As summer draws to a close and schools begin to reopen, we look forward to the coming autumn season (and hopefully some relief from the scorching weather). After all, tomorrow will be the first day of classes at my former place of employment (and the dress rehearsal for Friday’s marching band senior show). Soon we’ll enjoy one of my favorite transitions of the year! In Western Pennsylvania, deciduous trees will gradually change color (some bright red, orange and yellow) and then shed their leaves… the perfect metaphor for the final sections of my “Bookends” series.
(Yes, fall is a month away… but, as you can see, the stores are way ahead in anticipation of the changing seasons!)
Autumn is a season of harvest, a time to reap the rewards of our hard work and reflect on the blessings in our lives. The Fall Equinox is a reminder for us to assess our accomplishments instead of our shortcomings.
We return to a discussion first introduced last October in Bookends – Part One – The Life Cycle of a Successful and Happy Music Educator, exploring:
- Stage 4: Veteran/Sustaining Years (this blog)
- Stage 5: Next Chapter/Living the Dream (future blog)
When do we become “experts” in our field? When are we “master teachers?” Do we ever reach the apex of our achievements, the crowning glory of our career, or the pinnacle of our profession?
Never! You snooze, you lose. If you stop expanding on your knowledge and skills, forgo exploring new ideas, methods, and media, or become stagnant and settling into a rut at work, you might as well RETIRE (“Stage 5”). Instead, I direct you to revisit “Stage 3” in Bookends II here. As dedicated educators, the focus must be on constant retooling… reviewing/revising “best practices,” setting new goals, and building on the existing networks and engagement in the profession. These have always been the essential elements of a true professional.
Now I should mention that during our middle-years, we sometimes return to education, get advanced degrees, new certifications or teaching specialties, apply for new job assignments, etc. When my PMEA colleague and fellow music teacher retiree John D’Ascenzo left full-time teaching, he went on to pursue a doctorate degree. Also appropriate for our next Bookends section, I have often quoted his analogy for all career stages to “swim like a shark” (since a shark never stops moving, even when it is sleeping). Sage advice for us all!
During my whirlwind of more than five decades in the field of music education, I went through several “first-year-of-teaching” passages, such as accepting my first job in general music at Edgewood School District (1978-1980), then being hired to direct strings (grades 6-12) at Upper St. Clair School District in 1979 followed by a 16-year appointment to the USCHS choral program of over 200 singers in 1980 on… transitions requiring massive job retraining and revitalized professional development. I may have not appreciated the stress of these “hurry up and relearn” periods at the time, but these periodic challenges made me GROW. In the end, I “lived” and embraced Robert Frost’s poem, “The Road Not Taken.” It may have not been the initial pathway I imagined for myself when I started in music education, but “I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference.”
To this day, this violist and orchestra director has NO REGRETS teaching so many years outside of his so-called “specialty” or emphasis! It comes back to me every time I run into former choral or musical students, those I taught in those early years of being a vocal novice (at times when I felt less prepared). My past instrumentalists/singers/actors reminisce a little and literally rave about their musical experiences and what they meant to them.
My emphasis to foster success in our “veteran years” is also on teacher self-care: health and wellness, burnout prevention or remediation, stress and time management, and personal life and work balance.
Let’s start with examining the probable causes of STRESS in TEACHERS:
- Overwhelming workload, long hours, and/or challenging classroom situations
- Lack of administrative or social supports
- Feeling a lack of respect, loss of job autonomy, or not being valued or appreciated in the organization or assignment
- Dysfunctional or hostile work environment
- Inconsistent hydration and consumption of a balanced diet and healthy quantities (length, depth, and frequency) of rest and sleep
- Irregular amounts of daily aerobic physical exercise
- Misuse of the voice at work and inadequate hearing conservation and protection from over-exposure to sound
- Deficient scheduling of opportunities for mindfulness, meditation, and/or reflection
- Deprivation of personal outlets for creative self-expression (not related to job) and the lack of time to explore hobbies, interests, and socialization with family and friends
- Infrequent use of sick days or vacations even when they are needed for restorative health
We all have experienced at least a few of these “bumps along the road” (but hopefully NOT most of them). Although I generally had very supportive administrators throughout my years in the public schools (and no one would claim I exhibited any symptoms of “burnout”), I did model a few of the inconsistent habits of personal health (diet, sleep, etc.) and an unbalanced work/personal life schedule. And, perhaps it could be said that I did some of my best work totally exhausted!
