EPTWell, here I am. I have 3 days left of Christmas break and I'm ready to be back in school. Sitting around all day sure is not fun for me. But I digress...
I've once again found myself ready to dive into the world of dating. It took the better part of two years to actually get over my ex, and so now I'm back in the game. Over my break I've been going out and meeting people and, shockingly, I've found a few women who were willing to go out on dates with me. I won't go into more detail because it's boring and irrelevant. The gist is, we're on these dates, chitchatting and getting to know each other, and it seems like I'm always asked the same question.
"Why did you become a teacher?"
Seriously. You want me to answer this on a first date? This is an incredibly tough question to answer. For a first date, one would have to resort to cliches like "I'm passionate about my subject matter" or "Teaching is an honorable profession" to make a short answer. The one that makes me want to puke the most is "If I could make a difference for one student, all of it would be worth it." *gags*
Every teacher has thousands of experiences that have influenced their lives and set them on the path of education. Many, including myself, will point out role models and good teachers that inspired them to become a teacher. But for every teacher, the path that leads to education is a unique and personal journey.
Now, every cliche you've ever heard about teaching is at some level true for every teacher. I do love music. I do want to make a difference in the lives of students. But to sum up my entire decision in ten words or less would not do it justice. So we have to go deeper. I could talk about hard work and dedication, empathy, self-reliance, and all sorts of qualities that you need to become a teacher in the first place, but I just want to let you know my backstory, related to become a teacher.
For me, it actually does start with a cliche. "I'm passionate about my subject area." I truly am. I started piano lessons when I was six years old. At age eight, my mom taught me how to play a scale on the trumpet, two years before we began lessons in school. By 10th grade I was playing college level trumpet solos. So it was only natural for me to pursue music in college. I actually began college with every intention of not becoming a teacher. I didn't want to follow my mother down the road (we'll talk more about that later). I wanted to be heavily involved in music, but have some other outlet for a career after college. My sister was in her senior year, pursuing a degree in music entrepreneurship (or something like that). She planned to go on to grad school and get an MBA (Master's in Business Administration) and do something in that area. I had taken accounting and business classes in high school and liked them, so it really seemed like a good fit. So I went off to college.
Like all freshmen, I hated my generals. Speech sucks, economics sucks (my first indication that the business world may not be the right choice). Comp II, lifetime learning skills...please someone kill me. Unlike a lot of freshmen, I also had a few major related classes, which managed to keep me sane through that first semester. The major related classes were music theory, the music industry, jazz band, marching band, and concert band. Now, enter a girl. I am a pretty good trumpet player, and she is a damn good saxophone player. We had 4 classes together, so naturally, we had a lot in common and got along pretty well. About 5 years ago, we started dating. I wanted to spend time with my girlfriend (how weird is that), and while I was taking music business classes, she was going the education route. Well, I was starting to seriously dislike the music business classes, as they were now focusing more on business and less on music. So I started taking some of the more advanced music classes with her (composition and arranging, conducting, forms and analysis, music literature) as electives. Not only did I love all these classes, I excelled in them. I did better than she did in every class (though I was careful not to rub it in) with less effort. This was the first time I seriously considered switching to music ed.
Chronologically, this next part doesn't make sense. I was talking earlier about people influencing the decision to become a teacher. Here it is. My mother was a music teacher for 18 years. Since then, she's moved into the administrative side of things and is now a superintendent in the town my parents live in. She's the one who got my sister and I started in music. Piano lessons at age six, band lessons at age ten (even though she started us earlier), and always encouraged us to be more active in music classes. She always hammered home that being a great musician is a unique skill, while many can play 4 chords on a guitar, very few can play the Hummel Trumpet Concerto (<---actually not very hard). Obviously, through our parents, my sister and I had a natural talent for music, and mom always said if we didn't at least try to live up to our potential we were wasting a gift. I knew she was serious so I took her seriously. While I didn't always like auditioning for honor bands, playing solos in church or at solo contest, or going to All-State Chorus, I knew that if I didn't do these things I'd be letting her down.
The next two people, while they didn't have as much of an impact as my mom, still influenced my decision quite a bit. Their names were Ron and Carol, and they were a married couple that taught at my high school. Ron was the high school principal, and Carol taught English. I'll tell you right off, Carol was bat-shit crazy...but in a good way. I only had her for grades 11 and 12, but she was by far my favorite teacher that I've ever had. She taught me that you can be ridiculous and kind of clueless about certain things (she one time asked us how to rewind a DVD), but still have a love of your subject matter. Her teaching philosophy was simple. Make them respect you, then they'll like you, then they'll work their asses off. And that's what my classmates and I did. 7 of us took AP literature classes with her both years, and we truly worked our butts off for her. Ron was of a different mold. He was the principal, so he was the main disciplinarian in our school. He was hard but fair, never cruel and never a dick. When I got suspended for cussing out a kids in the hall, he gave me my suspension by the book, then told me he understood why I did it. But rules are rules, and their are consequences for breaking them. This is what he taught me. While there may be extenuating circumstance that may make rule breaking almost acceptable, you still have to abide by the rules and take your punishment.
Going back, I was finally considering becoming a teacher. I talked to my mom about it on the phone, and talked to Ron and Carol via email, as well as professors and friends. They all told me that I had the correct temperament and personality for teaching, and that I would be great at it if I was willing to work for it. Not the most solid advice really. But it was enough for me to switch my majors. As I said, I wasn't really having a great time taking those business classes, so I thought I'd give the education classes a chance.
Well, the rest of the story kind of tells itself. I began enjoying the education classes and made the decision to stick it out. I figured that if teaching was not the right for me, I could still find something else. It would be expensive and time consuming, but I knew that it would be better than working a job I hated or couldn't do well. What really sold it for me was my first semester of in-school observations. I observed a teacher who (let's face it) wasn't a very good teacher. I thought it then and I know it now. But that isn't what sold it for me. It was the interactions with the students. Observing implies that you don't interact, you just.....observe. Right? Well I said the hell with that and dove in to helping students once a week. Mostly I worked with the brass players and helped them develop certain techniques they would need later on. I showed them some tricks that would help them play. And I loved it. Even though it was once a week for an hour, I absolutely loved working with the kids. So I was sold. I put all my effort into graduating with the best grades I could get and salvaging my GPA.
It took me an extra year, but I was finally able to graduate and enter the world of teaching. I guess if there is any interest I can write about applying and interviewing for teaching positions. Not to say I'm the best at it, but I was able to land my current job over applicants who have 10 times my experience.
To any students who are considering becoming a teacher, this post is meant for you. I really feel that at some point in the journey of becoming a teacher, you need to think about this, not just on surface level, but really think. A lot of administrators will ask you why you became a teacher when you interview, so you need to have an answer.
Thanks for reading and feel free to comment.
TL;DR - Love music, girl got me into it, didn't like my major, role models, momma.
