of yours that you have published.

Cheryl: 00:15:52

Well, yeah.

Cheryl: 00:15:52

I published in 2016, I believe, and I wrote it in 2015, finished it in 2016.

Cheryl: 00:16:00

I had been a mentor teacher for many teachers over time, and I remember

Cheryl: 00:16:05

very, very vividly what it was like to start being a music teacher when I first

Cheryl: 00:16:10

started because I didn't have the full background in music, so I know the pain

Cheryl: 00:16:16

and the trials and tribulations of a brand new teacher very, very well, and

Cheryl: 00:16:21

so when I became the mentor teacher, then I; I'm saying the same thing over

Cheryl: 00:16:27

and over again, stuff that I've learned, and so then when I got to Santiago, I

Cheryl: 00:16:31

said, "Well, let me write this down.

Cheryl: 00:16:33

I've been talking about this for forever.

Cheryl: 00:16:35

I'm going to write down all my very best advice, everything that

Cheryl: 00:16:39

I think of", and it was funny because I just started writing.

Cheryl: 00:16:43

I just opened up a Word document and started writing something and then

Cheryl: 00:16:47

it was like 10 pages and I'm like, "Well, maybe I need an outline.

Cheryl: 00:16:52

That would be good.

Cheryl: 00:16:53

I think that would be good.", so then I started writing in the chapters and

Cheryl: 00:16:57

pretty soon I had over a hundred pages of writing, and then it went on from there.

Cheryl: 00:17:02

The business came from the book basically, because you have to have a

Cheryl: 00:17:05

business to sell something, and so now it's intellectual property and it's a

Cheryl: 00:17:11

how to guide for the beginning music teacher; that's the subtitle of the book.

Cheryl: 00:17:16

It's meant for beginning music teachers and specifically general

Cheryl: 00:17:21

music teachers, but there are wonderful ideas for any teacher of any level.

Cheryl: 00:17:26

There's a chapter on how to get kids to do what you want them to do, getting to know

Cheryl: 00:17:31

the kids' behaviors and why they do it.

Cheryl: 00:17:34

There's a whole chapter just on how to deal with your administrators.

Cheryl: 00:17:39

Everybody has to deal with them.

Cheryl: 00:17:40

You always have to go in with a solution, not just, "I have a problem

Cheryl: 00:17:44

and you should fix it", because they'll just say, "I don't care", you know?

Cheryl: 00:17:49

It just came from my desire to help somebody else and make it easier for them.

Cheryl: 00:17:54

I have a new website that I just updated and there's forms

Cheryl: 00:17:58

that you can just download.

Cheryl: 00:17:59

It's like a Word document and say, "Okay, well this'll start for a letter I can

Cheryl: 00:18:03

send home to parents and I'll just change the details and it's all done for me.",

Cheryl: 00:18:08

so I spent my entire weekends, my first few years of teaching, trying to figure

Cheryl: 00:18:13

out what I was going to teach and hoping that the kids would like it, because

Cheryl: 00:18:20

you don't know if it's going to fly, if it's going to work, and then you get into

Cheryl: 00:18:25

the classroom and if you haven't planned enough, then you're sunk and everything is

Cheryl: 00:18:29

a mess, and you feel like a failure, and we are losing teachers in droves because

Cheryl: 00:18:36

it's so hard to do, and here's the other thing that I kind of going to my soapbox

Cheryl: 00:18:43

now I'm standing on my soapbox going-

Joshua: 00:18:44

No, please do, because I was actually going to bring this up

Joshua: 00:18:48

as a subject too, because I think that we are losing teachers left

Joshua: 00:18:52

and right, and I can only imagine what it's like in the music field

Joshua: 00:18:55

itself, so please, I'm really curious.

Joshua: 00:18:57

What do you think needs to change?

Cheryl: 00:18:59

What I think needs to change is when at the college

Cheryl: 00:19:02

level, they need to have classes.

