Writing as a Means of Hypothesis Testing: Improvising with Ideas

Whenever I balk at the thought of sitting down to write (especially "on demand"), I take comfort in recalling that a research instructor once encouraged me to embrace writing as an opportunity to test hypotheses, to experiment with ideas. What could be more consonant with my work as a music therapist and music educator, committed to the idea (and hopefully the practice!) of improvisation? I should willingly plunge time and again into adventures of trial and error, resisting undue fear of error.

One factor that mitigates this fear is the realization that I am not alone in undertaking such adventures. I have been pleasantly surprised to find that this interactive forum called blogging helps in this realization. It's been heartening to hear, for example, that I am not alone in grappling with identity issues related to disjuncture in cultural naming practices. This affirms my sense that such issues are not merely idiosyncratic but rather sociocultural. I think we all encounter significant questions of identity as educators working in a culturally diverse setting.

Another matter of identity that arises for me in response to the first of those three dreaded questions ("Who are you? Where do you come from? What do you do?") is that of age, and what it may be taken to imply about a person's level of development and experience. Again, this is an issue of both personal and professional significance to me. Especially as I begin a new doctoral program, I am hyper-conscious of the discrepancy between my chronological age and the "typical" or "socially expected" stage of life at which one goes through the experience of being a student. I cannot help feeling behind schedule, in a sense developmentally delayed, as I undergo again the conditions of studenthood more than a decade and a half after having completed my undergraduate education (half a decade post-Master's). Of course I realize that it is not unusual, especially at an urban American institution such as NYU, for people to be pursuing studies at various points in their careers and lifespans. Nevertheless, I feel particularly challenged in trying to "find my rhythm" as I combine work, studies, and all the rest. I suppose there is an important if humbling lesson here about respecting the varied developmental trajectories that our clients and students are on, and sensitizing ourselves to the conditions that might facilitate--or impede--individuals' openness to new experiences and insights at different stages in their lifelong development.