Advice to Young Teachers

At the far end of a long career, I think often about what useful advice I might pass on to the teachers coming up. Though music teachers are most often my audience, what follows can apply to teachers in any subject. And the first piece of advice is to know both your subject and your subjects—ie, kids!

 

The poet David Whyte speaks of getting his degree in Marine Biology and then going to the Galapagos Islands to work. He quickly discovered that the wildlife he encountered there hadn’t read the textbooks. They were not behaving according to plan!

 

Every teacher who gets an education degree and finally arrives in the classroom discovers the exact same phenomenon— the kids didn’t read the textbooks! For some inexplicable reason, they weren’t complying with your perfect lesson plan. Imagine that! 

 

So now your real teacher-training begins, class after class of stupendous failures and surprising successes. When people who complete my Level III Orff training and are “Orff-Certified Teachers” often ask what their next step is—a Music Ed Masters or PhD program/ year-long study at The Orff Institute/ additional certification in Kodaly or Dalcroze?—I tell them that any of that might be fine, but if they really want to become the best teachers they can be, the answer is simple: Teach kids for at least ten years. Ideally from 3-year- olds to 8^th grade. Everything you need to know about teaching can be learned by teaching. 

 

But not automatically so. To ensure true development, I suggest three habitual practices.

 

1)  Watch the children. When they’re happy, wholly engaged, musically successful, moving expressively, you’re doing something right. Follow that track! When they’re confused, bored, inexpressive, unhappy, something’s off. Which leads to:

 

2)  Pretend it’s your fault. No matter how hard you’ve planned the “perfect lesson,” kids won’t always follow your script. When things go awry, it could be that they hadn’t eaten breakfast, are not fully awake for their first period class, came in from recess mad at classmates who cheated in the game. It could be that their parents have never praised them, that other teachers have broken their confidence, that therapists have prescribed drugs that dampen their spirit, that there are unspoken traumas lodged in their bodies. It could be the particular chemistry of a particular class or the moon cycle or the daily news. You can’t control any of that. 

 

But if you pretend that it’s your fault (and some— or much— of it might be), that you moved too fast in your sequence or too slow or picked a piece that doesn’t resonate with them or you let your own fight with your partner last night leak into your class, then you have the perfect grist for the mill to improve your teaching. No extra shame or self-blame needed. Just adjust and re-adjust and see what happens. And know that you will never get it perfect. After 50 years of teaching, you may try out a new activity with the first class and make all the necessary mistakes that you immediately correct when the second class comes in.

 

3)  What else can we do? These are the five words that will keep teaching fresh and vibrant, help protect you from burn-out and boredom. It’s what distinguishes the teacher who teaches for thirty years from the teacher who teaches one year thirty times. 

 

Some people might teach kids for a few years and then move “up” to become university professors teaching young teachers or writing books about how to teach. For me, everything I teach to teachers came—and still comes—directly from the work with the children. Five years retired from teaching kids at my school, I could rest on my laurels and continue to teach teachers drawing from the vast repertoire I developed for over four decades. But here I am still teaching kids here, there and everywhere and still coming up with new ideas for old activities, new pieces, new stories as to how the kids responded. 

 

It's a wonderful life. And if you follow my advice, it could be yours! :-)