Cheryl: 00:19:04

First of all music programs, they assume that you want to be a professional

Cheryl: 00:19:10

musician and have a primary instrument and you're going to go out there and be

Cheryl: 00:19:16

a professional musician, not be teaching, or you're going to be a band teacher, or

Cheryl: 00:19:21

you're going to be an orchestra teacher, you're going to be a chorus teacher.

Cheryl: 00:19:24

They're all about performance.

Cheryl: 00:19:26

They're not about teaching.

Cheryl: 00:19:28

They give you very little classes.

Cheryl: 00:19:29

I've started some research.

Cheryl: 00:19:31

I haven't gotten very far yet, because I got way late on a couple other projects,

Cheryl: 00:19:35

but I started looking at colleges in this area, just in Virginia of how many

Cheryl: 00:19:40

classes do they have in general music?

Cheryl: 00:19:43

They have two, three, plus student teaching.

Cheryl: 00:19:49

That's it.

Cheryl: 00:19:50

They don't give you anything about behavior management.

Cheryl: 00:19:53

They don't give you anything about how to organize your stuff.

Cheryl: 00:19:56

They don't tell you about how to deal with the kids; the special ed kids.

Cheryl: 00:20:00

They don't know how to deal with traumatized kids that we have

Cheryl: 00:20:04

nowadays based COVID craziness that was happening all these times.

Cheryl: 00:20:08

They don't give you any of that.

Cheryl: 00:20:09

Now, maybe they just can't because it's a four year degree,

Cheryl: 00:20:13

but maybe they need to have one.

Cheryl: 00:20:15

I had a student teacher last spring, and she didn't even know

Cheryl: 00:20:18

how to teach people how to sing.

Joshua: 00:20:21

Wow.

Cheryl: 00:20:21

And she went in there and said, "I want to be an

Cheryl: 00:20:24

elementary general music teacher."

Joshua: 00:20:27

Wow.

Cheryl: 00:20:27

That's what she declared at the college, and there were classes apparently

Cheryl: 00:20:32

that were available, but not to her, because of how she had been told that she

Cheryl: 00:20:37

had to create her degree, so they had some classes, but she wasn't able to take them.

Cheryl: 00:20:46

She's coming in with as best she can, and then they're leaving it all

Cheryl: 00:20:49

up to the master teacher when they do their practicum or their student

Cheryl: 00:20:53

teaching, or whatever they call it nowadays, to give them everything else

Cheryl: 00:20:56

that they didn't get, and it's hard.

Cheryl: 00:20:59

You can't tell them everything and you can't really give them everything.

Cheryl: 00:21:02

It comes down to learning on the job, and that's what I remember the

Cheryl: 00:21:06

most, so what needs to change is they need to give you world instruments.

Cheryl: 00:21:11

They need to give you strategies and help about that and real

Cheryl: 00:21:16

experiences in the classroom, even just watching craziness happen.

Cheryl: 00:21:20

Go to a title one school and see what the kids are like.

Cheryl: 00:21:24

Go to an upper class school and see what the kids are like, because they're

Cheryl: 00:21:27

different, and there's bigger problems.

Cheryl: 00:21:30

I worked at a title one school and the little kids were lovely

Cheryl: 00:21:34

and the big kids were crazy.

Cheryl: 00:21:36

I drove home nearly crying every night going, "I don't know why I can't connect

Cheryl: 00:21:43

with these kids, why they won't follow the directions, why they won't stop talking."

Cheryl: 00:21:48

My sixth graders never listened to me the whole year.

Cheryl: 00:21:51

I mean, it was just like a fight the whole time, and I'm an experienced teacher.

Cheryl: 00:21:55

I got a lot of things in my toolbox that I know how to deal with.

Cheryl: 00:21:59

I started remaking myself, going, "Okay, I'm just going to be the most

Cheryl: 00:22:02

exciting teacher in the whole world", and they're like, "This is exhausting.

Cheryl: 00:22:05

I cannot keep this up."

