I was never a fan of failure.
Throughout my education, I always strove for straight As and high marks; I sought praise like the teacher's pet I was, and I was rarely satisfied with anything less than the best. Not my best, the best. Sure, I could admit that certain subjects weren't my strongest - chemistry and P.E., for instance - but that was no excuse for doing poorly.
In hindsight, it was a pretty easy thing to excel in school. Do the homework, write the papers, listen in class, get a good grade. So long as my teachers were following a rubric as they graded my work, I was fairly confident.
And cocky. Way too cocky for my own good.
Now it's biting me in the butt.
As a music teacher, I no longer have the privilege of having supportive teachers grade me with rubric in hand. There are no percentages and letter grades, notes home or report cards. But I still feel like I am graded, only this time my students are the ones with the metaphorical red pen.
Sometimes, I think my students are giving me an F.
I teach in two locations for two different programs. The first is during the day at a public school in an affluent neighborhood where I am the primary music teacher. I teach in the students' classrooms, usually with the teacher there to assist me if necessary. The classroom teacher can also help quell misbehavior, leaving me to focus more on what I am teaching. It's a pretty cushy job.
The other one is after school three days a week at a significantly less affluent school on the Lower East Side. Past SoHo, past the cute diners, past the wine bars and American Apparel store. If you go past all those you will eventually find yourself in an area where everyone struggles just a little more: families, children, and teachers alike.
In one particular Kindergarten classroom that I enter once a week to do music activities, the students have been getting progressively more antsy for the last few months. Back in November they were a fairly mild-mannered bunch, at least insomuch as they could find their way to stay in one designated area of the classroom and participate in music. They required a lot of guidance, reminders, and structure, but for a few weeks in late Fall they were functioning fairly well when I was in the classroom.
As the weather got colder and recess was more frequently moved indoors, individual students started posing more and more challenges to the overall harmony that had been fleetingly achieved. Like dandelions on a freshly mowed lawn, instances of misbehavior popped up everywhere and spread quickly.
Today I went in armed with a plan. I knew which activities I wanted to share with the students, including one that would review and reinforce the rules of our music time which have long been ignored. I intended to keep the energy high and everything moving along so the students would be swept up in the excitement in a way that would hopefully minimize disruptions. I was ready.
Of course, that was before I actually entered the classroom. And although things started off well, it didn't tale long for this girl to start poking that girl, that boy to crawl to the middle of the circle and spin on his knees, that boy starts crying because he wasn't one of the three children to offer an idea for the Hello
Song, and...well, you get the picture.
I tried to bring the focus back, and at some point I succeeded. For the next five minutes we had a rousing song session to review the music room rules, and they were doing great. But the moment that song was done they were back to their antics and I was wearing out. I tried transitioning to my next activity but it apparently wasn't nearly as interesting as I expected it to be and with ten minutes left I gave up.
Yup. I gave up.
The students were ordered to go back to their seats. The other educational leaders in the room lectured them while I, the dejected music teacher, stood by and listened as if they were in fact lecturing me. "Come on!" my ear heard. "You're the teacher! You're the one with the actual certification and you've lost control, given up. You've failed your students."
There is truth to the idea that we are our own worst critic, but I can't help but feel that I really am failing at this particular venture. What am I doing wrong? Or maybe it's not my fault. Maybe it's just poor parenting and poor classroom management during the day and not enough play time outdoors and it's too late and they're tired and none of this can be helped. I know there are other teachers who, when faced with this kind of adversity, blame the system and claim they can't do anything about it, but I can't let myself believe that's true. So I blame myself.
After that class I felt empty of any conviction that I'm a good teacher, which is interesting considering how bolstered I feel when teaching music at the school across town. It's hard for me to objectively assess what the problems are and how they can be addressed, worked with, and solved. Part of that is because I'm still a novice, but the other is because of the clouds drifting slowly and ominously through my consciousness, obscuring my judgment. Sometimes, I am my own worst enemy.
Failure in and of itself might not be so bad if I were the only one affected by it, but when a classroom of students loses out on music because of my inability to keep their attention, I have failed 20 others. I can only hope they will forgive me and try again with me next week.
