The Band Directors Book of Secrets by Charles R. Jackson

The Band Directors Book of Secrets serves to provide guidance for the music educator searching for strategies useful in organizing and administering a successful music program in a public or private school setting with emphasis on placing student needs as the top priority. Questions such as * Now that I am awarded the job, what do I do first? * How do I get started? These are not uncommon questions asked by many music educators immediately following the appointment to a new teaching position. This book is less about the actual research but more of a practical handbook on how to plan and proceed through an academic year while putting the results of research into practical daily use. Ideas are shared to stimulate creative thinking, leading to the development of a uniquely personal approach for each music educator. Topics and ideas expressed in this book are often neglected and/or difficult to find by the inquiring music educator searching for a practical approach needed to structure the academic year. Templates are provided for communications that might occur during the course of an academic year. By simply using the find/replace function common to word processing programs, the templates can be quickly edited by inserting the appropriate school name and directors name. Having the templates as a point of departure will help stimulate ideas for additional editing, resulting in a document specific to the readers personal teaching situation. Additionally, the templates are useful in stimulating ideas for creating new communications documents. Each of the 8 chapters serves to focus on a topic often expressed as an area of concern for inservice teachers.