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A Guide for Music Educators at All Stages of their Career

It’s time for a celebration! Since its creation in July 2015, this represents the 217th blog-post at this WordPress website!

My apologies to first-time visitors who may find themselves a bit overwhelmed at the incredible volume of submissions posted to this library.

The purpose of this project after my retirement from public school music in June 2013 was to archive my writings and organize them in one convenient location. As Simon Sinek would emphasize at one of his keynote speeches, the essential “WHY” and rationale for http://www.paulfox.blog is the value I hope my articles could serve to prospective music teachers “in the trenches.” Many of us retirees just want to feel needed and seek opportunities to offer the benefits of our “boots on the ground” to future professionals. We seek to “matter” throughout our retirement and stay active in our post-employment years. The mission and goal of this website is to “make a difference” and share a legacy of more than five decades in the profession, providing the supports of hard-earned lessons learned, anecdotes shared, short cuts developed, perspectives observed, and additional research and practical tips found applicable to the field of music education and creative self-expression.

I write for myself, not to earn credit or receive validation from any external source. But, of course, I hope somewhere out these someone eventually finds these “creations,” reads them, and actually puts some the material to work for them in their job.

Unraveling the Maze of Menus

Articles posted at most blog-sites are published in chronological order… formatted to what computer programmers would term as “sequential.” This structure is similar to a tutorial, directing the reader to consume the contents from beginning to end (Introduction, Chapter 1, Chapter 2, etc.), reading “in sequence” earlier posts for full comprehension. This is the same basic format of paulfox.blog.

However, for academic or research study, my articles may be viewed in any order, similar to the “random access” format of a reference manual. (Go to the specific relevant section you are seeking information.) Everything is digitally stored under these categories (also accessible from links printed inside the right panel):

A reader might prefer to skim through an outline of potential reading material by clicking on the menu bar at the top of the page:

  • About: My contact information, curriculum vitae, recent workshop or conference presentations, professional brochure, and printer-friendly catalogs of articles and presentations
  • Inside: A frequently updated index (by subject) of all blog-posts at this site
  • Training/Jobs: Listings of articles and online resources (in chronological order) and past workshop/conference slide summaries and handouts (in reverse chronological order – most recent first) on the topics of pre- and inservice training in music education, ethics, building professionalism, and techniques for marketing, interviewing, and landing a job.
  • Care: Presentations, recommended books, and website resources on health, wellness, and burnout/stress remediation, and developing a self-care plan
  • Retirees: Alphabetical reference to articles and other resources on retirement preparation, mostly on post-employment self-reinvention and truly “living the dream” in our senior years
  • Creativity: My three-part series on creativity in education plus a short list of creativity geniuses/educational gurus and their books
  • Firesides: Tips for the enrichment of musicians of all ages, including practice hacks/hints and a collection of PDFs presented in the South Hills Junior Orchestra Online Academy

Explore the Links, But Beware!

Thousands of hours has been spent writing these “epistles,” and whenever possible, I try to reference background information, attributions, follow-ups or research sources. The Internet is an amazing tool, but it should not come as a surprise to anyone that some of the links in my older blogs may have broken connections or return errors. This is best explained by Google AI:

“Links on the internet become inactive, known as link rot, when a website owner deletes a page, changes the URL structure, or shuts down a domain entirely. Over time, servers go offline, companies close, and paid web hosting plans expire, which breaks the digital path to the original content.” [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]

Copyrighted material may be taken down as the authors move on to other pursuits or decide to restrict it to print-publish their work. A case in point, one of my favorite “experts” on creativity and author of Instructional Strategies for Thinking, Collaboration, and Motivation, Dr. Curtis Bonk from the Indiana University of Bloomington removed his amazing graduate course handouts and PowerPoints referred to in several of my creativity blogs. I still lament the fact that his “Best of Bonk” website is gone!

Whenever possible, I “nail down” a snapshot of the data, context, and clarifications with supportive PDF files and copies of my slide decks. At the time of their creation, the links were active. However, it has become necessary to update many of my more recent versions of commonly-repeated presentations, e.g., Retirement 101, Interview Clinic, Take the E-Train (Ethics), etc. The older the conception of the work, the more likely that something in it has become inactive.

If you find something is “broken,” please give me a holler. Send me an email describing the problem to paulkfox.usc@gmail.com.

Comments Welcomed!

Directly under the title of each blog are printed the date of its creation, my signature, and a small symbol with the text “Leave a Comment.” CLICK ON THIS! I encourage feedback! Share your perspective. Add your own experiences, thoughts, or sources of information. I fervently hope I am not needlessly shouting in a wind storm trying to reach an audience who cannot hear me but could perhaps be best served by this open, two-way communications and divergent opinions.

Some of the posts receive significant initial and repeat traffic. I’ve noticed especially for those blogs on marketing professionalism and interview tips/questions, things pick-up in early spring, perhaps when graduating music education majors may be completing preparations for employment screenings. (Believe-it-or-not, one of the highest rated blogs last month was Dress for Success at Teacher Interviews!) So, if you have anything to add to help pre-service colleagues (soon-to-become teachers), click on the comment symbol or send me an email and share your advice! I would be happy to post your insights in a future blog!

Highlights

These might be my “top ten” blogs (in alphabetical order) to get a good idea what is available for further research.

  1. 52 Creative Tips to Supercharge the School Musical
  2. Creativity in Education
  3. Ethics Follow-up with links to all four parts of a general discussion on school ethics)
  4. The Five Cs of Self-Care – Teachers Take Charge of Your Wellness
  5. Get a Job Toolbox
  6. The Importance of Music Education
  7. Job Interview Rubrics
  8. Leaders Flush
  9. RECAP – Retirement Resources – A Treasure Chest of Tips for “Living the Dream!”
  10. Transitioning from Collegiate to Professional – Part 3 with links to all three parts on career preparation)

Just for fun, on occasion I voiced several “rants and raves” (yes, I am opinionated) and ventured into new topics unrelated to a career in education, such as pets (e.g. In Defense of Dogs, Pet Citizenship, Unconditional Love – Dogs!) and book bucket lists (For Book-Lovers – Retired or Not and Summer Reading).

I still recommend perusing the index (“Inside”) for a more in depth chronological discovery of these topics, or click on the other links in the top menu bar. (Some of these sections offer alphabetical listings of the titles to facilitate a thorough examination.)

Go explore! Happy hunting!

Guest Bloggers

I would be amiss if I did not recognize several talented guest authors who have contributed meaningful articles to this forum.

Ed Carter

Katherine Langford

Booking Speaking Engagements

Conferences and workshops have become a “retirement hobby” for me. Please visit my “About” section for a history of my most recent educational presentations. Contact me if you would like more information on availability. The following represent my most-requested sessions, many of which have sample slide summaries within this blog site for you to download and review:

  • Bookends – The Life Cycle of a Successful & Happy Music Educator
  • Catch the E3-Train – Essential Ethics for the Educator
  • Empowering Educator & Student Leadership
  • Hands-on Conducting
  • The Interview Clinic – Exercises to Improve Your Performances at Employment Screenings
  • Retirement 101 – It’s NOT All About the Money
  • Self-Care Cookbook – Recipes and Resources for Teachers
  • Social Media – Boon or Nemesis?
  • Supercharge the School Musical

Keep Connected! – Looking Forward to Read YOUR Feedback!

PKF

© 2026 Paul K. Fox

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