What are your plans, and how has CSU prepared you to be a teacher?

Kristen Falls, MME, ‘23

Through my program at CSU, I have worked on my teaching practice. Through experiences working with undergraduates and diving deeper into relevant music education topics, I have been able to reflect on what I want my teaching to look like in my classroom. I have also improved my leadership skills by working with other local teachers and helping lead programs like the Middle School Outreach Ensembles. Next year, I will teach middle school choir and general music at Quist Middle School in Thorton, Colorado, and I am very excited to get back into the classroom and put my new learning into practice!

Sam Gray, MME ‘23

This transition is tough. Colorado State University’s music education program is top-notch, and I am melancholic about leaving and starting new adventures next semester at the University of Maryland. As a graduate student, I have learned an incredible amount in two short years. Committing myself to a thesis project, helping make the Middle School Outreach Ensembles (MSOE) happen, and just taking the course load over the past two years is an accomplishment! However, I am also sad to miss out on the incredible opportunity the CSU music education program provides and the great new developments along the way. I am deeply grateful to Dr. Jacobi, Dr. Pendergast, and Dr. Payant for their support, personally and professionally. Lastly, I am forever grateful to Dr. Johnson for his unwavering support in my academic career, personal and professional disposition. Nobody could ask for a better advisor, mentor, or friend.

I will leave with this poem by Mary Oliver, which is continually in my mind:

Such Silence

As deep as I ever went into the forest
I came upon an old stone bench, very, very old,
and around it a clearing, and beyond that
trees taller and older than I had ever seen.

Such silence!
It really wasn’t so far from a town, but it seemed
all the clocks in the world had stopped counting.
So it was hard to suppose the usual rules applied.

Sometimes there’s only a hint, a possibility.
What’s magical, sometimes, has deeper roots than reason.
I hope everyone knows that.

I sat on the bench, waiting for something.
An angel, perhaps. Or dancers with the legs of goats.
No, I didn’t see either. But only, I think, because
I didn’t stay long enough.