Everything happens for a reason.

In an odd coincidence, I was asked a question regarding my reasoning for being a teacher twice on Tuesday.  I had a job interview (not for a teaching position) and one of the only questions I was asked was “so why did you decide to become a teacher?”  Later on that night, I was catching up with an old friend, and we started talking about my internship.  The same question popped up!  I found it rather peculiar that I answered the question twice.  The reason for me deciding to pursue a path in education has never changed.

I taught guitar lessons to students from ages 5-45 for about two years when I was living in Sherwood Park, AB.  This job came to me through a man who had started his own contracting company that dealt with music lessons.  He would get the calls from parents or potential students who were interested in lessons, and from there, he’d send out a selection of those people to me (as I was not the only contract teacher that he had).  In my first year, I had twenty students.  Most of the students that I taught had little to no experience.  At the time, I had thought teaching guitar was fairly easy and fun.  The job paid well, but was not full time as lessons were once a week for half an hour.  To fill in my extra hours, I picked up a job at Superstore.

Working at Superstore was an absolute joke.  The pay was terrible, the vast majority of the management were complete tools, and the work was mindless and excruciating.  I had three or four friends who worked in the same department that kept me on the edge of sanity, as I was clearly about to jump off it most of the time.  My shifts lasted around the 5-6 hour mark and they crawled by me at a snail’s pace.  It was misery.  To say the least, the last thing I wanted to do when I got home from such a shift was work another job.

Regardless, I didn’t have a choice.  I’d come home, and prepare for the 4-5 lessons I had to teach usually an hour after I got off work at Superstore.  I’d either get in my car or set up chairs and amps in my room, as certain lessons were taught out of the students’ homes, and some were taught in my room!  Pretty cozy work environment.  I started to realize that the environment I worked in played a significant role in the overall enjoyment of my job.  I also discovered that communicating with people was another aspect of working that I enjoyed, so long as that communication was constructive and/or positive.

My guitar teaching calendar ran on the same calendar as the kids’ school calendars.  Therefor I started up in September and finished mid-June.  During the finishing months of my lessons, I started to realize something profound: my students were learning. In the course of the year, I was literally witnessing the progress they had made as guitar players.  Some were playing along to their favourite green day songs on CD, while before, they couldn’t remember how to finger specific chords.  Some of the students had learned simplified versions of solos of AC/DC, and could play along in accompaniment, where before they had troubles picking the right strings.  I had specific students who could have been considered at the top of the class, had I taught all 20 at once.  They were playing songs with the skill level of a third or fourth year player.

In realizing that my students were learning, another light bulb illuminated!  Was I responsible for this progress?  Well no, not entirely.  Did I have a hand in it?  Absolutely.  I provided the students with the tools necessary to succeed, along with the encouragement that was due to them.  On top of that, I loved every single minute of it, even the minutes with the students that never practiced.  Thus, the energy I was bringing to the table became contagious.  My students loved it all the same as I did.  It became starkly clear that I had tapped into something I had never experienced before.  Kind of like the first time you’re conscious of the love you have for something or someone.  What I had tapped into was the notion that the reward of seeing my students succeed in their goals, and having a part in it, was more rewarding than getting paid to do it.  No matter how worn down I was by my mundane job at Superstore, I never had a bad day teaching guitar.  Never.

As I spoke with my friend on Tuesday, he said something to me that concerned him.  He wanted to know that I wasn’t one of those teachers that got into it because I felt it was the only thing I could get through in university.  I needed clarity.  What did he mean by this?  That education was among the simplest of programs in university?  No, he meant that he wanted to make sure I had my reasons lined up for why I chose education, as opposed to choosing by default because I wasn’t interested in anything else there.  I assured him this was not the case.  Not once did I choose to be in education simply because the other academic paths did not appeal to me.  Not only that, when I came to all those realizations of what teaching meant to me back in 2005-2006, I wondered why my own education couldn’t have been as exciting as this had proven to be.  I had so many teachers whose influence on me was more negative than positive.  Not one teacher that I had made me stand up and say: “What you do is incredible!  I want to do what you do for a living!”  Quite the opposite, in fact.  I had more teachers than I could count who made me want to say: “You blow at this, and I could do it much better than you.”  Now I’m not trying to boast, but I believe that if anyone cared enough to change something they saw being done wrong, they would.  It only makes sense that I should do this.  The fact that I love it and that I feel it’s a personal duty to the world around me act as motivators for one another, in that if I lose faith in one, the other picks up the slack.

