Long ago I thought that teaching music would be what I would like as a profession. I got a B. Music Education and did enjoy teaching as an elementary music consultant on the island of Guam. That meant I gave master lessons to elementary teachers so that they could continue to have music during the school day. I traveled all over the island to different elementary schools - the ocean view never far out of sight. However, in my pre-graduate years, I had also prepared to teach in the...
Long ago I thought that teaching music would be what I would like as a profession. I got a B. Music Education and did enjoy teaching as an elementary music consultant on the island of Guam. That meant I gave master lessons to elementary teachers so that they could continue to have music during the school day. I traveled all over the island to different elementary schools - the ocean view never far out of sight. However, in my pre-graduate years, I had also prepared to teach in the elementary school population and so spent several years on Guam teaching third grade/fifth grade and junior high school English. One year I taught Trust Territory students what came to Guam for their high school years. That is where my interest began in the field of helping speakers of a different first language to understand, speak, and write English.
Once I returned to the U.S., I got a job teaching special education students.....yes, I have a special education credential as well...in San Antonio, TX. I wanted to return to California and so I did. I taught a first grade class where no one spoke English except one student. These children were migrant worker children, and I taught them to read using their favorite songs to sing. My music education had come in handy. Starting in 1974, I taught incarcerated youth, all ages, and began writing my own curriculum as most of the students were turned off by "book larning" Although we had a classroom, most of the students needed individual attention, so when I decided to get out of the jail environment, I started working as an independent study teacher, seeing students by appointment at Butte County Superintendent of Schools site. I did independent study, every subject, every grade, until I retired for the first time in 1996.
After being retired for a few years, I found I missed teaching and went back to work as an instructional aide at an elementary school in Oroville, CA. There was a great need for my creative abilities in providing instruction for kindergarten children w
