LUMOS MAXIMA!

THE MAGICAL POPS LIFE OF ANDREA BAIRD

OCCUPATION: Elementary school teacher at Rockford Public Schools

CURRENT LOCATION: Rockford, Michigan

UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN DEGREE: Major in French and Linguistics, Minor in Music

GRADUATION YEAR: 2014

MICHIGAN ACTIVITIES: Michigan Pops Orchestra, Quidditch Team, Women’s Glee Club, Campus Symphony Orchestra

MICHIGAN POPS ORCHESTRA INSTRUMENT: Cello

Listen to one of Andrea’s favorite Pops pieces while you read about her Pops Life!

KELLY COMPTON, our Pops Life Correspondent, sits down with Andrea (Byl) Baird to cast light on how music, family, and an adventurous spirit have made her the person she is today…

KC: Andrea, what was your musical background before you got to Michigan?

AB: I’ve played piano my whole life and then chose an instrument when 6th grade came around. I almost chose percussion because my sister and I wanted to start a band - that would have been so different from cello! I’m so happy with my choice.

I did the normal school music stuff through middle and high school. I LOVED high school orchestra and had such a great time with all of the orchestra nerds. I wasn’t in any outside orchestras throughout high school, but my school orchestra director was fantastic, so we did some competitions and such. A couple close friends of mine in orchestra and I also started a quartet and played in one wedding. I knew I wanted to keep playing cello as much as I could without being a music major in college, so I started to look for opportunities to be able to do that when I got to Michigan!

KC: Was there ever a point in high school when you thought you might want to do music full-time/professionally?

AB: No, I never wanted to do that. I always knew it was a fun hobby and I wanted to keep it like that. I still want to get more into it now and maybe even do some more quartet work – that was a cool way to make extra money.

KC: Do you still play piano now?

AB: Just for fun, but yeah – I love to sing too! I actually played piano at my sister’s wedding this summer, but I don’t practice much. I did the Music Minor at Michigan as well, so I took music theory for fun, and I took piano lessons through the music school.

KC: When you got to Michigan, did you audition for Pops first semester freshman year?

AB: Yep! My first semester, I was a little over-ambitious with orchestras, so I auditioned for Pops and the Campus Symphony Orchestra and joined a small string orchestra in the music school. Since all three groups met only once a week, it was doable – plus, freshman year I wasn’t taking that hard of classes. Even to this day I am so happy that I made it into Pops, it was so much fun! I made it in as one of the last if not THE last chair.

I don’t have super amazing cello skills because I never took lessons. But I still loved it. I was pretty good at sight-reading and had musical skills, just not the best technical skills. I did Blue Lake, a fine arts camp, one summer in middle school, and that was my first experience being one of the worst people in the orchestra. That’s kind of how I felt in Pops! My high school orchestra was not well known; I was first chair and I wasn’t that great…it was a really cool and humbling experience to just be in Pops, even in the back, with all of these other people who were so talented.

KC: What were some of your favorite memories from your time in Pops?

AB: I went to a few of the Progressive parties, and I loved those! They were so fun to go to all of the different houses. I was also part of the Popscapella group (Pops’ a capella group!).

KC: What was your favorite concert or piece that you played in Pops?

AB: There were SO many good songs. Even now I’ll be watching a movie and hear the music and say, “Hey we played that in Pops!” I really appreciated that we played such a variety of stuff; you never get bored. Even for my friends who weren’t huge festival/concert-going people, I was able to invite them to Pops concerts in good conscious and know that they would have a good time.

KC: Andrea, I heard you met President Obama when you were an undergrad?!

AB: I did! When Barack Obama came to Ann Arbor in 2014, he visited Zingerman’s Deli, where I happened to be working... and I was the lucky worker to be picked by my managers to take his order! It was (and will remain) a highlight of my life.

**CLICK THE PHOTO TO READ HOW ANDREA MET BARACK IN OUR POPS HISTORY PIECE!**

KC: What have you been up to since you graduated from Michigan?

AB: After I graduated, I first did this program where I taught English in France. I knew that I probably wanted to be a teacher but I also knew that I wanted to live abroad for a while. After college is a good time to do that, so I applied to a program where I taught English at different middle schools. I did that for a school year (9 months), and then came home to get my Master’s in teaching through a graduate teaching certificate program. My undergrad degrees had been in English and Linguistics with a Minor in Music, so I still had to get my teaching certificate when I got back to the US. I did that certification through Grand Valley State University, started student teaching, and two years ago I got hired by Rockford.

KC: Did you know going into college that teaching is what you wanted to do?

AB: I had an idea that that’s what I wanted to do, but I didn’t necessarily want to start teaching right away. In U of M’s Education program, you teach while you’re in college. I did the Residential College and took a lot of French and Linguistics classes. I didn’t know if I could get a job doing that, but I wanted to explore that passion, knowing that I could get my teaching certificate after getting a bit of experience post-undergrad.

KC: Do you teach a specific subject or across the board?

AB: Across the board; I’m an elementary school teacher. I definitely considered teaching French, but there’s not a huge need for that here. There unfortunately aren’t a ton of French programs here. Spanish would have been a lot more useful in Michigan! Being a French teacher, you would have to do middle school or high school, and the job security isn’t great. Plus, I love working with younger kids, so I wanted to do elementary anyway. If I ever did teach Middle School, I would probably align that more with my major, Linguistics, and teach Language Arts.

KC: What is your favorite and least favorite aspect of being a teacher?

AB: My favorite aspect is getting to know the kids. Especially as an elementary school teacher, you create amazing relationships with the kids because you’re with them all day. It’s incredible! The kids from my first year have come to visit my classroom in my second year. They always have huge smiles on their faces, and it makes me so happy to see them. That has made me realize how big of an impact you can have on them.

My least favorite thing is dealing with some of the parents, unfortunately. Parents can be pretty demanding these days, and it’s unfortunate that this aspect can affect the job – more than it should, in my opinion. For the most part, I’ve been really lucky! But it only takes a couple challenging parents…

KC: For any current students who might be thinking about teaching, do you have any advice for them regarding applying to graduate programs or getting experience in undergrad?

AB: Michigan has so many opportunities for this! Even when I was in undergrad, even though I wasn’t in the education program, some of my classes exposed me to hands-on experiences, and there was one class where I got to be a tutor in a few different classrooms for ESL students. That was AMAZING. I would advise just getting into a classroom. Working as a teacher now, I can say that teachers appreciate any help and support in the classroom that the can get. So there’s no doubt that the Ann Arbor area has a lot of opportunities for students to be helpful in the classroom. If you’re interested in teaching, try to get into a classroom and spend time around kids to make sure that’s what makes you happy.

KC: Andrea, the holidays are here, and you seem so close to your family. What is a favorite family tradition?

AB: My whole family has always been obsessed with Harry Potter! My parents read them aloud to us when we were younger, and we were hooked from the start. We had a big golden retriever named Hagrid growing up and we went to all the midnight book releases and movie releases. When I started at UofM as a freshman in 2010, my older sister started the Michigan Quidditch team and we had a blast. My husband is also a big fan, so the obsession has continued...last Christmas, I got at least four Harry Potter mugs as presents from my students! And I will also take any excuse to dress up as one of my favorite characters, Professor Trelawney. :)