Whew! We did it again, we made it through another wonderful year guiding our students to achieve excellent muscianship. Another year of teaching the building blocks of music to future orchestra instrumentalist, band instrumentalist, jazz muscians, choir members, and audience members and patrons of the arts; instilling a Life Long Love of Music in our students. Great Job!

This is a great time of the year to begin to reflect on this year's achievements and mistakes. It's a great time to evaulate our own teaching as well as our student's muscianship levels. Writing down in our teaching journal these thoughts so that when we plan for next year's presentations and general music classroom units so that we continue to challenge our students and improve our teaching techniques.

This Winter and Spring I've had the great pleasure of working with two National Board Candidates as their support provider. It has been a wonderful journey that has revived National Board Standards in my own teaching. This is a great time of the year to go to one of the National Board Resource Center at Stanford's Introductory Session (see schedule of sessions on their website: http://nbrc.stanford.edu/). You may also want to seach on-line "national board resource center" to find a center closer to your home.

"It's the most wonderful time of the year..." this tune is still stuck in my head! All year I have had a wonderful time hearing from all of you. Some have written emails asking for General Music Education Resources and some have called with great ideas for interesting workshops at the 2008 CMEA Bay Section Winter Conference. Thank you all for communcating with me your ideas, needs and offering to help. I am already looking forward to another wonderful year as your General Music Representive! Please feel free to contact me as your school year closes or over the summer with ideas for the Winter Conference, questions, National Board questions, or comments. Email: This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it I wish you all a happy, safe and relaxing summer vacation.

Kara D'Ambrosio
Classroom General Music Representative