I learned many things from my teacher interview about my teacher that I never thought that I would understand. I think it’s so interesting to hear from a teacher’s perspective because you only ever experience it as a student. What my teacher had said to me was both inspiring and a little bit scary, consider these are all things and issues I’ll have to consider when I begin teaching. With that being said, I’m extremely excited to apply what I’ve learned and see what I can take from it.
My teacher first started teaching beginner piano when she was 12 to her neighbours kids who were younger than her. She said that she really enjoyed teaching one-on-one but also got the opportunity in high school to teach an entire class and that was when she realized she enjoyed classroom teaching. My teacher had also graduated from Western’s Music Education program, which was cool because I got some insight on what she had learned and how she felt the program directed her. She felt there was a lot of emphasis on ensemble conducting and teaching. My teacher also had a similar dilemma that I have been trying to figure out myself; whether or not the education or performance path was the one for us. I know personally, I want to teach in the future and I have a strong passion for education in general, but also believe that the best way to learn how to teach is to go through training as a performer so I have personal experience as well as educational theory background to help me. She felt the same way as she was encouraged to do performance however she was very much interested in teaching.
I had worked with my teacher through junior jazz choir, chamber and concert choir, as well as both my 11th and 12th year of music so I had a well-versed idea of her teaching style. An interesting thing that my teacher brought up was that a lot of how she teaches in choir and jazz choir and she compared that to also how she directs a church choir. She says that it’s super exciting when she gets to work with ensembles that are eager to learn but start off at a basic level of musicianship. But the issue lays with being in environments where the students may not be as interested or want to be there. I know one reason why I felt pretty blind to this kind of situation was because I had attended a performing arts school where everyone who was in the program had to audition for a spot, so everyone - for the most - had motivation to strive in this school. But she explained how, realistically, I won’t necessarily be placed in a school where I will be surrounded with an extremely motivated or gifted program of musicians. That being said, I’d really have to understand how to make sure the environment I’m teaching in is good for the level that the class needs. My experience conducting my own boys choir at my high school helped me understand this and she also had something to say about that as well. In an ensemble, if you pick an appropriately levelled piece as well as repertoire that is exciting and also somewhat challenged, the music will take over the environment and help it become interesting and always fun. “The right music for the group is the thing that moves them” is the way she put it, it creates a sort of joint ownership between the students/choristers and choir director. However, she felt that stepping into new ensembles and figuring out the vibe comes easier with time, because you just become more experienced and you can sort of figure out who are the people are that we keen and excited to be there and the people who don’t really step out of their bubble.
What inspired me about talking to her as well is that, upon this year starting, she is now also in charge of this year’s musical pit band, whereas she had always been doing choral/jazz choir ensembles. However, she openly accepted the position with eagerness to lead the group to success even though she hasn’t experience many band ensembles in a while, which excited her and inspired her to be more into it. I asked her about the differences between directing these two different ensembles (pit band. vs chamber choir) and she said the way that you direct the pit band is a lot more repetitious and “drilling” based whereas a choir is a less of that. She describes the mind space extremely different but the same kind of idea; the drilling has to be done in a different way so that it doesn’t seem like relentless singing of the same part, whereas instrumentalists expect that.
Backing off of that idea, she talks about how at Cawthra, since it’s an arts school there’s an entire faculty of music teachers in addition to herself as the head. They can all rely on each other and help each other out with musical things. But also that comes to the reality that potentially when I enter the teaching work force, I may be one of 2 or the only music teacher running the entire program, therefore all decisions will be made by me.
Interviewing my high school music teacher was interesting, because I felt like I got to learn more about her job as a teacher and the way she views teaching rather than from my own point of view as a student.