ROSS A. RICE

Long ago, my dad taught me how to light a fire. He was a professional teacher, and a good one too, so the lesson stuck. I can confidently say that if it’s flammable, I can light it, though it may take a little while. There’s a real beauty to well taught lessons like that. They’re useful, logical, challenging, fun to learn, and inevitably lead you to a higher level of wisdom. Achieving fire unto itself is an amazing and significant plateau, but it turns out that it is simply a jumping off point for the next important thing to learn, which is, as everyone knows, how to properly toast a marshmallow.

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     My own passion for teaching came late in life, right around the time I taught my own son how to light fires. As a 25-year veteran of the music and print publishing businesses, in and out of vans, bands, and record deals, I was winding down an arts and culture magazine in the Hudson Valley, New York in 2012. The phone rang one morning, and I found myself talking with Paul Green, creator of the School of Rock franchise, from his brand-new Rock Academy in Woodstock, NY. He was looking for a piano teacher. Though I had not taught professionally before, I accepted the job and soon had twenty students from 7 to 18 years of age, all highly motivated to learn often complex and intricate rock songs for the big shows. Everyone wanted to participate, wanted to know the music, and much to my surprise, wanted to understand music theory, and nobody was getting bored. As a lifelong professional I honestly hadn’t had any plans to become a teacher, but at the Academy I realized that I already was one, and actually had been for a long time. I have been teaching students of all ages regularly—and joyfully—ever since, leading up to completing an MFA and College and University Teaching Certificate from Middle Tennessee State University, hopefully allowing me the privilege of teaching professionally at the collegiate level.

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     The main subjects that I teach—audio recording and production, music composition, piano, electronic music—have multiple curious qualities that lead to potentially unlocking creative doors for students and can reach across a variety of media to maintain a flow of interest. In my classroom, video and audio presentation is blended with group interaction and discussion, along with hands-on experience and instruction with key technologies. I would say that my teaching approach is not so much as a lecturer than as an idea connector and fount of evidence and information, both factual and anecdotal. I encourage, cajole, and keep people off their phones for as long as they can humanly stand it. I enjoy creating the small-but-engaging lessons and discussions that lead to the big overviews, helping students apply the accumulated knowledge to the final projects that always seem so impossible at the start. I bring curiosity and enthusiasm tempered with professional experience and context, and insist upon student participation, using the available technologies to bring them toward the lesson. I see myself as more of a servant leader than a transformational one.

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     I believe great educational experiences are built up from simple and effective lessons, especially with new technologies. I feel like my role is to inspire interest in a subject, provide a well-timed series of revelations germane to that subject designed to maintain and sustain that interest, and then illuminate a pathway for students to progress unimpeded. Teaching someone how to build a fire provides a good example. One must start with the act of creating a sort of scaffolding out of progressively more flammable materials, keeping good airflow between everything. The more easily ignited parts can then lead to the harder-to-light and slower burning mass that provides real, sustaining heat. A well-made fire’s remnants can be used to start future fires. With the right conditions, a spark can be nurtured into a fire that can last as long as you want it to. This is what I have learned and am eager to share with others.