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The Tobacco Field Kids and Mr. De
Paperback
Publisher: Noble Publications
Published: May 18 2026
Pages: 90
Weight: 0.40
Height: 0.24 Width: 6.14 Depth: 9.21
Language: English
What happens when a music teacher refuses to teach only for today and starts preparing students for the world that is coming?
The Tobacco Field Kids and Mr. De takes readers inside the classrooms, band rooms, administrative offices, and changing cultural landscape experienced by a musician and educator determined to make music education relevant to his students' futures.
Drawing from decades of firsthand experience, the author recounts his journey from a talented young drummer and music student to military musician, conductor, and public school educator. Along the way, he encounters memorable students, changing administrations, shrinking budgets, educational politics, special education challenges, and repeated battles over what music education should accomplish.
Rather than accepting a traditional approach, he pushes for a broader curriculum. American music history, jazz, rock and roll, electronic music, technology, sound, and the practical realities of professional music become part of an educational philosophy designed to reach students with different abilities, interests, and ambitions. Some of his most rewarding moments come from students that others might have underestimated.
The result is not an idealized portrait of education. It is a candid and frequently humorous account of what happens behind the classroom door when teachers, administrators, parents, budgets, changing technology, and young people collide.
Although many of these experiences occurred decades ago, the questions running through the book remain strikingly familiar: How should schools respond to technological change? What happens when budgets determine educational priorities? How can teachers reach students who do not fit traditional expectations? And how do educators prepare young people for careers that are changing before the curriculum can catch up?
Part memoir, part educational history, and part reflection on a lifetime in music, The Tobacco Field Kids and Mr. De offers educators, musicians, arts advocates, parents, and former students an inside look at one teacher's determination to make education meaningful, relevant, and worth fighting for.
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