Make It Monday: Not Much to Report, but Some New Things Happening

I didn't actually make anything this weekend of note other than some Canva visuals. The rest of my weekend was spent watching K-dramas and thinking. I got an old course reapproved so I am working on marketing materials for that but there isn't much else happening right now.

I have decided to start up my intern webinars again. These were things that I did quite a bit ago, and I found them interesting and fun. I am hoping that the next round will be valuable to me and to the interns who take the time to spend with me. I asked current IDs for some topics, and they echoed the things that I had observed with my last several interns. 

We, as a society, have gone through a significant change in how we learn, act, and observe. Attention spans have shortened. Initiative is not what it was 10 years ago. The way we educate ourselves and others has changed and evolved into something that is not focused on problem solving and is more focused on following protocols and procedures. Critical thinking is going away, and we seem to search for quicker answers. We just want to be told how to think and what to do rather than figuring it out.

I have read enough science fiction and dystopian stories to think that this is not a good way for us to move forward. The rise of the robots and generative thinking is not something to be celebrated, but it is to be feared. I may see this through doom-colored glasses, but I think that something is going to happen very soon that will make it more difficult to survive as a free thinker. I don't know what it will be, but something is coming.

Well, this is taking a dark turn, isn't it?

Sorry.

There is a new set of professional competencies from the American Music Therapy Association. I have not spent much time with the competencies yet, but I will be looking them over before the first intern webinar. I want to update my competency-based evaluation (even though I am not actively using it right now) to reflect the new competencies. This means sitting down with the old version as well as the new version, thinking about what each of the competencies mean in actual clinical work, and then designing projects and skill practice experiences. This is work that excites me!

I am not currently an internship director. I am not currently a music therapy clinician. I am a music therapy content creator and continuing educator. I am a composer, an author, a paper crafter, an artist, and so many other things as well. I think I can continue to contribute to the world of music therapy through my competency-based focus and through talking to music therapists from students through to professionals about the things that are most important to me - the clinical aspects of our profession.

I do not know what my future holds, so I am going to continue to think about how to coach music therapy interns into the profession. This means getting back into the competencies and thinking about how to teach our new generations of students how to do our jobs. I will design some projects just for fun. Projects are good for me and for my brain - especially when they are part of my passions as well.

So, this Monday morning is going to be spent reviewing old webinar materials to see if I can get them updated. I am also going to spend some time looking over my internship handbook and refresh those chapters as well. It is time to restart that project while still doing the other things that I have going. Oh! So many things to think about and work through!! Joy!

If only those projects brought in some money. Oh well, time to figure out how to make money and still do the things that I want to do...

Happy Monday! 

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