Developing your career: Keeping up to date
The music leadership and wider music education or learning worlds never stand still. Everyone needs to take some time at regular intervals to consider what new skills, knowledge and experience they require, and what aspects of current abilities require revisiting and updating.
There are several ways of assessing what your current and future training or professional development needs might be. Sometimes it will be obvious in your daily work as new challenges present themselves. Always have an open mind about such challenges, and the changes that might be required to meet them, and to benefit from them, in a positive way. The most effective answer is invariably to update your skills or to acquire new ones:
Networking
Networking with colleagues and at conferences and seminars can also tell you
what is happening elsewhere, what professional development opportunities are coming
on stream, and what might suit your future needs. Keeping in touch with trends
and developments in both the formal and non-formal music education and training
sectors is vital – whichever sector you work in now – especially with the increasing
collaboration between the two.
Reflective practice & mentoring
Two invaluable ways of maintaining a momentum of acquiring and refining skills
are through reflective practice and being mentored. Being a mentor yourself to
younger or less experienced music leaders or musicians can also highlight what
skills you need to update for yourself.
What is reflective practice?
The importance of reflecting on what you are doing, as part of a continuous learning
process, is now an established part of professional practice. Donald Schön argued
that the model of professional training called ‘technical rationality’ – of charging
students up with knowledge in training so they could discharge when they entered
the world of practice (a ‘battery’ model) – does not describe well how professionals
think in action, and does not suit practice in a fast-changing world.
Cultivating the capacity to reflect in action (while doing something) and on action (after you have done it) is a key feature of professional training programmes in many disciplines, and an important aspect of the role of mentoring newly qualified professionals. Reflective practice often needs another person as mentor or professional supervisor, who can ask appropriate questions to ensure that the reflection is a positive experience.
For more information, go to:
http://www.learningandteaching.info/learning/reflecti.htm
Books by Donald Schön include:
- The Reflective Practitioner: how professionals think in action (Temple Smith, 1983)
- Educating the Reflective Practitioner (Jossey-Bass, 1987)
Keeping up to date: Some more ideas
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Be familiar with what current technologies are being used by your target audience.
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Stay up to date with the latest music trends.
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Read magazines/websites and subscribe to newsletters
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Join work-based forums
