My Dream Job

done Some of us come in to San Diego State University knowing exactly  what it is that we want to do when we graduate and some of us have no clue. That is perfectly fine. As for me, I knew long before I got here.

  When I graduate from this university my ultimate goal is to become a classroom music teacher at the high school level. I plan on returning ASAP to earn my masters degree and further my education, but that is still my end goal, to become a high school choir director.

I want to be a music teacher because I can’t see myself doing anything else and it honestly feels like my way of completing the circle of life. Also, my high school music classroom kept me out of a lot of trouble and became a safe place for me during a rough part of my life. I would love to be able to pay that forward.

In order to become a high school music teacher there are a couple different routes you can take. Music Education is in the field of Education Both require an education and a teaching credential which is essentially a year of unpaid student teaching. You could earn any bachelor’s degree, take and pass CSET in Music and earn your credential. Or you could earn a bachelor’s of music degree in music education here at SDSU which waves the CSET requirement and then earn your California teaching credential. I am going the second route.

When I finally become get my dream job as a high school choir director, I will have more responsibilities than simply fostering and nurturing growth and musicianship of the individuals in my class. Tony Mazzocchi says that great teachers connect to their students on an emotional level and that requires more than being a good musician. I will also be responsible for logistics and planning and for programming music for and executing a concert that both challenges and shows off my students capabilities while taking them on educational and cultural journey.  

A teacher works with other faculty and staff to create a positive learning environment for students. The average salary is $60,000 year. Starting salary in california is around $40,000 and pay increases with a masters degree. My dream school would be Turlock High School, where i attended school.a

You don’t make much money as a teacher, but if you’re in it for the money you won’t get far anyway. Teaching is something that takes big heart and passion. A good teacher is in it for the children

Discourse or discourse? It matters in this course.

I have always considered myself a very adaptable, but genuine person. I moved around a lot as a kid due to family and though I was born and raised until 12 in the Bay Area, I really feel that I grew up and and from Turlock, California. No one eve knows where that is. With the information that I gained this week I suppose that because of this I have been exposed to a wide variety of Discourses and this contributes to my adaptability.

Gee’s Discourse with a capital D goes beyond written and spoken communications and encompasses who a person is. It refers to a group of people and takes into thought their shared personal beliefs or ideas in regards to various things. You can be in a Discourse or out of it and although there is no middle line, you can open the gate to entering a discourse by mushfaking. 

I’m going to be completely honest. In my life I have been many Discourses  where I don’t actually know what is going on.. way too many to count. On the other hand I have also learned that there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. It is how we respond in these situations that determine whether or not we survive in said discourse and if or how we adapt. 

This is a swim or sink world that we live in. If you do not know how to swim then, I suggest you doggie paddle. I relate mushfaking to doggie paddling. Say maybe I’ve gotten myself into another one of these conversations again. The waters are treacherous and all else fails. Mushfaking becomes a necessary skill for survival. 

As you may know, I study Spanish as a secondary major. As a requirement for this major the student must study abroad in a Spanish speaking country and achieve a certain amount of units. I had the wonderful experience of studying at the Guadalajara campus of Instituto Technologic de Estudios Superiores Monterrey. I took two classes there and on top of improving my  language skills, I really learned alot. 

My first class was class on movies, literature and culture. It was a pretty simple course and I had no problems earning 100% in that class. My other course was an upper division ethics class that focused on the profession and citizenship. It was also the second semester in a sequence of three. This course really made me work for that B+. 

This class, beyond being in a different language, came with a Discourse completely foreign to me. Being that is was the second semester of the sequence there were many terms that were unfamiliar to me. Also, although the class focused on what it means to do your part as a citizen which has some universal concepts, in their country, as expected, many things are different.  

In the beginning of the semester I was really nervous and even concerned about my grade and I even spoke to my teacher and counselor about dropping the class, but I couldn’t be cause the date had passed. I found myself in another Discourse where I didn’t know what was going on and with my planned graduation date of Spring 2020 it was sink or swim. It was time to start mushfaking. I began to pay close to what I heard and the values expressed by my teachers and classmates and replicate them. I must have done a decent job because I passed the class.