Abstract

Implementing a classroom music program is never an easy task. When the classroom is in Fiji and the teacher has never been out of Australia before, that task can seem onerous. Julie Arnold travelled to the South Pacific and facilitated the establishment of a music program, enhancing and extending theoretical knowledge for students and the musical pedagogy of the teachers there. Along the way she met success and disaster. But the experience was valuable one, and not just for the school community. In this personal narrative Arnold draws value from her self-admitted role as a ‘teacher as reflective practitioner’ and through a process of self-examination and community involvement experiences her time there as pivotal in her journey as both a teacher and a learner.