Carol Snook Carol Snook In school I liked math, art, and music. I was really just a mediocre clarinet player. I didn’t declare my major in music until the last minute before entering Michigan State University as a freshman. By Christmas, I packed, went home and continued at Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan. My graduate degree in educational administration is from SUNY Brockport. I basically never used this degree, wanting instead to remain in the classroom.
Suffice it to say that through the years I have been afforded some very nice honors, including the Rochester Philharmonic Musicians Award for Music Education. The one I cherish most, however, is the New York State Band Directors Association Band Director of the Year, which I received in 1999. All the other awards lumped together could not possibly mean more to me than this one, named from my late husband, Richard Snook.
I am currently in my fifth year of retirement, having completed 33 years in the elementary and middle school trenches in the Greece Central School District. I now spend my time divided between being a docent at the George Eastman House, many activities at my church – an urban Rochester church, playing in a women’s hand chime group, serving on the board of the Rochester Philharmonic Youth Orchestra, presiding over my P.E.O. chapter (we raise money for women’s scholarships), gardening for two elderly ladies who still live in their own homes while maintaining my own large perennial garden, and being walked miles each day by my two golden retrievers. I tell you all of this so that you realize once you retire, you must tactfully learn how to say “no”!
In this clinic, I hope to send teachers home with confidence to know that things they are trying are good teaching tools. I also hope to get them thinking about some they never thought of and also to challenge them to consider some they think might not work! I will bring handouts of many tips – but probably will not get to all of them. I will also bring copies (an updated version) of the little booklet I made many years ago and presented at the Concord Hotel for NYSBDA, entitled: Snook’s Pocket Guide to Practicing.