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By Amelia Armstrong
There are those new teachers who wish with all their hearts that they could travel back in time, and fix some of the rookie mistakes we all make. Then there are the few who would like to be zapped into the future to know what to expect and how to prepare. Of course, like most odd ducks, if I could rub the magic lamp and get my wish, it would be to live in the PRESENT, even if only for a day! I dream of a calendar with only one square so that I can focus on doing my best, one day at a time. Instead, reality shows me that with my eyes constantly on the goal at the top of the staircase, it’s easy to miss a few stairs. I am proud to be a music teacher. I may not have a lunch packed for today, or remember that we have a special pep assembly that cuts my class time in half, but I can certainly tell you the date of my spring concert in 2009. According to the rotation in our new music conference, we should be prepared to host our district Solo and Ensemble festival in 2011, and to be honest, my colleagues and I have already sat down and talked logistics. I spend countless hours of my day, and even my summer, choosing music for the future, finding dates for the next year’s concerts, and getting my students ready for the next festival, concert, honor choir, or audition. I feel like I am constantly living in an alternate universe of calendars, phonebooks and itineraries. Recently I spent an hour on the phone trying to iron out the details for my vocal jazz group to perform next year. By the time I hung up, I knew what time we would be having warm-ups, the length of the performance, what the kids would eat for lunch, and what they would wear. I grinned to myself, and had just started imagining the big event, when it dawned on me that I had just finished auditions for next year’s group and didn’t even know who the members would be! My brain tossed aside the fact that I still had a major performance to present with the current year’s group. Soon my perfect gig came crashing down as I realized that I had no idea what my students' schedules would be, and if they would even be able to attend this performance, let alone rehearse for it. While booking this event, I had apparently entered “future-view,” where every teacher’s far-distant plans twinkle like stars, involve little effort, and suffer no mishaps. When you work in a school, “future-view” is hard to fight. I probably attend six or seven meetings per year to iron out event dates for the following school year, or often, the next decade. No matter if we are scheduling for our auditorium, our building, or our conference, we all inevitably lean into the table to stalk our prey – the calendar. I like to imagine that our activity director is a mama bird, and the blank activity calendar is the worm brought home to feed her chicks. This worm should be more than plenty, but with 79 chicks all waiting to peck out their fair share, the poor worm won’t last long. When all is said, squabbled, compromised and done, I’m left with a sheet full of scribbled dates for 2017, and absolutely no clue how many lessons I’m teaching after school, or what I will make for dinner. The point is that educators must look ahead to what’s next in order to keep students focused in the here-and-now. We’ve got to be crazy scheduling maniacs in order to provide the most opportunities for young people to grow. The flip side is that as young professionals, we don’t have to let future planning remove us from the present. What’s the destination without the journey? We need to simply chant to ourselves, “Slow down, focus on now.” Of course, if your students aren’t already accustomed to you singing and talking to yourself, they may find the chant a bit strange. If I were to teach a college course titled “Teachers: Planning for the Present,” I would instruct my students to do the following activities every day:
Posted August 28, 2006 |
Amelia Armstrong is vocal director at Platteville High School.
She began her teaching career in September of 2004.