Al Price, one of the preeminent electric bassists in the Delaware valley, always had a self-deprecating tag line after the last note of a gig: “Well, we fooled ‘em again.” Anyone familiar with Al’s exemplary playing understands the humor. He’s secure enough with his ability and the previous four hours of playing that making light of his “expertise” rolls off his tongue.
Sadly, there are teachers who exhibit the same sentiment, especially after an observation by an administrator – but they aren’t joking. They feel they were hired and kept their teaching job more out of “fooling them again” than from actual skill and technique. Taken to the extreme, there is a debilitating psychosis (not recognized in the DSM-V) known as Perceived Fraudulence or 'Imposter Syndrome’.
Insecure teachers instruct from a defensive posture, much like a football team that is ahead in the final minutes of a game and choose to simply protect their lead rather than score again.
People of a certain age have this wary mindset drilled into them. I was raised by someone who had a more defensive stance when it came to these hiring issues. I remember when I was headed out the door to my first job interview in the spring of my senior year. My mother said, “They’re going to ask you why you want this job. What are you going to say?” Before I could give my answer, she shot back, “Because you need the money!”
I was asked that question. I didn’t give that answer. I did get the job.
Even with the saving graces of union contracts and tenure, teachers can be subject to a nagging sense of inadequacy that calcifies them where they stand. They are more than pacified if the doorknob of their career is cool to the touch. They will even settle for warm for short periods of time – but have a distinct predilection for cold knobs.
The knob that is hot to the touch signals career danger. While many of these teachers will try to frame their intransience as moral asset year after year, they are staying in the same room, same grade, same school because they have a nagging fear of what’s out there beyond the transom. They can't turn the knob to get out.
I modeled my sub-contextual posture in schools on mentors who moved through their careers not worried by the whims and observations of their supervisors or students. They never wanted to be friends with those that they taught. For these role models, it wasn’t so much of a question of unconditional love for their students but rather an attitude of relentless educating.
Students as well as administrators will attempt to mold our behaviors, responses, emotions, to their will. Once we agree on the terms of employment, there will be an incessant challenge to wring just a little bit more out of our 7.5 day: an extra duty here, an extra committee meeting there – unchallenged behavior here, the thought of endless referrals there.
Without a firm understanding of who you are as a teacher, employee, and 16.5 hour business owner, you run the risk of succumbing to the endless tidal currents of students and administrators. You’ll begin to believe, think, and act like someone who is dependent on this 7.5 hour job for their survival. And that is a deplorable trait to pass onto children.
It was important for me to teach my students and administrators to never believe that I needed my 7.5 hour teaching job. Or that I needed them to be happy or sad. Or that their behaviors and choices could change the weather forecast of my day.
While I had great relationships with almost everyone I worked with during my 7.5 hour day job, they knew that I did not rely on them liking me. There was there was an unwritten understanding that I could leave, not come back, and do something else that I might even like a bit better. Even when I when I was fired or when I found myself over $40,000 in debt due to some bad choices I made, I never allowed myself to appear vulnerable in a professional setting.
My professional posture communicated “I don’t need you but there might be reason for you to need me. I show up once in a lifetime and then I'm going so if you enjoying this, you might want to do things to encourage me to stay. If you don't, no offense is taken. It’s just that there's no guarantee that professionally I won’t walk out of this building and keep walking.”
With adults, I did this with a foundation of a strong work ethic that was framed with a firm but real smile on my face.
Right about now, it might be a good time to address the question, “So, Holmes, can I be friends with my boss?” In a word: yes. Just realize that there are decisions that your principal will make during their 7.5 hour day that won’t reflect your best interests and intentions. As long as you are mindful of that, sure, be friends.
An important line for all music teachers to remember is that people hear what they see. The variation to that theme is that people believe what they see, too. My peers, supervisors, and students were greeted everyday with the same visual countenance: black suit, white shirt, colored tie. All business. As black-suited Miles Davis said to a sideman who asked on break, “Where’s the food?”: “I came to play, not eat.”
What about your workplace?
