Teaching is a giving profession. Lawyers and accountants get to bill by the hour. Ha! If teachers got to bill by the hour, we'd all be billionaires. I love the post that comes around that says teachers should get paid like babysitters - and ends up showing that if we were paid like babysitters, we'd make a LOT more money than a teacher's salary.
If a bank needs pens or scotch tape, they order them from Office Depot - the bank tellers don't go to the store and buy them. However, if your music classroom needs supplies, more often than not, you purchase them. I heard Cristy Carey Miller at a workshop once ask how many teachers had come to workshop with a PO#s. A few hands went up. Then she asked how many had come with OPs. There were blank looks. She explained - Out of Pocket. All the hands went up. If teachers need something for their classes, they buy it.
I got an email this week that read:
Our School District is really struggling with managing capacity for meeting the needs of students particularly at the elementary school level. It has been widely suggested that many schools are going to close music rooms in favour of using them as classrooms to meet the capacity required for our smaller class sizes. Right across the school district. Of course we are fighting this. This would amount to a huge minimization of the value and presentation of music. Operating on a cart is absolutely ridiculous as I pull out everything for my classes everyday!
At the same time that we are giving our time and our money, we're having to fight to keep our programs.
Discouraging? Of course. Disheartening? Absolutely.
Every year we lose wonderful music teachers who've decided that it's just gotten too hard. Burnout is real, and you're not alone if you're feeling this way. When I think back to how I got started in this profession, there are things I remember.
I was super excited to get my first job. Imagine getting paid to do something that you really love to do! Try to re-capture that feeling of excitement and gratitude you had when you were hired to be a teacher. I've always been grateful that I have a way to provide for my family that I really do enjoy.
When you've had a great performance, but more important when you know you've taught a great lesson, there is a huge feeling of satisfaction. Seeing your students grow and develop musically in spite of all the challenges in today's schools, is an absolutely amazing feeling. Savor those moments. Maybe all of us should do like Oprah, and keep a gratitude journal. And when you have one of those really awful classes, pull out your gratitude journal and remind yourself of the things you're really grateful for.
Advocate every day. I think that on the back of every concert program should be a note like this:
It would be even better, if you had your students make their own posters telling why they like music - and you use a new one with every note home, on every concert program, and post them on your classroom website. Make a bulletin board of them and make sure it's the bulletin board in the hallway so admin sees it every time they walk past. This isn't just advocacy - this is a note to you, telling you why what you do is important to the children that you teach.
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