In the end, I know why I’m here.  I’ve had doubts and second thoughts, but I believe that’s a part of the learning process in reaffirming that I’m on the right path.  This internship has been one of those reaffirmations.

Musical Theatre Part 2

Perhaps it was how it should have been, my late arrival for a behind-the-scenes look at a high school musical.  I was not that late mind you, but because of my timing, the first thing I was to experience upon walking down the music hallway to the backstage area was a student approaching Sophie Yannitsos, the director and a former prof of mine, to inquire about the “burn victim.”  A Campbell Collegiate musical going full force with burn victims, sprained ankles and illness.  Apparently, a student who was involved in the production was making cookies and had an accident.  Another student slipped on the pavement outside the school while on her way inside.  One more student nearly fainted before heading on stage due to a high fever.  All of this, and the show goes on as planned.

I was asked to observe the inner workings of the Campbell Collegiate musical Guys and Dolls from backstage, after being an audience member the night before.  I can say right now I was not sure what to expect, and although I was put to “work,” the team behind this production did not by any means need me there.  I was basically getting a feel for some of the responsibilities the students and teachers had.

Sophia introduced me to two students moments after I arrived, John and Sarah.  Both of them were backstage crew, John being one of the aids in changing sets and props, while Sarah was in charge of communicating with the crew in charge of lighting, and making sure the curtains opened and closed at the proper points on stage left.  I am sure the two students were in charge of much more, but that is not what this reflection is about.

As I mentioned before, although I was observing, I was also helping out wherever needed backstage.  After a brief opening speech to the cast & crew members from Deidre Baird, who is my prof and a teacher in the musical theatre class at Campbell, the students were off to begin the performance.  One students rushed past me in a panic saying to herself: “I should have used hairspray!”  I chuckled silently to myself.  I found John and Sarah and began my crash course on stage management.  Open and closing curtains and moving set props were my sole duties aside from the real duty my prof had given me.  John led me through the different set names: Broadway, Off Broadway, interior mission, hot box, Havana.  Crew members would tell everyone which scene was up next and we would be off to set it up.  In between set changes I would be talking with Sophia and watching the students do their parts on the stage for a Friday night audience.  In my experience I was also able to meet some of the actors from Thursday night’s show, who were now helping out backstage as well.  The performance had been set up so different lead parts were played by alternating actors on a nightly basis.  A very good way to get everyone involved equally.

The show went on without any major incident, aside from an actor being MIA before his scene was about to begin.  He was found and that was that.  During my time spent with Sophia backstage, we got to talking about some of the student/actors.  I found out that some of them had previous theatre experience, including works at The Globe Theatre.  Sophie let me know that the majority of them were quite humble with their experiences.  It seemed as though this student body was in this performance for each other, together, which was very inspiring to see.

After seeing the performance as an audience member the night before, I was aware that this production probably took a lot of work.  Getting backstage was able to shed some light on that.  Sophie explained to me that much of the set, costumes and props were either donated or borrowed from families or other schools, or purchased by the school.  It was rather baffling to me as to how many costumes were being used in this production, and for a while, I took time to think of just how much organization and resourcefulness was needed on the part of the teachers leading these students.  It might have been the students claiming responsibility for much of the production, but there were teachers still helping out with every aspect of the performance.  A teacher in the box behind the audience, a teacher backstage, a teacher conducting the live music to accompany the show.  This was a collaborative effort among many people, students and teachers alike, and it had been going on since the beginning of the school year in September.  It was in this realization that I became momentarily overwhelmed.  Where does someone even begin to get something like this moving?

Someone once had told me that the better you are at being a teacher, the less work you will have to do.  I think this person meant to say it would feel much less like work and much more like something else, if you were good at it.  It is being witness to experiences like these that make me so passionate and anxious to find my niche as an educator so this can be possible for me.  With that, I do not think a teacher should think that the weight is all on him/her.  Students will be taking on that weight themselves more and more as you progress and gain strength as a teacher in your endeavors.  Given that all the teachers working backstage at Guys and Dolls have had years and years of experience as teachers, I think this might have been the case, which offered great possibilities for success on the part of everybody involved.