Joshua: 00:22:08

Well, and I think too that there are teachers that are willing to adapt

Joshua: 00:22:14

and grow, but it's a two-way street, and I've had some guests on the show and we've

Joshua: 00:22:17

talked about this concept too, where not only is it about you, what you need to do

Joshua: 00:22:22

to kind of get to that point, but there has to be some leeway with somebody or

Joshua: 00:22:27

even a group of people, in your situation, bunch of kids that are willing to do

Joshua: 00:22:31

that and be open to that instruction and adult learning, which I do through my

Joshua: 00:22:36

business myself, and what kids learn, are completely different things, and I'm

Joshua: 00:22:41

even talking about the kids coming out of college and they are supposed to be

Joshua: 00:22:46

adults now teaching in this environment.

Joshua: 00:22:49

They need to also be willing to kind of pursue some of that of their own, not

Joshua: 00:22:54

necessarily always leaning on that advice of what somebody has provided, but being

Joshua: 00:22:59

able to say, "If this is where I want to go, what are the things I need to

Joshua: 00:23:03

do?", and I think your book that you've provided is one of those great resources.

Joshua: 00:23:07

Wouldn't you think that it would be helpful if we just had that

Joshua: 00:23:10

sort of mentorship, or kind of that guidance, along the way

Joshua: 00:23:15

from somebody that has done it?

Cheryl: 00:23:17

Absolutely.

Cheryl: 00:23:18

I mean, there's so many music teachers, elementary music teachers.

Cheryl: 00:23:22

You're the only music person in the building.

Cheryl: 00:23:25

You have all the kids that you teach.

Cheryl: 00:23:29

If you're coming from a small school, you have 400, 500 kids or something.

Cheryl: 00:23:33

You're the one that teaches all of them.

Cheryl: 00:23:35

You have no one to talk to.

Cheryl: 00:23:37

You're a little island out there all by yourself, so who do you go to to say,

Cheryl: 00:23:42

"Hey, what do you think about this?

Cheryl: 00:23:43

You think this would be a good idea?

Cheryl: 00:23:44

Think the kindergartners could do that?

Cheryl: 00:23:46

You think second graders could do that?"

Cheryl: 00:23:48

You have no one to talk to, but if you have my book, you at least have

Cheryl: 00:23:52

someone to listen to you, or if you work with me on a coaching 101, I

Cheryl: 00:23:57

mean, I could talk it through with you.

Cheryl: 00:23:59

I have a client that is working in a private school in California, and

Cheryl: 00:24:04

as she's bouncing ideas off of me, "Well, how do I do my long range plans?

Cheryl: 00:24:08

Well, how do I put together a musical?

Cheryl: 00:24:11

Well, how do I deal with these crazy kids?

Cheryl: 00:24:13

What do you do at the beginning of the year?

Cheryl: 00:24:16

How do you create...", they're always talking about, nowadays, about

Cheryl: 00:24:19

community, creating community when creating relationships with the kids.

Cheryl: 00:24:23

When you have 700 kids, it's hard.

Cheryl: 00:24:26

You can't get to know them all.

Cheryl: 00:24:28

You only see them once a week, maybe twice a week if you're lucky, and

Cheryl: 00:24:32

you get a little snapshot of their personalities and who they are.

Cheryl: 00:24:35

You know, you might find out what they're good at, what they like the most.

Cheryl: 00:24:40

Well that kid loves drums, so I'm going to give him one whenever he wants one,

Cheryl: 00:24:44

but that one loves to sing and dance, so I'm going to give them the rhythm

Cheryl: 00:24:47

sticks and they can go to town, you know?

Joshua: 00:24:50

Yeah, and it's about learning how those kids kind of adopt to those sort

Joshua: 00:24:55

of opportunities as well, and Cheryl, I want to lead into this, especially as

Joshua: 00:25:01

we get closer to the end of our time.

Joshua: 00:25:02

I really am curious more about this sort of subject that I've been thinking

Joshua: 00:25:06

about because you've been really expressing to me a lot of passion

Joshua: 00:25:10

about this, and we definitely need people that have passion, especially

Joshua: 00:25:14

when it comes to teaching nowadays.

Joshua: 00:25:17

I think that we have lost a little sight of that because of all the

Joshua: 00:25:21

different things we could get into that.

Joshua: 00:25:22

That could be an hours long episode, which I certainly do not want to

Joshua: 00:25:26

go down those waters in itself.

Joshua: 00:25:29

Let's say that you have someone; as you mentioned, you teach other people,

Joshua: 00:25:33

you help to coach them, and they can certainly reach out to you, which

Joshua: 00:25:36

I'll give you that moment at the end to talk about how they can do that.

Joshua: 00:25:40

What would you say to someone that is under your wing to kind of help them

Joshua: 00:25:45

if they're feeling distraught, they're feeling kind of remorseful about the fact

Joshua: 00:25:50

that, "Man, I don't have this knowledge.

Joshua: 00:25:52

I wish I would've learned this in school."

Joshua: 00:25:54

What would you say is maybe your best piece of advice, and I'm just looking for

Joshua: 00:25:58

one piece of advice, that you would give to someone that's kind of feeling that

Joshua: 00:26:01

way and they're starting out with you?

Joshua: 00:26:04

How would you best help them guide so that they don't feel as overwhelmed with

Joshua: 00:26:09

that, because it can be overwhelming, like you said, you just literally

Joshua: 00:26:12

mentioned about having three, 400 kids in the school because they're all alone.

Joshua: 00:26:16

How would you tell them to overcome that situation?

Cheryl: 00:26:20

Number one, I would say connect with other people that do what you do.

Cheryl: 00:26:24

It doesn't matter if it's not at your school, and find somebody at a

Cheryl: 00:26:27

different school; in your district.

Cheryl: 00:26:30

Find someone, even if it's your teachers from college, if you're a young teacher

Cheryl: 00:26:35

coming out, find someone to talk to; somebody that was in your class

Cheryl: 00:26:38

that has now just started teaching.

Cheryl: 00:26:40

You need to have that community, and I know that NAFME, the National

Cheryl: 00:26:45

Association For Music Education, they are planning to add in some of

Cheryl: 00:26:50

those professional communities so that we can get that conversation.

Cheryl: 00:26:54

I worked on the document to help update and fill out things.

Cheryl: 00:26:59

Some goals for music education professional development that's coming

Cheryl: 00:27:03

up, and they're starting to talk about that with their new document

Cheryl: 00:27:07

that they've published, so you need to have somebody, a sounding board,

Cheryl: 00:27:12

and then take care of yourself.

Cheryl: 00:27:14

Take care of yourself, because teaching, period, it's stressful on your voice.

Cheryl: 00:27:20

It's stressful on your emotions.

Cheryl: 00:27:23

You're not doing a nine to five job.

Cheryl: 00:27:26

You could just be gone that day and nothing would happen.

Cheryl: 00:27:29

You have to lead plans.

Cheryl: 00:27:31

You have people that are depending on you.

Cheryl: 00:27:33

If you're not there at the school that day because you're sick, you're

Cheryl: 00:27:37

tired, you need a mental health day, nothing gets done, and the substitutes,

Cheryl: 00:27:42

they do their best, but they're not you, and if you are not mentally and

Cheryl: 00:27:49

physically healthy, you can't be that for them, so take care of yourself and

Cheryl: 00:27:55

find somebody else to help you out.

Cheryl: 00:27:57

Find a mentor.

Joshua: 00:28:00

We didn't even get into the fact that you and I are Toastmasters in itself,

Joshua: 00:28:04

and I literally just now heard all that and the flashing across my brain of,

Joshua: 00:28:10

" This is why we have groups like that."

