My name is Jacob Bartfield, and music has been a big part of
my life for as long as I can remember.
It started when I was about three of four. Although it would be a couple years before I started to
learn how to play an instrument for real, I had a blue plastic toy guitar and a
yellow plastic toy microphone that I would use to pretend I was Paul
Simon. One of my earliest memories
was “playing” guitar while watching a tape of Simon and Garfunkel’s 1981 Concert
in Central Park.
I
went through my childhood never seriously considering the future, but when I
was in tenth grade I was suddenly introduced to a whole new type of
pressure. Where did I want to go
to college, and what did I want my career to be? It took me a surprisingly small amount of time to figure it
out. As soon as I considered my
options, it was obvious to me that I wanted to go to music school and be a
musician. I went to Berklee,
graduated as a bass performance major, and I have been playing bass
professionally ever since.
To
be honest, teaching music wasn’t something I had really considered till very
recently. I’ve taught some bass
lessons. I had a regular student
in Boston for a while and a regular student in LA for a while. In between these I’ve taught some
people that didn’t stick with it beyond the first one or two lessons. I also started teaching my first cello
student a few months ago. In the
past couple weeks I’ve been helping the strings teacher in the school where I’m
interning teach a little bit.
Yesterday I had my second day as a substitute teacher, and for a few
minutes I had to teach an introductory lesson in division to third
graders. These few lessons have
been the extent of my teaching experience up until now.
I’m
saying this because early in my graduate educational schooling, I’m noticing
some level of reluctance and insecurity in the few things I’ve written so
far. I hear or read other people
in class uses phrases like “as teachers we should…” where as I would say “when
I become a teacher I would....”. I’m
just trying to be honest with myself and use language I feel comfortable
with. I hope to become a teacher,
but I can’t consider myself one just yet.
Despite my lack of experience, I think I can be a good teacher because I’ll be teaching about something that I love. In the future, if I’m honest with my students by letting them really see my excitement for music, then hopefully they will become excited too. I also think I can be a good teacher by just making sure I come across as the person that my friends and family know. I think being likeable will go a long way.
Here's my website:
Despite my lack of experience, I think I can be a good teacher because I’ll be teaching about something that I love. In the future, if I’m honest with my students by letting them really see my excitement for music, then hopefully they will become excited too. I also think I can be a good teacher by just making sure I come across as the person that my friends and family know. I think being likeable will go a long way.
Here's my website:
