I’ve had great highs in my teaching career. I’ve been a part of phenomenal concerts, I’ve facilitated amazing discussions, I’ve organized really great assemblies, and I’ve had great accomplishments as a department chair. In the moments of these things happenings, I intellectually know that they are great, and meaningful, but they don’t always feel that way. Sometimes it’s because I’m too concerned about making something work in the moment or skipping ahead to thinking how it can better in the future even before it’s done.
When things go well, it sets a higher standard, a way of working and a new norm. The reality is that not everything I do, can hit those highs. When things don’t repeat at that level as they didn’t for me this week, even though things can go very well, they don’t always feel that way. This is difficult for me to fully understand about my work as a teacher.
My 3rd graders and 5th graders performed this week at our Winter Program. Was it a bad performance? Not by any means. However, there were things that I could have done to better prepare them which would have raised it the level of past performance I’ve had with children of these age groups. This isn’t really about the children’s efforts, talent or dedication. This is about me. One of the major limits of students’ musical performance is the teacher’s ability to teach, and their practice as a teacher.
I’ll get specific. Usually for the rehearsals for this performance I have a seating chart and for how they stand on stage and how they sit in their auditorium seats. I didn’t have one ready for their first rehearsal. This meant that I had to do some of this arranging during the rehearsal, which meant that there was less time to work on musical factors. Why didn’t I have a seating chart done? Because my weekend before full of taking care of my children (actually biological kids, not my students), and family obligations. Once upon a time, like most teachers I’d spend a couple hours a weekend doing prep work for school. That’s not something that is as realistic for me at this point, and that’s really hard to accept.
Being a teacher means accepting that you will never be as prepared as you would like for your students, and that your to do list will never be done. Being a parent means that you can’t get all of the stuff done that you want in life, and you will always feel behind and ill-prepared for being an adult. Combine being a teacher and a parent, and it can be really a tough pill to swallow.
This is really hard, especially when I know how I was able to work before and how that got me to these highs. I can’t do it the same way right now. I have to figure out another way.
At some point this will change. My two sons will need less intense supervision. I’ll have more time to my own and for my work as teacher. Even with the limitations I have in my life, I will hit some highs this year, I already have, but it’s hard to process times when I can’t do what I wish, and I can’t be the teacher fully that I see in myself.
I knew that this was part of being a parent, but I didn't know how all of this would feel. As much as the smiles of my baby makes me happy, seeing my students perform lacking some things because of choices I made creates complicated feelings. I don't regret my decisions, but it doesn't feel like that all of the time.
This is what makes teaching and parenting so hard. Teachers success relies so much on outside time to work made available by the support of friends, partners and spouses. Parenting success relies heavily on dedicating all non-working time on children. These roles are at odds. They are on two sides of a scale and all you can do it stand in the middle as it tips back and forth trying to keep it balanced.
Winter break came just at the right time. I've got some processing to do. I don't think I've let anyone down, it just feels that way. I'm proud of how my students performed this past week. Some really amazing things happened, and I know I did the best I could for them with the time that I had, I just wish I had more time.
It's just a matter of time.
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