Having Fun at the Piano
Music Teacher, “Dr. Rob”
Have you ever seen Elton John perform? If you haven’t, but have seen Dr. William D. Robertson, then you’ve come pretty close. “Dr. Rob,” as he’s known by many, can make a piano sing and loves to imitate the style of one of his favorite performers, Elton John.
Not only a performer, but also a teacher, during his teaching career few people have called him by the last name of Robertson. Often called “Mr. Music” by his students, that changed when he earned his doctorate in 1992. Not long after earning that degree, one of his performing groups began calling him “Dr. Rob” and the title stuck.
With a father and two aunts in education, Dr. Rob felt a “calling” from an early age to become a teacher. To him, being around schools felt natural. When he was in his late teens, he used to perform gymnastic exhibitions at area schools. A young, agile musician at the time, he could do stunts such as run up a wall and flip backwards landing on his feet, stand on his hands on a water fountain while drinking water upside-down and even do a back flip off of a piano. “Unfortunately,” he says, “the years have managed to put a harness on that agility.”
Throughout his career, Dr. Rob has kept up to date with current educational trends and topics and recently shared some of his thoughts about the future.
“I do worry about the future of education because it’s getting harder to entice creative, intelligent young minds to enter a field that is so demanding and stressful in exchange for such a low salary. I especially worry about high-quality educators leaving the field in droves within the next few years. But, as for me, education has provided a haven the last three decades to do what I do best, which is making and teaching music.”
Congratulations, Dr. Rob! You are my favorite person of the week, not only for your years of service in education, but for teaching children the love of music and in the process the love for life.
To read more about Dr. Rob’s story, check out the following Salisbury Post link: http://www.salisburypost.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20130419/SP05/130419611
Do you have a favorite teacher? If so, I would love to hear from you.
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Thanks,
Dicy
Dicy, another great pick of the week! I found it rather interesting that as a music teacher, Dr. Rob has written a murder mystery. Of course, I am a former mathematics teacher who writes poetry. Writing and careers do sometimes make strange bed fellows! LOL 🙂
Thanks, Sharla. Yes, it is kind of strange, but you have to know Dr. Rob. He is one more character. I suppose it is interesting
that you love math and poetry, but then again, maybe it has something to do with patterns.