Joshua: 00:28:12

Yeah, completely different nature, but the same premise even in music teaching or

Joshua: 00:28:18

any sort of subject matter, core subject matter, teaching can be so important to

Joshua: 00:28:24

have that community base, and I think that's why I resonate with everything you

Joshua: 00:28:29

say here because of wanting to connect, wanting to be with like-minded people,

Joshua: 00:28:33

finding that time to take care of myself because as you know, Cheryl and my

Joshua: 00:28:37

audience even knows too, it was a period of time in my life I literally did not do

Joshua: 00:28:41

that, and that has helped me so much to kind of recharge and realize that there's

Joshua: 00:28:46

a little bit of breathing room for all of us, even for those that don't necessarily

Joshua: 00:28:51

work that quote unquote nine to five.

Cheryl: 00:28:53

Yeah.

Joshua: 00:28:53

But Cheryl, I thank you for sharing that.

Joshua: 00:28:56

At this point, I want to give you the last few minutes here to talk about

Joshua: 00:29:00

your business, which again, for the audience, it's Noteworthy Publishing, LLC.

Joshua: 00:29:04

Can you tell us how we could reach out to you if we are

Joshua: 00:29:07

interested in being coached by you?

Joshua: 00:29:09

What other services would you provide to someone that is in the music

Joshua: 00:29:13

field, or maybe even non-music field, if you're willing to do something

Joshua: 00:29:16

like that, maybe off the side, how can we get in contact with you?

Joshua: 00:29:19

How can we reach your website?

Joshua: 00:29:21

Tell us all those things here to wrap us up, but I'm going to

Joshua: 00:29:23

give you the last few minutes.

Cheryl: 00:29:25

All right.

Cheryl: 00:29:26

Well, I have a website.

Cheryl: 00:29:28

It's, lessonsfromthemusicroom.com and on that website there's contact information

Cheryl: 00:29:35

where you can go in and check on, and I'm still building that somewhat, so

Cheryl: 00:29:40

it's a relatively new redo of that website, so there will be a chance to

Cheryl: 00:29:45

say, you can contact me right now and say, "Hey, I'd like to work with you."

Cheryl: 00:29:49

You can do that, and we'll schedule sometime.

Cheryl: 00:29:52

We'll have a little freebie meeting and then see what you need to have happen.

Cheryl: 00:29:56

I would be willing to come and do a keynote for any school district

Cheryl: 00:30:01

that they needed it to see how music connects with classroom teachers.

Cheryl: 00:30:06

That could be something that could be as a beginning of the year school thing is

Cheryl: 00:30:10

saying, getting all those combinations.

Cheryl: 00:30:12

Of course the book is available.

Cheryl: 00:30:14

It's also not only available on my website, you can buy it there, and

Cheryl: 00:30:18

if you get it from me, then I'll sign it for you, but you can also get it

Cheryl: 00:30:23

from West Music or you can find it on amazon.com, and there's also a

Cheryl: 00:30:28

Kindle book, so the Kindle on Amazon is like, $9.99; something like that.

Cheryl: 00:30:34

Then you can buy it for pretty cheap on all those different places, so

Cheryl: 00:30:37

just shop around to find the right one, but if you buy it from my

Cheryl: 00:30:40

website, I have it and I'll sign it.

Cheryl: 00:30:44

Yeah.

Joshua: 00:30:46

Well, with all that said, I think that you definitely have a lot that

Joshua: 00:30:52

you offer, Cheryl, to the music world.

Joshua: 00:30:54

I feel like you have definitely made an impact, not only in just the kids, but

Joshua: 00:31:00

even the adult practitioners of music, and I think that it's so important to be

Joshua: 00:31:04

effective in being able to do that, and I'm glad that you're willing to share

Joshua: 00:31:08

those gifts, not only from a domestic perspective, but the international aspect

Joshua: 00:31:14

from what you have learned overseas for the times that you have been over there,

Joshua: 00:31:18

and I think that, to really sum this up, I think that music is so important.

