Mentoring Ideas Steve Litwiller, Mentoring Chair
The Rut of Spring
“The Rut of Spring” is a seasonal condition typically experienced by music educators at the end of an academic year. It can appear without warning whether you just finished your 40th year or your first year. All of us have been there. Concerts and festivals are over, you are turning in grades, inventory, budget requests, and making final preparations for the last school day. By this time the teacher brain and body are crispy-fried to a crackling crunch. The Rut occurs at any point of the spectrum between the following teaching scenarios.
If your classes were perfect, the concerts received rave reviews, and all your groups received superior ratings at festival, then congratulations. If you are planning on doing exactly the same thing that worked this year for next year’s classes you could be in for some unpleasant surprises next year.
Successful teachers know that to stay on top of their game, they need to look for new literature, techniques, methods, and ideas. The craft of teaching requires thought, study, and growth to improve your personal competence. If you plan on doing the same thing without considering different approaches,
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you are careening into “Spring Rut.” Classes change, students change, so be ready with new concepts to adapt for next fall. Be grateful for this year’s accomplishments, but don’t be satisfied! Even if you had an outstanding year there is always more to learn about this challenging profession.
Now suppose you had a tough year. The soprano’s hair caught fire from a candelabra during the Madrigal Feast, an auxiliary member impaled the percussion judge during a field show competition, or a third grader upchucked in the recorder bin. Maybe the contest judge suggested you pursue a career in administration or auto mechanics. Every teacher has some less than successful and downright embarrassing experiences in music education. The trick is not to do the same things you did this year and expect to improve. If you repeat with the same methods and philosophies you used during a year with bad outcomes you will most certainly get the same result. The Rut will invade with a vengeance.
If all learning is error correction, then you’ve learned a lot about WHAT NOT TO DO. Those who become great teachers learn from
their mistakes and seek answers from successful colleagues. When you first sang a song or started an instrument you were probably cute as a button. Your parents, relatives, and family friends said that you were ready for Carnegie Hall or the Grand Old Opry. By now you probably realize while you were, in fact, pretty darned cute, you were far from competent in your early attempts at music. It took years of practice and study to build the skills that were necessary to perform on the collegiate level. With that perspective you must recognize that it is unrealistic to expect to blossom into a master teacher during the first nine months in front of a class. Just like good musicianship, the teaching profession requires study, practice, analysis, and most importantly a strong work ethic.
So contact respected teachers in your area for advice. Look in this magazine and plan on attending MACDA, MoASTA, or MBA Summer (or annual) Conventions. Consider signing up for the Kodaly or Orff workshops that are offered in Missouri. Grad School? Great! Bring your questions about how to improve on what you did this past year. The greatest
See LITWILLER, pg . 40 MISSOURI SCHOOL MUSIC | Volume 71, Number 4
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