When children arrive at your door, don’t gush “happiness”. Lead with a look of mildly quizzical observation – as in “What are you going to show me today?" My physiognomy at the beginning of class was as bland as my suit. Each of those 45 minute sets/classes/increments started with tabula rasa and almost always ended with a huge smile. Children learned that sustained engagement, proactivity, self-discipline, intellectual curiosity, and a desire to be better than they were yesterday were sure-fire ways to change my flat continence into a grin.
On day, you’ll realize that your mini-me is sitting in your class? Now what?
Students who shared my ideals always caught my attention. These were the ones who were not tethered to the rules all the time, the ones with not-so-perfect behavior records. They were quick with a snarky comment, the not-so-subtle eye-roll.
While I might have shared the same mindset at that age, what I came to learn in the many humbling moments up ahead in my life was that I was being educated by some selfless adults who did not deserve my insolence. When I came to grips with how gifted they were and how much more there was for me to learn, I began to reevaluate, take stock, and check my bravado at the door.
When I saw a kid who resembled BRH 1.0, I tried to teach with a lighter approach. Think: six-foot Jiminy Cricket making subtle suggestions to young Pinocchios still in the process of figuring things out.
If there is a mantra that I'd like you to try on for size as a music teacher in an elementary school, it's this: “They only give me the good kids to teach.” At first, you'll say it in a joking manner in your mind a thousand times or so. The second thousand times you say it, you'll find yourself getting mindfully quiet. And the third thousand times you say it, you will realize the truth in the statement and how humbly grateful you are for the opportunity to work with these pint-sized individuals. It requires, though, that you have taken the time and exerted the effort to learn exactly who you are.
As your career develops, who you are changes and morphs into people you never thought you were, possessing skills and talents you always saw in others and not yourself.
Take away point: American philosopher of science Thomas Kuhn said, “The answers you get depend on the questions you ask.” Answer the question, “Who am I?”
Have a liquid understanding of who you are – not who others say you are. Know who you are today – with a positive glance to tomorrow.
The fact is that it is only after you can answer the question “who am I?” that you can even approach the topic with your students and help them learn who they are.
Charles Ives composed “The Unanswered Question”.
May your life be the question that is answered.
Sadly, there are teachers who exhibit the same sentiment, especially after an observation by an administrator – but they aren’t joking. They feel they were hired and kept their teaching job more out of “fooling them again” than from actual skill and technique. Taken to the extreme, there is a debilitating psychosis (not recognized in the DSM-V) known as Perceived Fraudulence or 'Imposter Syndrome’.
Insecure teachers instruct from a defensive posture, much like a football team that is ahead in the final minutes of a game and choose to simply protect their lead rather than score again.
People of a certain age have this wary mindset drilled into them. I was raised by someone who had a more defensive stance when it came to these hiring issues. I remember when I was headed out the door to my first job interview in the spring of my senior year. My mother said, “They’re going to ask you why you want this job. What are you going to say?” Before I could give my answer, she shot back, “Because you need the money!”
I was asked that question. I didn’t give that answer. I did get the job.
Even with the saving graces of union contracts and tenure, teachers can be subject to a nagging sense of inadequacy that calcifies them where they stand. They are more than pacified if the doorknob of their career is cool to the touch. They will even settle for warm for short periods of time – but have a distinct predilection for cold knobs.
The knob that is hot to the touch signals career danger. While many of these teachers will try to frame their intransience as moral asset year after year, they are staying in the same room, same grade, same school because they have a nagging fear of what’s out there beyond the transom. They can't turn the knob to get out.
I modeled my sub-contextual posture in schools on mentors who moved through their careers not worried by the whims and observations of their supervisors or students. They never wanted to be friends with those that they taught. For these role models, it wasn’t so much of a question of unconditional love for their students but rather an attitude of relentless educating.
Students as well as administrators will attempt to mold our behaviors, responses, emotions, to their will. Once we agree on the terms of employment, there will be an incessant challenge to wring just a little bit more out of our 7.5 day: an extra duty here, an extra committee meeting there – unchallenged behavior here, the thought of endless referrals there.