Joshua: 00:31:24

I had a gentleman on the show not all that long ago where we talked about

Joshua: 00:31:29

how music can kind of lead into the different types of things in our lives

Joshua: 00:31:34

that help us to strum along to not just the things that we do, and actually I

Joshua: 00:31:40

have to correct myself, it was a guy that was from a film industry, which films

Joshua: 00:31:44

essentially helped to dictate a lot of that, so it wasn't just about music,

Joshua: 00:31:48

which can be a compendium to the film industry, mind you, but how that can

Joshua: 00:31:52

just define a whole generation in itself with how we learn important lessons, but

Joshua: 00:31:57

Cheryl, with all that said, thank you for being on Speaking From the Heart.

Joshua: 00:32:00

I've really enjoyed our conversation today, and I really appreciate you

Joshua: 00:32:04

providing this perspective, not just to me, but for my audience as well.

Cheryl: 00:32:08

It's been my pleasure.

Cheryl: 00:32:09

Thanks.

Cheryl: 00:32:10

I'm glad that we finally got to do this.

Joshua: 00:32:12

Me too.

Joshua: 00:32:14

Thank you.

Joshua: 00:32:15

I want to thank Cheryl again for being part of the show, and I really

Joshua: 00:32:19

enjoyed her conversation with me about the importance of music, and

Joshua: 00:32:24

just as a reminder, if you ever want to check out her website, go do that.

Joshua: 00:32:28

It will allow you to have an opportunity to book with her and knowing her for a

Joshua: 00:32:32

few years as a result of Toastmasters, which again, if you are interested in

Joshua: 00:32:37

checking out a local Toastmasters club, although we didn't talk about it in this

Joshua: 00:32:40

episode specifically, I'll put a link in the episode notes as well, as it relates

Joshua: 00:32:45

to checking out one close to you to start working on your communication and

Joshua: 00:32:49

leadership skills because, even in the new year that we started, it's always a

Joshua: 00:32:53

great opportunity to check out like-minded individuals that will help you get to that

Joshua: 00:32:58

next level, but I think that's really what this is about; this whole conversation:

Joshua: 00:33:04

getting to the next level, being able to sing your heart out and don't worry,

Joshua: 00:33:09

I won't sing for you on this episode.

Joshua: 00:33:11

I'll let someone else do that for you down the road that's more qualified than me,

Joshua: 00:33:17

but I think that we learned so much about understanding that maybe we want to do

Joshua: 00:33:23

something that we necessarily wanted to do for a long time, but maybe doing something

Joshua: 00:33:29

that will help us to get to that end goal, which is really, at the end of the day,

Joshua: 00:33:34

learning how to do a specific trade to be able to do something specific, but I think

Joshua: 00:33:40

Cheryl brought up a good point during this episode that I cannot resist talking

Joshua: 00:33:46

about now, and it's about the fact that we do see music, especially in the United

Joshua: 00:33:51

States, as a curriculum falling away.

Joshua: 00:33:55

I think that she summed it up nicely when she talked about the fact that there is

Joshua: 00:33:59

more of a professional sense of wanting to be a singer of some sort, and not

Joshua: 00:34:04

really thinking about what the history of music is; the academic sense of it, and I

Joshua: 00:34:10

think that we know that there's different specific courses that we could take if

Joshua: 00:34:14

we really are interested in those sort of things, but it seems that we're catering

Joshua: 00:34:19

more towards being that next super rock star or being that next lead drum player,

Joshua: 00:34:25

or being guitar player, or whatever instrument you think there is that you

Joshua: 00:34:29

can do a really good job with, but I don't think that we really are understanding,

Joshua: 00:34:35

and we're missing the mark, quite clearly, on what we could do to help us to survive

Joshua: 00:34:42

in this important educational moment.

Joshua: 00:34:47

I think this begs the question itself, can we be an outlier and being able to peak at

Joshua: 00:34:54

our highest peak into other areas as well?

Joshua: 00:34:59

I think that for many of us, we always dream of being that next sort of musician.

