The last year few days have been the culmination of a huge emotional journey for me. As a young woman high school band director, I never thought much about the fact that I was female in a male-dominated profession. I just figured I was on the crest of the wave of change. When my band went from only three girls, to easily half, playing every instrument imaginable, I figured I had done my job. I had acted as a model, and my kids would believe they could do whatever they wanted in this world. When I was elected president of CBDA, I was the first woman president--and everyone made such a big deal of it. But I was acutely aware that I was the YOUNGEST president Id ever seen in the organization, and that was a much bigger deal to me. I had NO models. If I acted like a man, that was wrong. If I acted like a woman, that was wrong. I finally decided it was best to just act like Diana, but not before I made a LOT of mistakes, all largely in public, as I was professionally active at a very high level at such a young age. And honestly, I thought that was all in the past. This morning I was part of a committee for a dissertation defense on high school women band directors in California. Id said no a number of times, as I have so many projects of my own, but the candidate was insistent that she needed me, and I admit to getting caught up in the process, especially in recruiting candidates for the study. Reading the study of CURRENT participants, I felt like I was living half my life again in a few days. The mistakes, the isolation, the frustration, the feeling that you must work twice as hard to succeed…and what keeps hitting me, is that 25 years after I started, things have not changed very much. And this is not acceptable. MY students will NOT endure the same frustrations that I did. Watch out world.
Posted on: Wed, 23 Apr 2014 02:07:00 +0000