Yesterday's Development - Professional Development, That Is

I took a day off from work yesterday to catch up on some professional development that I have neglected lately. I spent most of the day waiting for the link to the sessions that I wanted - one of the things that happens when you do your development on a day when the other registrant in your party works in a different time zone - but I did get to see some of the sessions that I have highlighted. I have more to watch today, and I am looking forward to it.

The best session from yesterday's viewing was a discussion from Jennifer Gonzalez, the editor of the blog Cult of Pedagogy. This is one of the blogs that I have followed in the past - I don't much at the moment because I do not like how the blog is arranged - just me being picky - but the information shared is always thought provoking for me. The presentation from yesterday was exactly what has been floating around in the back of my mind for the last 13 months - 

How will we take the lessons that we have learned about what we have been forced to do and change what we do from now on?

Have you thought about this? I have. I have thought and thought and thought about this topic since we started our version of the pandemic response. I am going to think about this next Monday at our Monthly Music Therapy Meet because I think we need to be talking about this very topic. It is important to be thinking about what has gone well during all of this. What do we know that we can do now that was previously unheard of for us?

I am writing stories about this topic. How will music therapy evolve now that we have gone through a life-changing event? How will music therapy grow? How will music therapy revert? Will we be able to adapt? (Spoiler - I think many of us have shown that we can adapt to doing therapy in an unimagined manner because we had to!) Will this decrease the number of therapists that we have in our country? Will music therapists leave the profession or expand the profession? So many questions. I am looking forward to talking to others about this topic.

I enjoy it when someone and something stirs my brain into thinking about "what-if" scenarios. I am channeling that energy right now into thinking and writing and making a powerpoint to go along with the discussion I want to stir up. There are so many things to talk and think about, and I hope that my core group of folks will participate!

Time to get information out to folks who sign up for our Monthly Music Therapy Meet! So many steps to take, but talking to other music therapists make things so very worth it! So much professional development, so little time!!

 Hope to see you on Monday for our Meet! 

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