Joshua: 00:35:05

Having that ability to teach in ways in which we can influence a generation, not

Joshua: 00:35:10

only because of the TikTok, Facebook, LinkedIn, or Twitter, now known as X,

Joshua: 00:35:16

sort of propositions, if you will, and getting those sort of inquiries, that

Joshua: 00:35:22

following, because of each new song that we release, but I think that we need

Joshua: 00:35:28

to understand that to have all those things, we have to be well-rounded.

Joshua: 00:35:33

We need to be able to have a little bit an understanding of everything

Joshua: 00:35:37

so that we can make a maximum impact.

Joshua: 00:35:40

I think that we often forget about having empathy with the different cultures that

Joshua: 00:35:46

are surrounding us, that have provided us with these tools; these abilities.

Joshua: 00:35:53

How did you learn how to eat growing up?

Joshua: 00:35:56

Did you read it from a book, or did your mom and dad show you how to

Joshua: 00:36:00

eat with a fork, spoon and knife?

Joshua: 00:36:05

How did you learn how to play kickball?

Joshua: 00:36:07

Did you watch all the other kids play, or did you read it in a book, or did you just

Joshua: 00:36:13

try it and see what would happen without a user manual, or a frame of reference?

Joshua: 00:36:20

Do you see what I'm getting at?

Joshua: 00:36:23

We all learn in different ways, and I think that even Cheryl understood

Joshua: 00:36:27

that with writing the book and making sure that the next generation of music

Joshua: 00:36:33

teachers are prepared to be able to lead their classrooms because she had

Joshua: 00:36:38

to figure it out along the way too.

Joshua: 00:36:42

"How can we help you to be the best?", should always be the question that is

Joshua: 00:36:47

in the back of our minds, especially if we're trying to get to that next level,

Joshua: 00:36:53

but what we can intentionally do in order to do that, to create that content, to

Joshua: 00:36:59

set that foundation, or even to create aptitude and have safety, security,

Joshua: 00:37:06

means that we need to be able to mentor those that are coming down the path.

Joshua: 00:37:12

What we didn't talk about in this episode is the fact that we have groups like

Joshua: 00:37:16

Toastmasters that do that, and if we had more time, I know Cheryl would've

Joshua: 00:37:20

certainly divulged into that and how Toastmasters have helped her to create

Joshua: 00:37:25

that best version of her music, especially what she plays in the classroom and what

Joshua: 00:37:32

she shows others for that matter, but I think we always need to think about

Joshua: 00:37:37

someone, something, especially if we feel all alone, in order to create some

Joshua: 00:37:43

of those meaningful experiences and those movements of musical instruments

Joshua: 00:37:48

and notes in our lives, but sometimes we're not always ready to face the music.

Joshua: 00:37:57

I know.

Joshua: 00:37:58

Here we are again; faced with another subject in which I could play a sob

Joshua: 00:38:03

story about my life, which is approaching almost four years to that fateful day

Joshua: 00:38:08

that I decided that I didn't want to have anything to do with this world, and

Joshua: 00:38:13

I know that if I would've just reached out to someone and I would've had that

Joshua: 00:38:17

right support system, everything would've been completely different, but I decided

Joshua: 00:38:24

that I had to reach out for help.

Joshua: 00:38:27

I have recounted that so many times, folks, in these episodes, and if you're

Joshua: 00:38:32

new to the podcast, I recommend for you to at least go back and listen to

Joshua: 00:38:36

episode one in which I talk about why this podcast even exists in the first

Joshua: 00:38:41

place; why I decided to play my own musical instrument to have a voice in

Joshua: 00:38:47

this big world, not just because of Your Speaking Voice LLC, the business that's

Joshua: 00:38:53

tied to this podcast, but because of the things that I know deep inside of each

Joshua: 00:38:59

and every one of you that I have never met before possibly, that are able to do

Joshua: 00:39:05

the things to sing from your music sheet.

Joshua: 00:39:10

We could have stayed in our own lane.

