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!

The First Page...

This past week was orientation for my new job. It was roughly 8AM until 5PM each day, with so much information, my head is still pulsing! It is amazing how ready you can think you are and still have only scratched the surface of what you need to know! I have so many papers...so many notes...so much to still make decisions on...and yet, all I can think about is that first week of classes with my students.

On my walk to the campus each day, I tried to take it all in. The way it looks without students, the sounds of the bushes being clipped, the sticky breeze that is the south...I tried to attend to all my senses as I sorted through the emotions of the day. I wanted to stay in the moment, and pull everything I could from it. And I won't say I always felt the same way about the meetings, as I don't sit still very well, but I did try!

I really connected with this place in the process - I have found it to be very friendly, warm, and welcoming. A place where people go out of their way to make you feel a part of the group. Nobody will simply leave you alone, or allow you stand alone in a corner. Even the students seem to recognize instantly that I am new and ask for introductions! Some have already figured out who I am (I had forgotten my picture is already published) and have called me by name. There is so much pride in the school, such a strong identity, that I can't help but be pulled along. I also have the sense that I need to live up to those expectations, which continues to make the process of beginning the first page of a new job a little more unnerving!

I won't be Pollyanna and talk about the wonderful world of higher education. Let's be real and accept that this is a rough time to start out at this level (or any education level at all), with expectations high, pay low, and some political problems that make K-12 public school teaching look tempting again. The pressures are real, the problems are deep, and changes need to be made. And it may be my job to figure out how to be a part of the solution and not get caught up in the whirling waters of dissent and negativity. Yet, I get the feeling this is a 'scrappy' place when it comes to toughing it out. And I mean that as a compliment! At least, that is my sense at the beginning of things - the message is this: Yes, things are bad. Yes, they have gotten worse. But we have students to teach, and a new generation to help...and that is what we must do, by hook or by crook.

It makes me sad that education is still struggling, but I love that sense of digging into the problems that face us and not walking away. Not giving up or giving in. Standing tall against the voices of craziness that I hear all too often. I felt a sense of solidarity, of a group of people who may agree to disagree, but can actually find common ground to solve problems. Problems that are never simple to fix, but complex and difficult. Not in a manner that is perfect, nor pretty, but messy, ugly, and bumpy, where difficult moments lead to solutions and a better future.

So this is how I can be optimistic about such a difficult time - I am in a great place. I can be thrilled to be doing what I love to do - teaching music to others - and revel in the bone-weary exhaustion that sometimes comes in doing a job well. I almost need to pinch myself - I was teaching high school band in Indiana only 5 years ago - and here I am, living something that I often thought was just a dream! The butterflies in my stomach grow daily and I can't wait to actually meet all the students and start the good work and fight the good fight. The first page of the experience here has been written...and I can't wait to write the next!

Tentative First Steps

I attended my first conference solo this week (ok, so it was a colloquium, which IS different, but let's toss that aside for the time being). I was slightly apprehensive with a sense of anxiety I expressed physically through a tight and heavy feeling in my throat. It is a vague anxiety, like a shadow of an emotion you just can't quite express or shake off. I confronted this by talking through it a few days earlier with friends, and admitting that stepping out on my own was difficult, actually made these feelings seem less nebulous and easier to contain. It occurred to me that I needed to admit I like routines, organization, structure, and social situations which are comfortable. Yet I have to force myself out of security and encounter situations that will help me to continue to grow.

As I traveled to Ohio, I thought about the journey of the last four years and the number of times I had to step away from what I was comfortable with and confront some of my own perceptions and perspectives. I realized that even though there was some anxiety involved with being alone at a conference to talk about teaching music education in higher education, it was much more subdued than it was two years ago when I went to Virginia for a similar colloquium. I have changed quite a bit in the last four years! Perhaps this is a metamorphosis, though never complete, I will look back on later and understand much more clearly.

I realized before our first meeting that I knew few people, and those I did know, I knew only through their work or brief introductions at other conferences. It was up to me to introduce myself again and insert myself into the established social groups. It was wonderful to be asked to join a dinner party right away, and find the conversation easy and accepting from the beginning. As I have found in the circle of higher ed music teacher educators, this is not atypical behavior. I would venture to say there appears to be less posturing than I felt in the public school teaching settings, and less of a clique. I find my colleagues to be warm, receptive, and willing to listen more than they talk. For the most part anyway! So there were only a few moments that I actually felt socially-inept or awkward through the four days I spent there.

Here is the really interesting part for me. As I am eternally interested in the way we construct our identities in these settings, I started to discuss the difficulties one has becoming part of the larger profession from a personal standpoint. This particular colloquium has established a community of learners, and has broken down barriers to participation in the group. However, every profession has established traditions of acceptance into the profession that are both articulated and unarticulated. The nice thing was that I felt accepted enough to call on the ways in which I feel, coming in the fringes of the profession since I first entered teaching as a neophyte over 3o years ago! And in that moment, there was a connection from many in my discussion circle and beyond, showering me with viewpoints that were both profound and personal. This was quite assuring to me but also got me thinking about how we share our own induction experiences with those on their own journeys in.

Understand that this transition is not one where I feel unaccepted or unappreciated. I do not feel that I can not or will not fit into the profession. I understand from life experiences that it takes time to walk the walk and learn the ropes so that I may feel I am a part of my new peer group. Yet it was this experience that made me begin to reflect on what my preservice teachers experience as they are inducted into the profession. As I take this journey into higher education full-time, I need to be aware of the ways in which I negotiate the path of a new job, where my skills may or may not serve me well, and how I adapt to these demands, and how this can inform how I share lessons from these experiences with my students. Or ways through which I can help them develop the resilience to learn for themselves.

And today on the way home, I thought about my fears. Are they really that different than the fears of the students I teach? Fears of 'will my peers accept me?', 'Do I know enough?', Is what I know enough?', or 'Will someone figure out I don't always know what I am doing?' Perhaps I travel through those thoughts at lightening speed compared to my students, but they are there under the surface. It has given me food for thought, and an impetus to continue to document the journey. And today, I am very thankful that the professionals I met this weekend not only opened the door, but invited me in.