It doesn't take long for a music teacher to realize that most of their job involves something other than teaching. "Burnout" could often be attributed to the stress of balancing teaching, organization, administrating, professional development, financial management, chaperoning, advising, counseling, and other "hats" music teachers wear. Actual conducting and rehearsing can seem like a very small percentage of our daily tasks.
Over time I've come to terms with my many roles and learned to balance my teaching life relatively stress-free through prioritizing. Although I have many responsibilities, I remind myself often that I'm a band director because I love music and I love teaching music. My purpose in coming to this school every day is to teach music. I remember seeing a long "To Do" list on my high school band director's desk every day when I was in school. The number one thing on the list never changed. It read, "#1- Teach students to enjoy and appreciate music." Everything else on the list was secondary to this primary objective. I was fortunate to have such a good example of keeping this kind of perspective. Even though I do so many more things than teach, keeping this kind of outlook helps me cherish the times I am teaching, and understand that all the other parts of the job are to make that part better.
I've really enjoyed exploring so many technology tools that are out there for assisting music teaching during this class. If utilized correctly, technology should help us accomplish all the things on our lists and aid our responsibilities, not become another "to do" to complicate our lives. Today's music students are "wired in" to every kind of technology for most every aspect of their lives. I've certainly been more equipped to embrace and integrate technology into my music curriculum during this class.
Hi Justin,
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed reading your post. It is defiantly important to understand the importance of teaching students to love music as a main objective. Your ability to step back within the profession and realize the true importance of your duties, while maintaining your responsibilities mentioned before, is impressive. Balancing a music teacher’s life is an interesting challenge. However, if thoughtful planning and trying to prioritize tasks are present, then it is possible to juggle the overwhelming amount of responsibilities as a music teacher. Moreover, your comments about the “To Do” lists are fascinating. It is easy to get trapped thinking teaching is just simply checking off objectives, but it is more than this perception. Both objective and subjective areas of music are equal to instruct. Years ago, when I taught band at the middle school level, I tried to demonstrate that learning music is similar to viewing a picture from a distance then stepping closer to the picture to realize the details. Stepping back again and reflecting about the beauty of the picture is the hard part. Music parallels this experience due to working out pitches and rhythms to eventually realize the composer’s intent to write the specific piece music. Your post highlights this in a way of categorizing music teaching tasks and your discovery of music technology aids it. I wish you the best as you move through the program and never “burnout”.
This post is so well stated. We are given so many "hats" that at times, it seems actually teaching music is only a small percentage of what we are being asked to do. Yesterday, I had the privilege of accompanying three of my students to our PMEA 6th Grade Band Fest, which is essentially a one day state-MEA district festival. Rehearsing for months, waking up ridiculously early to be at the school an hour and a half before regular time, traveling to the host school with the clunky school van over 3 mountains, and finally 2 and a half hours later, we arrive. The rest of my day, however, was spent listening to these amazing 11 and 12 year olds come together and perform as if they've known each other the whole year. All the extra roles we are tasked with throughout the day are so insignificant compared to fostering that love and appreciation for music.
ReplyDeleteI've enjoyed reading your posts this semester and wish you luck in your future courses! Thank you for sharing your thoughts!