Rhythms, Dissonance, and Seat Belts

What do rhythms, dissonance, and seat belts have in common?  I use these to describe what it is like to take on a new activity.  Or an extension of an old one.  I'm using these to talk about what it feels like to be new someplace.  I mean the kind of new when you have been here long enough for folks to know your face or name, but haven't quite been absorbed into the fabric and rhythms of the place, the job, or the community.  This isn't a bad thing - it just is what it is.  Only nobody ever really talks about what that is like.  The excitement or feeling of fulfillment one can have.  Or why it can feel a bit empty or lonely.

I have been thinking about this more just because I know my student teachers are having an experience close to this one right now.  They are in new schools, and will go to yet another new position in 5 or 10 weeks.  They are expected to jump right in, communicate with their on-site educators and their university supervisors, all while completing their electronic portfolios and being responsible to the university as students. And let's not forget, they are performing teaching duties during all of this.  If that doesn't cause some bifurcated identity issues, I don't think I know what would!  So part of my job, as I see it, is to point out the dissonance in what they are experiencing and help them adjust to whatever the rhythm their brand of dissonance presents.  Which means sometimes you will be in-sync with the world around you and other days, well, not so much.

I suddenly realized, after my second conversation on a Saturday with a slightly confused senior music major, that I could honestly relate to their sense of disequilibrium.  I float in and out of that space myself quite often to be honest!  I am upfront with my colleagues, and tease about my situation quite often. Just Wednesday, one said, "On cue?" and I said, "I HATE being new!" And though there are so many great things about coming to a new place, once the shine becomes a bit familiar, the large amount of information that still needs to be digested by the newcomer becomes indigestion at times!

For example, I was sitting in a meeting this week and three times had to ask what in the heck we were discussing. There were so many acronyms being thrown around, I couldn't quite keep up with the conversation. Once I asked about the acronyms, I missed the important part of the sentence. Only without knowing the acronym, I couldn't possibly understand what that important part was!  I figure I only got about half of what was discussed during the meeting.  Maybe that is a good thing, but somehow it simply makes me feel a bit more like I am standing in the fringe.

Another example was a training session.  I was trying to get some help on the front side of some technology work.  But the trainer said, "What questions do you have?" and all I could say was, "I don't know! I won't know until I sit down and don't know WHAT IT IS I don't know!" You know? In other words, sometimes it is only the direct application and experience that can bring you to the knowledge you need to create for yourself.

In academia, much like teaching music in the public schools, you are isolated in your classroom.  Unlike public school teaching, it isn't that my time is scheduled for me with passing periods and a specific lunchtime, but that I must schedule my time in a way to get everything done.  There is an assumption that coming through a doctoral program and entering the profession as a music teacher educator you know how to do that.  I didn't have a real cohort of people I came through a program with, so I am never really sure if I am doing things well or not well enough.  I watched my professors, I have asked lots of questions, and I have a sense of what I should do.  Or are my standards too high for now? Am I doing what I should be so they will keep me?  Am I working too hard or hardly enough? What is 20% of my time? What is 60% of my time? How do I figure out what MY time begins and the JOB time ends?  Are my experiences bringing me to any direct application of what I need to be doing? Or am I floundering around looking busy, only the busy-ness doesn't really matter?

At this point in time, it just feels to me that everyone (and I do mean the larger society of music teacher educators, everyone) seems to have a rhythm to going to conferences, teaching, writing, publishing, organizing their days, or the like. The sense is that I don't fit into that rhythm, and I don't know how to find it.  Having been through three public school teaching jobs, and then the big change back to school, and this last one into a new job, I realize that is a very normal part of adjusting.  I feel out-of-sync because I don't have a clue what in-sync might feel like.  Since nobody is harrumphing at me yet, I can only assume it appears I am in-sync with my colleagues and that I will figure all of this out.  Figuring it out is a lonely place at times.

Which brings me back to my student teachers.

Not only have they left the only thing they have ever known (being a student), they are immersed in the deep waters of teaching for the first time.  They may feel alone because they physically are separated from everyone and everything that is familiar or they may feel stress about living among different people and being away from campus and the professors who are still demanding work from them.  I wish I could tell them it gets better or that it will be okay.  It is normal. It doesn't get better, I suppose, it is just different.  And the transition from university to job to master teacher is an even longer and more arduous task for each of us personally.  Each change will bring those feelings back, and cause dissonance that brings further growth and development.  The good news is as we construct new knowledge about where we are now, it can inform both past, present and future!  Not having these experiences can cause stagnation, as we stop having to construct new ideas, new perspectives - new parts to who we are as people.

The path to constructing who we are is a bumpy ride.  I plan to fasten my own seat belt, and do the same for my student teachers, as we grow through the rest of the semester together!