As I have written in past blogs (especially here in “Burned Out or Bummed Out”), the best book I know on “teacher exhaustion” is by Paul Murphy (2017), and subtitled Why Teachers Are Do Tired and What They Can Do About It. I strongly recommend it as “a required read” for all new AND veteran teachers.
Besides being aware of your “body chemistry” (especially what the challenges of constant willpower, deferred gratification, and relentless scheduling can do to lower your blood glucose levels later in the day), to quote Murphy, some of his suggestions for remediation are NOT so easy to follow:
- Work less/fewer hours
- Time before school is worth more than twice as much as time after school
- Use class time to check work
- Leverage technology
- Don’t grade everything
- Stop assigning things
Sorry! My wife and I modeled the behavior of “more-than-full-time” music teachers with after-school rehearsals of marching bands, musicals, community orchestras, chamber ensembles, private lessons, music festival preparation, etc. How in the world do you work fewer hours? Also, since most music teachers do not assign “paper” homework requiring teacher correction, “checking for understanding” and in-class formative assessment could improve efficiency. Sometimes we are own worst enemies… We should “keep it simple” and focus on the priorities. That brings us to time management.
My favorite strategies for organizing our time and fostering a better work/life balance involve these resources (click on links below to past blogs at this site). PLEASE STUDY THESE!
- Priority Management (The Four D’s – Do it, Date it, Delegate it, or Delete it!) and the book Fewer Things, Better by Angela Watson in “Hacks to Help Music Teachers Organize”
- Easy Time-Saving Tips in “Hacks for Music Teachers Part 2”
I return to the “Four D’s” concepts several times in past writings, and the “system” can be applied digitally as well… as long as you make a concerted effort to take the necessary time (10-20 minutes) every day to manage the up-front decision-making to “do immediately,” file, or weed out most of the “voluminous noise” (distractions) you get in email, texts, voicemail, snail-mail, etc. Get ready to push the “delete” button… over and over again!
Then there are a few more ideas in “Top Ten Organizing Tips…” and any of the books by Stephen Covey (below). I particularly like the philosophy/demonstration attributed to him re: “start with the big rocks!”
Also, if you are a member of NAfME (National Association for Music Education), search their vast library of related blogs here, several articles to which I was fortunate to have contributed.
Final thoughts for the “sustaining years” of your profession and to avoid any touches of BURNOUT is to develop a self-care plan. My first go-to for building meaningful wellness habits comes from “What Self-Care Is and What it Isn’t.” In past health and wellness workshops, I echo these “basics.”
- Promote a nutritious, healthy diet, and hydrate often.
- Get enough sleep.
- Exercise.
- Follow-up with medical care.
- Use relaxation exercises and/or practice meditation.
- Spend enough time with loved ones.
- Do at least one relaxing activity every day, whether it’s taking a walk or spending 30 minutes unwinding.
- Do at least one pleasurable activity every day, from going to the cinema, cooking, or meeting with friends.
- Find opportunities to laugh.
Self-care can take many forms, such as physical, spiritual, and emotional self-care. It’s an important factor in maintaining health and well-being.
Self-care might range from a hot soak and yoga to everyday activities like preparing meals you want to eat or dressing in your choice of style.
Self-care is not an indulgence. The WHO recognizes it as a crucial aspect of health maintenance.
Tailoring self-care for your budget, season in life, and personal needs for whole body wellness, inside and out, can be energizing and exciting in itself.
– https://psychcentral.com/blog/what-self-care-is-and-what-it-isnt
Veteran full-time educators: To sustain and nurture success in the middle to twilight years of your career (Stage 4), seek to understand and practice personal wellness and work/life balance while continuing your pursuits in self-motivation, self-assessment, self-energizing, self-(re)invention, and “growing” personally and professionally, and if it becomes necessary, promote the diagnosis, prevention and self-remediation of debilitating stress and burnout.
