teaching and learning
the very first gig
The summer I finished my undergraduate degree I realized that I was not ready, emotionally or otherwise, to follow through with my music education degree and get a real job. I did what any reasonable person would do: I applied to go on exchange for the second time to Freiburg. We all have to face the music (ba dum bum ching!) at some point, and that point was my return to the US the following year.
I had nowhere to go, so back I was in my childhood home in late August, looking for teaching jobs. There are slim pickings for teaching jobs in August. The local paper advertised an elementary general music position, maternity leave cover, in the city north of my own, about a 20 minute drive. Not my top choice, but I needed a job. I interviewed and was hired.
My father was not the most expressive man. I knew he loved me. My parents were very supportive of my music making and my choice to study it in college. But my parents did not believe in doing favors for their kids; they felt we should make our own networks and find our own breaks. So I was surprised the Saturday after I was hired to find myself driving to a car dealership with my father, who had arranged for me to buy a car. I realize in hindsight, that this was his way of showing that he cared, that he was proud of me, even. He looked in the paper, found an ad for a Ford Aspire, which was probably the last time you could get a new car for $7000, called up his cousin who owned a Ford dealership in said city north of ours where I was going to be working, and got a deal on this car. The loan was in my name, it was my responsibility.
I think I was uncomfortable with the whole thing because a) my father had never done anything quite like that for me before (I guess other than when my parents got a used flute and flute lessons when I was 7…), b) it all happened so fast, and c) I was rather left out of the decision-making process and felt, well, babied. Maybe that’s not the word. I felt guilty and I felt ashamed. Guilt, apparently, is something you feel when you don’t hold up to your own standards. Shame, apparently, is something you feel when you don’t hold up to other people’s standards. This is all tied into that first bit, really, where I told you I didn’t feel ready for adulthood in the first place. Going away hadn’t changed that. Coming back hadn’t either.
The car had a standard transmission. I had never driven a car with a standard transmission. I no longer remember precisely how much time there was to learn, between buying it and the start of the school year. It couldn’t have been more than a week; it may have been just that weekend. The best tip I got was from my high school friend, who was also still stuck at home. I complained about how every time I had to back out of the driveway, the car stalled. He told me to pretend the clutch was covered in peanut butter and that my foot was so stuck, that I could only pull it up slowly while also very slowly increasing the gas.
The elementary school was for grades K-6. There were over 600 students. I saw them all every week. The music classroom was actually the “Food Storage Room” in the basement. From the looks of the massive mixing bowls, dough hooks, and beaters, I supposed at some point in the distant past, there was a full kitchen staff making fresh food. I or any of my students could have easily hid inside one of the bowls. I don’t even really know how big the room truly was, because there was so much shoved in it and the lights were only over the space I had to teach in. Separating me and my students from the large amount of gargantuan kitchen equipment were six blackboards on wheels. There was a desk, an electric keyboard, an Apple 2E looking only slightly more recently used than the kitchen equipment, enough chairs for 30 students (though some classes had 35 students), and some carpet squares (maybe I bought the carpet squares?). There was a closet with some music books from 1980. There was a distinct lack of musical instruments for the students to play.
About two weeks after I bought my car, a few blocks from work, I stalled as the light turned green. “No, no, no…” I softly panicked as I tried to restart the car and simultaneously watch in the rear view mirror as the car behind me drove into the back of my car. No one was hurt, but my car was not in good shape. I made it to work about 5-10 minutes before classes started. My car went to the shop for two weeks and I got a rental — automatic transmission.
I enjoyed my music education program at my university. I learned a lot. Student teaching was challenging, but I felt like I could handle it. I had spent two-thirds of the semester in elementary and then up to June in middle and high school. I had taken over some of the duties, as you do. Despite my not wanting to get a real job right after finishing, I felt like I knew enough to get started. One particular thing I remember from the coursework, however, was that we did not go over classroom management. The solution, we were told, was to have good lesson plans. I had some good lesson plans when I did my student teaching. Nothing was perfect, of course, but I felt like things went at least “okay,” if not well.
The city north of mine is the largest in the state. The state is one of the whitest in the country. The student population was about a quarter to a third from recent immigrant families and much of the rest of the population were the children of unemployed alcohol and drug abusers. I emailed a friend of mine from Wisconsin and told him I was working at an inner city school and was having a rough time of it. He wrote back, “Inner city? What, do they bring their maple trees to school?” It’s funny, but it wasn’t so much then. A kindergartener spat in my face. A sixth grader sat under the computer desk and started trying to choke himself with the computer cables. A fourth grader thought he could just say “puta” because I wouldn’t know what it means (not that he was Spanish-speaking, either). Two other sixth graders just jumped up and went at each other — something had been brewing, but I couldn’t see what. Somehow, no one hid in any of the equipment. Needless to say, my good lesson plans were hardly doing any good.
