Ariya Marr is a Music Education major. Check out her story!
“In 5th grade, the middle school directors came to the different elementary schools with instruments for us to try out to decide if we wanted to do band/orchestra, and I knew I wanted to play a string instrument because I had bad lungs. One of the directors saw me try the cello and she ran up and started looking at my hands and shouted “YOU HAVE BASS HANDS!” and that really made an impression on me for some reason. Plus, I was the only person (and girl) who wanted to play bass in my grade which was cool to me.
What inspired me to teach was really my high school experience and my senior year of high school. We had 5 directors in 4 years, and I saw how demoralizing it was to my peers to not have a steady director in their lives. Senior year I was able to assume a role almost like a student teacher, where I got to work with the freshman on lessons/modifying parts/other teacherly work and I realized that’s what I wanted to keep doing. I used to think that you had to choose between being a great educator and being a great performer, but I realize that the two are one in the same (which reminds me…I need to go practice).”
