This Year For KET

Katherine Johns, Vice President

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This is a short newsletter from the KET executive board. We wanted to just say hi before the school year begins and plan for a large newsletter in September.

 This year for the KET newsletter, Encounter, we have already lined up some wonderful themes for each issue. This will aid all of you for brainstorming ideas to make a contribution to a published magazine for a professional organization.

 I remember when I wrote my first article. I was so proud. I emailed it to Beth Maupin, the vice president at the time, but I forgot to sign my name. Since the email came up with my husband's name, he got credit for writing my first article. He got a kick out of that.

Our main theme for the school year will be "Music: A Community of Song." Each issue will have a theme to follow our main theme.

 Our fall issue will come out in September. The theme for the fall issue will be "Singing: The Basis for Music Education." This is a time for people to sound off on how important the singing voice is to music education and why.

The question for the forum this fall will be "What is in your Kodály tool kit?" There are things in our classrooms that we think are essential, like a tone ladder. What are those essential tools? Where did you get it? Or if you made it, how can it be made? And don't forget to include how to use it.

The Winter issue will come out right before TMEA and the theme will be "We Gather Here Together." We will list all the KET presenters and insights into the convention. We really want to encourage everyone to attend the KET meeting at TMEA. One of the difficulties about the KET meeting is timing. Our president, Ann Burbridge, will be looking at the possibility of finding us a better time slot so more people can attend the once a year general KET meeting.

 The question for the winter forum will be "Tools for Repertoire." This can include classroom song and choral song materials.

 The Spring issue will come out in April and the theme will be "Trainings: The Kodály Model for Lifelong Learners."

 This should give you plenty of brainstorming ideas for this coming year. We are hoping many of our members will sound off and share their wonderful ideas, but we will have some invited authors, even from out of state.

Katherine Johns