Joshua: 00:39:13

In Cheryl's case, she could have stayed and been an actress;

Joshua: 00:39:16

been involved with theater.

Joshua: 00:39:19

She could have just stuck with that, but she decided to

Joshua: 00:39:21

go into the course of music.

Joshua: 00:39:24

Maybe being that outlier, being able to create some of that opportunity in

Joshua: 00:39:29

her life, allowed her to also expand.

Joshua: 00:39:34

Maybe to see a different culture, to see a whole other different perspective

Joshua: 00:39:38

for that matter, that would've changed her life fundamentally, but the truth

Joshua: 00:39:43

is, that's exactly what she did.

Joshua: 00:39:46

She did travel that world.

Joshua: 00:39:48

She did travel to Chile, she did travel to Great Britain.

Joshua: 00:39:52

She was able to teach in different ways as a result of having that experience.

Joshua: 00:40:00

She didn't have that "how to guide" that she has now published and she's

Joshua: 00:40:04

able to share and able to coach others.

Joshua: 00:40:07

She figured it out, but it doesn't mean that each and every one of us has

Joshua: 00:40:11

to just quote unquote figure it out.

Joshua: 00:40:15

Time and time again, I have seen people come through my business thinking

Joshua: 00:40:18

that they know that they're ready for this, that they know that they

Joshua: 00:40:22

need that help, but instead they turn their back and walk away, and that

Joshua: 00:40:28

isn't because of the reflection of me.

Joshua: 00:40:31

I often hear that they are not ready for it, and they just wanted to hear and

Joshua: 00:40:36

see what this would be all about, but when we're all alone and we want to have

Joshua: 00:40:43

some of those opportunities to create safety and security and all those other

Joshua: 00:40:47

positives in our lives, in order to flush them out, we need, more than ever before,

Joshua: 00:40:54

to have somebody that can stand by our side so that we're not all alone Cheryl's

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leading that charge and being able to provide that community with like-minded

Joshua: 00:41:06

people, and for the first time, thinking of music teachers, math teachers, all

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those underserved people that are so important to the development of our kids

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and our future, and even us as adults.

Joshua: 00:41:20

We need to give them love and that's exactly why I think we need to understand

Joshua: 00:41:27

a lot more about how we can create that community in our own lives.

Joshua: 00:41:32

It doesn't have to be about music, nor does it have to be about math.

Joshua: 00:41:37

I'm sure that many of us are loathing the fact that we're thinking about

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physics lessons from way back in high school and why those never made sense,

Joshua: 00:41:46

but yet, if I understood just a little bit more, maybe I could have been able

Joshua: 00:41:51

to save myself from that accident that I had last week, which I'm just kidding.

Joshua: 00:41:55

I didn't; but I know this.

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I know that for many of us, we have to understand by taking care of ourselves,

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by being willing to share ourselves in an open community and to be willing to create

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that music, no matter where it is that we are in our lives, we can be able to have

Joshua: 00:42:18

not just the specialty courses at hand, but we can be ready to teach in general.

Joshua: 00:42:26

We are the generation that can change all of those things, and it doesn't

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matter how old you are right now.

Joshua: 00:42:32

If you are 80 plus years old, listening to my podcast, just know that you

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still have a chance to share your voice in this ever-changing world because

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we have that opportunity to do that.

Joshua: 00:42:47

All of us do, because we create the cultures that we surround ourselves with.

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I think that we all have that meaningful musical instrument, so I'm

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just waiting for you now to help join the band together, because together,

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we can make some wonderful music, and I can't wait to be playing with

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you because all of us bring a unique voice and talent to the band stage.

Joshua: 00:43:15

Thanks for listening to episode number 78 of Speaking From The

Joshua: 00:43:18

Heart, and I look forward to hearing from your heart very soon.

Outro: 00:43:23

Thanks for listening.

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For more information about our podcast and future shows, search for Speaking From

Outro: 00:43:28

The Heart to subscribe and be notified wherever you listen to your podcasts.

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services that can help you create the best version of yourself.