The first thing that was amazing is that all of his tuition, except for the first term, was covered through scholarships thanks to the generosity of donors. We did not incur any excessive debt in returning back to school for a Master's Degree and he was able to work at the same time, and thus bring in needed income. Does Heavenly Father care about that? I think that the answer is that he absolutely does care about our financial health.
Curtis had some amazing professors at BYU, who were able to teach what the research is telling in how to be a successful music teacher. If you get that education while going back to school, the time and effort spent is absolutely worth it. In fact, Curtis says, everyone should go back to school in their late 30's! It helps you to see and learn things in a way that you don't in your 20's.
Because of the experiences that Curtis has had in teaching before he got his Master's Degree, he was able to come up with a terrific and applicable Personal Improvement Project. Namely, how do you really teach kids how to improvise in jazz band? The National Standards for Music Education say that this is a responsibility that music teachers have, but few music teachers can improvise themselves and even fewer can teach improvisation. In fact, one of his colleagues stated, "I don't have time to teach improvisation in jazz band, it's something they need to learn in private lessons." However, what if you teach in a Title I school and those kids' only music instruction is coming from you? So Curtis set out to create a method that will make it easy to teach kids how to improvise in jazz band. And different from other methods, this one is research based and tested.
About halfway through our Master's Degree journey, Curtis stated that he wanted to apply for a Graduate Fellowship Grant.....in fact, he felt like he should apply. I balked at this, since it would mean even more work, but he promised that if he didn't get awarded that he would pare down the Master's Project so it didn't take more time. I went along with that and he applied. We waited and waited. And then we got the news that Curtis had been awarded....$15,000, the maximum award that is given out. Suffice it to say, music students generally don't get this amount. We were thrilled and again felt that there was a reason why we had been told to wait to attend Graduate School until this time.
Curtis has been able to do wonderful things with the grant money. He is nearing the end of doing his work on Improv Pathways which may bring additional income opportunities for us. He was able to do incredible recordings of his work with the Crescent Super Band, which is a Grammy Award winning student jazz band in our area. He is continually testing and refining the method and has been able to compose some great songs to go with it that actually teach kids the art of jazz and improvisation in the classroom.
In the end, we feel very blessed, and it has been one of those faith-inducing experiences where you see why you were told to wait all those years, when it seemed more logical to just go ahead and get it over with. It will be one of the stories that we tell our children and grandchildren through the years about the wisdom of God.
P.S. If you want to get a taste of what Curtis is doing go to www.improvpathways.com