I had the rental car for two weeks. About two weeks after I had been driving the Aspire again, slowly getting the hang of it, the assistant principal came into my room at the end of the day. “Do you have a small blue car?” The substitute nurse drove her camper van to school that day because she had visitors who were borrowing her car. She parked next to my car. The camper van had a motorcycle rack on it. As she pulled out of the lot, the part of the motorcycle rack that sticks out beyond the camper on the right caught the front bumper of my car and pulled it right off. The car went back into the shop for two weeks and I got a rental car — automatic transmission.
The school gave me a mentor, the art teacher. She was kind, with good energy. She was also on the second floor, opposite end of the building. I saw her occasionally at lunch. She never came down to check on me. I didn’t find my way up to her room, either. Then she fell ill and wasn’t in school as often. The other teachers I saw at lunch were all at least 15 years older than I. They didn’t seem to be too interested in me; I had no idea how to relate to them. We didn’t talk much. There was one other new teacher that year, also first year teaching. She seemed to have it together, but I only saw her when she dropped her class off and picked them up.
I tried to ask for help, but it seemed to merely alert the administration that I was just another problem to deal with. My first observation was by the assistant principal: I didn’t have enough class control and there were no sub plans in my desk. It was hard to make sub plans. It was hard to make regular plans. And I realized, I could make a good lesson plan, but I had no real experience planning for the long term, only one-offs. And I might have been okay with a series of one-off lessons, if we were able to actually do what I wanted to do in the lessons: make music, move around, do some games. I wanted to do the kinds of things I saw my music ed teachers do and the kinds of things I had been able to do as a student teacher.
One afternoon a week, I taught beginning band in my city. When my high school band director found out I was back in town, he asked if I could do that one afternoon, teaching small group lessons and then co-directing band with a former classmate of mine. Smaller groups, more motivated. No pre-planning, just a method book. The former classmate had already picked out some repertoire for the band. A bit easier, to say the least, and a welcome respite from the slowly developing shitshow the rest of the week was.
My second observation was by the principal: She felt that my room didn’t have enough decorations and was very put out by the fact that the rag I used to clean my six blackboards was hanging up to dry in full view at the top of one of the blackboards. Not to mention the poor class control and still no sub plans in the desk.
There was a big storm that December. Perhaps the biggest since 1978? We had no power for a few days. We also had no school for a few days. It got down to about 10°C inside the house and I wore 4-5 layers of clothing. Our power came on before our neighbors’ so we invited them to come sleep in our living room. It was a few days respite.
My last observation was from the district music/art department head. I had one of my five sixth grade classes. We were doing some sort of circle dance, movement thing, which meant, of course, that some of the students were finding out how much movement they could get away with. Overall, it was one of the most successful lessons I had done. We actually did the thing that I had planned. Did I still have to repeatedly pester some folks to stay on it? Yes, I did. Did it all fall apart? No, it did not. The department head felt that I still didn’t have enough control of the class. He suggested that I set up the chairs in rows, give them all one of the music textbooks from 1980 that were in the closet, and just go through that.
In January, I was informed that because I had three negative evaluations that I was basically unhireable in the district. They weren’t going to fire me, because that would make me unhireable everywhere. I could finish out the school year if I wanted, or I could resign. I resigned. But I still had to stay for another month, so they could find someone to replace me.
I was getting the hang of driving the standard, finally. I remember one particular Friday afternoon, sometime between resigning and actually leaving the job, driving home from school, feeling numb from the shame and guilt I felt daily from failing at this job, and thinking about how I could just take that one highway for a really long time. Like days. I could just keep driving. And then what?
I went to my high school band director with my tail between my legs, explained what had happened, and sheepishly asked if he happened to need any other help or know of anything. “Oh!” he said, as if he were trying to show sympathy while also trying to conceal his happiness: their loss, my gain. This middle school band director has been at this elementary school, but would like to free up some time and then this other director also would like to free up some time… I took on two other after school band programs. I felt better.
Through the grapevine, I found out a) that the person on maternity leave had decided to not return to that position, and b) that the school hired one of my college classmates who had just finished student-teaching in December to replace me. He had been in the military and was able to be the drill sergeant that I could not be, that the school seemed to think was the right way to handle children who needed a lot of help. That summer, I went to a party with some old college friends and he was there. Yes, he said, it was terrible. They begged him to stay, he said, but who wants to be a drill sergeant all the time? One day, some kid tried to make a break for it; he chased the student down the hall, brought him back, turned the class and yelled, “I CAN RUN FASTER THAN ALL OF YOU, SO IF ANYONE ELSE WANTS TO TRY TO RUN OFF, GO FOR IT.” I didn’t ask if all the students sat in rows with their books from 1980.