Floortje Looman's Journey
Every career in the arts follows a different route. The Journey is a new initiative from the ArtEZ Business Centre, where teachers will share key moments in their careers with you. There is rarely much time to discuss this in class - but now, you'll have an opportunity to find out what choices they made, and how they got to where they are now.
My name is Floortje Looman, I'm 24 years old and I'm a teacher in the best of all subjects: music. It's wonderful to experience that making music together creates a positive energy in the classroom, and it's an energy that I'm happy to spread. In 2020, I graduated from the ArtEZ Academy of Music in Enschede from the Music in Education programme. I now work as a music teacher in elementary and secondary education, I'm the co-director of the company 'De Muziekbeleving' [The Music Experience] and I work at the ArtEZ Academy of Music in Enschede. I'm very honoured that I can share my life path and story with you here. I hope I can be an inspiration to children, teenagers or beginning entrepreneurs.
1997 – 2008 Being allowed to think big
I was born and raised in a warm family in the village of Winterswijk in the east of the Netherlands. My mother is a nurse and my father is a true entrepreneur. Thanks to them, I learned to listen carefully to others, but I was also allowed and encouraged to think big. "Not everything will be easy in life, but if you keep fighting, you'll make it," is what my parents still tell me today.
As a person, you're shaped by the people and influences around you. In elementary school, I struggled a lot with the Dutch language. I was fine speaking it – I was never shy – but reading and writing were difficult for me and that made me insecure. I turned out to be dyslexic. My mother read somewhere that making music can help develop cognitive functions and that it could help me cope with my dyslexia. That's how I got interested in music and I started playing the piano at music school Boogie Woogie in Winterswijk.
2009 – 2015 My motto became "Keep fighting"
In the first years of secondary school, I was introduced to music in a different way, in a classroom setting. Through music classes and singing projects I found out that I loved to sing. My piano teacher adapted my classes to teach me to play chords and sing along, and I loved that so much! In these years, my passion for music grew enormously.
Unfortunately, music wasn't offered as a subject in the later years of high school, and I missed it very much, especially since my dyslexia made me struggle with my other subjects. I remember that, at the end of our third year, our teachers would give us a positive or negative recommendation for their subjects. That was supposed to help us choose our curriculum for the upcoming years. One teacher asked me how much time I spent playing the piano. "About three hours a week," I answered. The teacher retorted: "Now if you would spend those three hours on my subject instead of playing the piano, you might be able to pass the exams..."
So what do you do when you're 15 and every teacher but one gives you a negative recommendation? Drop down to a lower education level? No. My motto became, "keep fighting."
I didn't find my passion in my final years of high school and I struggled to decide what I wanted to pursue in higher education. It was my piano teacher who told me about a teacher training in music. After that programme, he told me, you would be able to play music with groups and instruct them yourself. That was music to my ears! But I was also insecure: How could I possibly be accepted at a conservatory? I didn't know the first thing about music theory. After all this hard work in high school, I was worried that I still didn't have what it takes to continue my education.
Fortunately, there was the preparatory course at the Academy of Music in Enschede and I was able to learn all the theory I needed within the year. After that, I put all my passion into the Music in Education programme.
2016 – 2020 Music is made together
I enjoyed this programme so much! We played music in a group every day. Even if you had an off day, it was impossible to escape the joy that was resonating in the building!
During my time at the academy, I found out that I loved to use music to set groups in motion. The combination of learning about music and using it to reach extra-musical goals is a fantastic one.
An example of this is the project I was able to do at the ISK [an international school for newcomers to the Netherlands] in Winterswijk. Alongside the students, we performed a soundscape on the World Refugee Day in 2019, enabling one of the students to share his story about the war in Syria with an audience of 100 of his peers from the regular secondary school. During the music classes, we learned about harmonies, and the final soundscape developed as a way to support the narrative and give it more body.
This experience led me to learn more about special elementary education. There, I learned a great deal about different types of disabilities and how to work with them. Music is an amazing tool to help train extra-musical skills like attention regulation and stress management. It can help kids stay focused, without a need for correction, but purely by using music in a specific way. That's an important basis for reaching your musical education goals as well.
The most magical thing about teaching music is the experience of developing beautiful things together. You need each other to make music as a group, so the group dynamic in a classroom can evolve very quickly, and kids become more confident and learn to work together.
2020 – 2021 If you want to see change, you have to take the initiative
In 2020, I graduated from the Academy of Music. I was fully ready to start motivating and inspiring kids in the subject of music. I was quickly able to find a job in elementary and secondary schools as a music teacher. Generally, my transition from a student to a teacher went quite well, and I really enjoyed the job. However, in part due to the COVID pandemic, I also realised that the organisational side wasn't operating in the way I'd like to see it as a music teacher. I knew it could and should be different. During the first lockdown, I wrote down my vision on the matter. When I talked to my boyfriend about it, he told me, "If you want to see change, you have to take the initiative and start a business." So I got together with my entrepreneurial dad and we developed some very concrete ideas.
The first challenge I faced was answering questions I'd never asked before. How do you go about starting a business? How do you get funding? How do I develop a clear vision on music education and business operations and communicate this to others? Fortunately, I felt comfortable going back to ArtEZ and asking my old teachers for advice. Time and time again, they took the time to answer my questions, give advice, and help me move my plans in the right direction. I also had my father to ask for advice. Although my first business plan wasn't approved by the municipality, it was a good learning experience. I loved entrepreneurship, even when it didn't work out. When my first plan wasn't successful, ArtEZ called me and asked if I would like to develop my entrepreneurial skills within the Academy. This became an amazing opportunity that I grabbed with both hands.
2021 – 2022 The start of a wonderful career
In 2021, I started working at ArtEZ. I coordinate the preparatory course and the methods and didactics classes in the Music in Education programme. This work has enabled me to broaden my vision on music education.
In this period, I also got a call from one of my clients if I'd like to discuss music education with them. While we drank a delicious cup of coffee, many ideas emerged for a new business. Unfortunately, we'd have to wait a little while to get started. I was going to meet my dad over the weekend to talk about these plans, but he had an accident and we were never able to have the conversation. Instead, I have to learn to stand on my own two feet and find my way without his advice. Can I do this? Is this the right time to start my first business?
Fortunately, I found the necessary mental space and the right people to discuss this with. With the help of my current business partner, I rediscovered my self-confidence and we took the plunge together. That's how, in January 2022, 'De Muziekbeleving' was born, a co-operative of music teachers who want to bring more music into classrooms.
The high point of my short career so far is being invited by the national organisation 'Meer muziek in de klas' [More music in the classroom] to promote music education at Noordeinde Palace. Alongside a music therapist, I was able to give a workshop to participants that included Queen Máxima, the State Secretary for Culture and Media, the Minister for Education, Culture and Science and professor Erik Scherder.
As I write this, a huge smile stretches across my face. I realise that, despite the hurdles, my persistence has led me to feel secure in where I am now: at the start of a wonderful career.