For nearly a decade, I taught religious studies at a Reform Jewish synagogue school. The classes met one evening a week and I taught grades 10-12, in subjects ranging from Torah and Talmud text study to Jewish Ethics. Last year, after deciding that it was getting too hard for me to juggle the demands of lesson-planning and teaching with the demands of my day job, I chose not to return the following fall. This year off from teaching has been good for me. Even though the little bit of extra money would've been nice, it wasn't all that much for the amount of time I had to put in; and the time spent at home with Sweetie or out with friends has been worth it.
Of course, these things are bittersweet. Students who learned I wouldn't be returning for their senior year of high school were unhappy with my decision, and the truth is that I've missed some of them a lot. I just found out that one of my former students is heading off to a Very Good School In The East in the fall, to begin a college program in International Affairs. He's happy about his choice and by all counts is looking forward to the next phase of his life.
Earlier this year I was asked to come in and clinic with some students at the public high school where I'd taught marching band on and off for some 9 years (I've taught pagentry arts in various schools for over 20 years total). When the money dried up I stopped teaching there on a regular basis. This neatly coincided with my injury and subsequent decision to walk away from percussion, so it didn't feel like a huge loss at the time. But when I returned to Benson Tech and walked into the band room for my first drum clinic, memories came flooding back of all the years, all the sixty-second warmups and check-patterns and diggas and everything else.
Things have changed at my old school, and a million other high schools in America. Music departments have shut down and instruments lay idle, the result of budget cuts that threaten to close schools outright. Students come to class more poorly prepared academically, and more worried about their lives; many are living in homes where one or both parents have been unemployed for months or longer. And because middle school music programs went south some years back, the drummers I worked with could barely play a passable roll, and had to be taught stuff from scratch that I'd learned in fifth grade band. I was patient and they were willing, and by the end of three sessions with these guys (all I'd had time for, considering that I was doing it for free and my shop was entering its busy season), they didn't sound half bad. They even got a little mention in the local paper when they performed at a school assembly.
In all my years of teaching, whether music or religion, where did I do the most good? It's hard to tell.
I've occasionally thought of going back to teaching, even going as far as returning to school to get my certification so I could get a full-time job in the public schools. But the jobs have dried up; the schools are shrinking as parents pull their kids and move to other cities or transfer their kids to private schools; and the students who are left are mostly struggling with NCLB and the realities of living in a toilet economy. If I got a job it would most likely be out of state and at this point in my life, neither Sweetie nor I would be excited about leaving Oregon. So teaching is not a likely scenario for me anymore.
Still, I love what I did there and I love what I learned from my students. I hope that they all go out and succeed and have happy lives. Because really, there's not much more than that to life. Go out, do something good in the world and be happy.
Of course, these things are bittersweet. Students who learned I wouldn't be returning for their senior year of high school were unhappy with my decision, and the truth is that I've missed some of them a lot. I just found out that one of my former students is heading off to a Very Good School In The East in the fall, to begin a college program in International Affairs. He's happy about his choice and by all counts is looking forward to the next phase of his life.
Earlier this year I was asked to come in and clinic with some students at the public high school where I'd taught marching band on and off for some 9 years (I've taught pagentry arts in various schools for over 20 years total). When the money dried up I stopped teaching there on a regular basis. This neatly coincided with my injury and subsequent decision to walk away from percussion, so it didn't feel like a huge loss at the time. But when I returned to Benson Tech and walked into the band room for my first drum clinic, memories came flooding back of all the years, all the sixty-second warmups and check-patterns and diggas and everything else.
Things have changed at my old school, and a million other high schools in America. Music departments have shut down and instruments lay idle, the result of budget cuts that threaten to close schools outright. Students come to class more poorly prepared academically, and more worried about their lives; many are living in homes where one or both parents have been unemployed for months or longer. And because middle school music programs went south some years back, the drummers I worked with could barely play a passable roll, and had to be taught stuff from scratch that I'd learned in fifth grade band. I was patient and they were willing, and by the end of three sessions with these guys (all I'd had time for, considering that I was doing it for free and my shop was entering its busy season), they didn't sound half bad. They even got a little mention in the local paper when they performed at a school assembly.
In all my years of teaching, whether music or religion, where did I do the most good? It's hard to tell.
I've occasionally thought of going back to teaching, even going as far as returning to school to get my certification so I could get a full-time job in the public schools. But the jobs have dried up; the schools are shrinking as parents pull their kids and move to other cities or transfer their kids to private schools; and the students who are left are mostly struggling with NCLB and the realities of living in a toilet economy. If I got a job it would most likely be out of state and at this point in my life, neither Sweetie nor I would be excited about leaving Oregon. So teaching is not a likely scenario for me anymore.
Still, I love what I did there and I love what I learned from my students. I hope that they all go out and succeed and have happy lives. Because really, there's not much more than that to life.
Go out, do something good in the world and be happy.