Modern Mentoring: Ancient Lessons for Today

y firl: ys an honest-to-goodness music teacher. After five long, hard years spent in practice rooms, e ti::Ti and classrooms, I walked into a junior high school music room with my own name on the 0 coo: ste ltith, it said. I was finally a bona fide, certified-and maybe just a little bit petrified-music ea:e?'-ut wa s excited and eager to give it my best shot. Prepared with techniques for improving the tone ef ! ss rs (long tones are the solution); vocal warm-up routines guaranteed to result in well-supportec, vibrant singing voices (diaphragmatic-intercostal breathing-that's the key); and a whole methods notebook chock full of developmentally appropriate behavioral outcomes, I stepped across the threshold to begin my first and very own rehearsals-and my first and very own lessons in what it really means to be a music teacher.