Without a firm understanding of who you are as a teacher, employee, and 16.5 hour business owner, you run the risk of succumbing to the endless tidal currents of students and administrators. You’ll begin to believe, think, and act like someone who is dependent on this 7.5 hour job for their survival. And that is a deplorable trait to pass onto children.
It was important for me to teach my students and administrators to never believe that I needed my 7.5 hour teaching job. Or that I needed them to be happy or sad. Or that their behaviors and choices could change the weather forecast of my day.
While I had great relationships with almost everyone I worked with during my 7.5 hour day job, they knew that I did not rely on them liking me. There was there was an unwritten understanding that I could leave, not come back, and do something else that I might even like a bit better. Even when I when I was fired or when I found myself over $40,000 in debt due to some bad choices I made, I never allowed myself to appear vulnerable in a professional setting.
My professional posture communicated “I don’t need you but there might be reason for you to need me. I show up once in a lifetime and then I'm going so if you enjoying this, you might want to do things to encourage me to stay. If you don't, no offense is taken. It’s just that there's no guarantee that professionally I won’t walk out of this building and keep walking.”
With adults, I did this with a foundation of a strong work ethic that was framed with a firm but real smile on my face.
Right about now, it might be a good time to address the question, “So, Holmes, can I be friends with my boss?” In a word: yes. Just realize that there are decisions that your principal will make during their 7.5 hour day that won’t reflect your best interests and intentions. As long as you are mindful of that, sure, be friends.
An important line for all music teachers to remember is that people hear what they see. The variation to that theme is that people believe what they see, too. My peers, supervisors, and students were greeted everyday with the same visual countenance: black suit, white shirt, colored tie. All business. As black-suited Miles Davis said to a sideman who asked on break, “Where’s the food?”: “I came to play, not eat.”
What about your workplace?
When children arrive at your door, don’t gush “happiness”. Lead with a look of mildly quizzical observation – as in “What are you going to show me today?" My physiognomy at the beginning of class was as bland as my suit. Each of those 45 minute sets/classes/increments started with tabula rasa and almost always ended with a huge smile. Children learned that sustained engagement, proactivity, self-discipline, intellectual curiosity, and a desire to be better than they were yesterday were sure-fire ways to change my flat continence into a grin.
On day, you’ll realize that your mini-me is sitting in your class? Now what?
Students who shared my ideals always caught my attention. These were the ones who were not tethered to the rules all the time, the ones with not-so-perfect behavior records. They were quick with a snarky comment, the not-so-subtle eye-roll.
While I might have shared the same mindset at that age, what I came to learn in the many humbling moments up ahead in my life was that I was being educated by some selfless adults who did not deserve my insolence. When I came to grips with how gifted they were and how much more there was for me to learn, I began to reevaluate, take stock, and check my bravado at the door.
When I saw a kid who resembled BRH 1.0, I tried to teach with a lighter approach. Think: six-foot Jiminy Cricket making subtle suggestions to young Pinocchios still in the process of figuring things out.
If there is a mantra that I'd like you to try on for size as a music teacher in an elementary school, it's this: “They only give me the good kids to teach.” At first, you'll say it in a joking manner in your mind a thousand times or so. The second thousand times you say it, you'll find yourself getting mindfully quiet. And the third thousand times you say it, you will realize the truth in the statement and how humbly grateful you are for the opportunity to work with these pint-sized individuals. It requires, though, that you have taken the time and exerted the effort to learn exactly who you are.
As your career develops, who you are changes and morphs into people you never thought you were, possessing skills and talents you always saw in others and not yourself.
Take away point: American philosopher of science Thomas Kuhn said, “The answers you get depend on the questions you ask.” Answer the question, “Who am I?”
Have a liquid understanding of who you are – not who others say you are. Know who you are today – with a positive glance to tomorrow.
The fact is that it is only after you can answer the question “who am I?” that you can even approach the topic with your students and help them learn who they are.
Charles Ives composed “The Unanswered Question”.
May your life be the question that is answered.
RSS Feed