PKF
© 2024 Paul K. Fox
Once the WHY has been determined, then the district must determine the WHAT. WHAT learning activities need to be offered to the students in the district in order to help them achieve the desired outcomes stated in the mission? The answer to that question should help determine the curriculum for music.
those hours would be scheduled, then the district must figure out exactly how many teachers will be needed to deliver that instruction and what qualifications those teachers should possess. The “WHO” part of the process – the staffing piece of the puzzle – should still be driven by the needs of the curriculum and should not change.
of the K-12 music program using the WHEN, WHO, HOW and WHERE pieces that we will have to work with.
Richard Victor is currently Adjunct Instructor for the University at Buffalo Graduate School Online.
No teacher will have any patience listening to your whining or remarks of “could have,” “would have,” or “should have been” excuses. What have we always wished for? “If only I had enough time to learn that new scale, étude, or song!” “With all of my other academic assignments, sports events, and extracurricular activities, how can I fit in moments for listening to bands, orchestras, or classical virtuoso artists performing on the web?” “When am I ever going to have the chance to compose…” (or “arrange” or “record” or “memorize” or “conduct” or “choreograph”) “…that piece?” “When will I get around to learn this new technique, practice sight-reading, or dive into those drills designed to improve my key literacy, rhythmic precision, tone, intonation, range, form, coordination, embouchure, stick rudiments, or bow control?
The mission of South Hills Junior Orchestra, which rehearses and performs at the Upper St. Clair High School in Pittsburgh, PA, is to support and nurture local school band and orchestra programs, to develop knowledge, understanding, performance skills, and an appreciation of music, to increase an individual member’s self-esteem and self-motivation, and to continue to advance a life-long study of music. Members of the Orchestra learn, grow, and achieve positions of leadership to serve their fellow players.
In my case, I had over 37 years where I had established an identity as a music director and as a soldier. Prior to retirement from the army, I was the senior music director in the U.S. Armed Forces and was on speed dial of many officials in the department of defense, the Congress, and of course, the media. I received 500 to 600 emails daily from all over the world. By the way, I also was leader and commander of the US Army Band “Pershing‘s Own,” one of the largest (and busiest) military music units in the world. Then, one day I was no longer in the army, my phone wasn’t ringing constantly, the email stopped, and my schedule was mostly free. Sounds great, right? As a band or orchestra director, you were probably the most well-known and well liked person in your community. You have students, parents, and administrators who rely on you. And then suddenly, you are not that person any longer. For each of us there are emotional/psychological, social/family, and financial impacts of this transition.
depression is related to spending time with their spouse.
been discussed about the “what,” “how,” and most recently, “where” of retirement, even issues of “privacy” regarding your decision. For a review of these areas and a bibliography of resources, please visit:
documented to a great extent, stress, burnout, and stage fright have become real concerns for music education majors completing their coursework, juries/recitals/concerts, methods exams, student teaching, and other field experiences. This may be affecting statistics on college enrollments, graduation rates, and job placements!
College funding
Music Teacher Education 
Learning to “manage your burdens,” class schedules, assignments, calendar, etc.
2009), “deep listening” as “a way of hearing in which we are fully present with what is happening in the moment” (Barbezat and Bush 2014), contemplative movement activities including methodologies of Orff, Kodaly, Dalcroze, and Gordon adapted for other music teaching contexts (Benedict, 2010), walking meditation, tai chi ch’uan, yoga, and labyrinth walking (Center for Contemplative Mind in Society, 2016), contemplative reading, writing, and other self-help practices.
“When musicians think about performing, they eventually think about performance anxiety — ‘stage fright.’ Performance anxiety can be defined as a physical and mental deviation from a ‘normal state’ and is perhaps one of the most misunderstood areas of performance practice… A reduction in anxiety levels especially with musicians with extensive formal training may actually diminish performance quality. For musicians with low mastery skills, the prudent approach would seem to be to undertake more formal training.” — Donald L. Hamann
Job placement
paulfox.blog 