I have had a total of 33 jobs in 17 years. I am a professional singer and actor. Did I plan on having 33 jobs in 17 years? Of course not, but life has been a crazy wild ride. There were no drugs, very little alcohol, but WORK has been my drug of choice!
I have worked at least 3 jobs or more simultaneously in addition to performing over the years. Each week, I will discuss one of my former or current jobs. My sixteenth job was part-time music teacher at Lamplighter Montessori School in Cordova, Tennesee.
Marketing Beautiful Melodies
In spring 2014, I contacted all of the private schools in the Memphis Community to market my business, Beautiful Melodies. A few private schools reached out to me for an interview including Lamplighter Montessori. The Lamplighter head of school told me that the current music teacher was retiring at the end of the school year. She said that I may be a good candidate to teach at their school in the fall.
Transition from Florida-Kansas
In August 2014, I got a full-time teaching job at Florida-Kansas Elementary. The Head of School at Lamplighter Montessori reached out to me during my first or second week at Florida-Kansas. She asked if I was still interested in becoming a part-time music teacher at her school. Florida Kansas Elementary had too much chaos and was not a healthy work environment. So, I left Florida-Kansas and became a part-time music teacher at Lamplighter Montessori for the 2014-2015 school year.
Experience
I worked as an independent contractor at Lamplighter. Since I only worked at Lamplighter on Mondays and Fridays, I continued to work at Cracker Barrel and St. George’s on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays. Also, I had rehearsals for Opera Memphis throughout for the 2014-2015 season. Since I only came in to work two days a week, I did not get to know the other staff members at all.
Furthermore, music education was still very new to me because I studied vocal performance in college. Lesson planning was a bit challenging for me. I had never taught orff music. There was no curriculum at this school, so I planned everything from scratch. I used some of the orff music books at the school. I went to an orff music training to become more familiar with teaching orff music.
Leaving
Lastly, I liked working at this school and wanted to continue working there, but I was told that the school could not afford to hire me another year. This was unfortunate, but I would have been moving to NYC in fall 2016, so it worked out for the best.
https://www.bydominiqueduarte.com/how-to-obtain-33-jobs-in-17-years-14/