At the end of the performance, the students gathered backstage for their summarizing speech from Deidre.  She spoke to the students about the next night’s performance and how it would be their last, saying: “After tomorrow night, you will never do this again.”  I am sure in reading that, it sounds cryptic.  Allow me to add some depth to the statement.  These students collectively gathered for almost an entire semester to put together a musical that would be performed for four of those days.  When it is over, the experience of everyone involved will be left to memory.  Deidre was trying to let the students know that even though they might work on future musicals, each experience will be one of a kind, and it is important to realize the significance of that while it is happening and not necessarily after everything’s done and over with.

How the students’ situations relate so much to that of the teachers’.

Follow the Water

I’m considering the following:

This band is called Architects.  They are from the UK, and have been a band for some 3-4 years, that we know of.  Their first international release was in 2006, so that is why I say they have been around for 3-4 years that we know of.  Their biography, according to Wikipedia, says they’ve been active since 2004.  The video that I’ve posted is their latest video taken from their new album “Hollow Crown.”  If you have watched the video, you will definitely notice the music is very high energy, complex in style, and follows a significantly different song structure than most songs you’d hear on the radio.  You will also notice the members of Architects appear to be quite young.  That is because they are.  Architects released their first album when they were just 18 years old.  That was three years ago.  That would make them around the age of 21 now in this video.

Putting personal opinions of the metal and/or hardcore genre aside, this band has some phenomenally talented artists.  Two guitarists that can write extremely intricate riffs (guitar parts) and leads, a drummer and bassist that have the technicality to follow these continually intricate riffs with seeming ease and fluidity, and a vocalist that can literally scream out his emotions through an angst-riddled 40 minute album, all while still maintaining a perfectly capable singing voice to accompany it (if you need proof of that, you should watch the WHOLE video as posted above.)

Alright Justin, get to the point.

My point is, these kids started playing/writing this kind of music before the age of 18.  This would mean that, literally, these kids were playing this way while they were still in high school.  If there are any musicians reading this, you will immediately understand that what these now young adults are doing requires an unbelievable amount of practice, patience and creativity.  Any people who are not musicians, I simply have this to say:

Learning an instrument is no overnight process.  It can take years to learn the fundamentals and apply them to an instrument, and even more years to become good at them.  It can then take a lifetime to master the instrument in its capabilities, but many would stress that that’s just the beginning. Furthermore, it is one thing to sit at home and jam to other people’s music, learning what has been written and being able to play it flawlessly.  It is another thing entirely to take what you’ve learned from other artists and construct your own music (especially of this genre) reflecting the emotions that you are now feeling, instead of reflecting the emotions of someone else’s music.  Finally, the degree of creativity, insight, oral skill, timing and critical thought is, without doubt, immeasurable to me at the point where one artist joins with 2 or more other artists and collaborates it all into a composition, and makes that composition enjoyable enough that one or many could profit from it in some form.  I have been playing guitar for over a decade and am nowhere near at the skill level that the members of Architects are at now, and they’re three years younger than I am.

Previous Architects albums were completely progressive in nature.  When referring to progressive in music, one is saying that there is little or no song structure.  This means that an Architects album listens like a book reads.  Beginning to end, there is almost no repetition.  The entire album is a story.  There are no catchy choruses and repeated verses.  There is no bridge to proceed the final chorus of the song.  There are musical parts connecting other musical parts, some different 10 to 30+ sections in one song that flow into each other with just as much ease as a traditional 3 section song on the radio: Verse, Chorus, Verse, Chorus, Bridge, Chorus.  Such was, at one point, never the case with Architects.

THIS BEGS THE QUESTION(S):

Who the **** was teaching the members of Architects how to play, or sing/scream?  How about how to write, or work collaboratively with others?  How about how to manage a band and tour around the world before you’re legal drinking age in certain countries?  How about how to express emotion artistically?  Or how to translate that artistic creation into a social context, creating values, morals and beliefs? More so, whomever it was, HOW did they do it?

Let’s get something clear here.  The chances that all of these young adults had the time to graduate from an educational institution is slim.  I would go as far to also say that the majority of them probably were not even interested in the teachings their schools were providing them.  Given the time they spent to become the ridiculously skilled artists they are now, they probably had little time to attend class, let alone do homework, let alone study for a test, or involve themselves continually in a infinitely vast social experience such as high school.

So, back to the point.  Who do you think taught Architects to be who they are now?  How do you think they did it?  If you were a teacher of one of these young adults, how would you go about teaching or supporting this individual?  Would you grade him poorly for missing class?  Would you support his efforts for success in his music endeavors?  Would you try to find somebody to help him or would you take the time to help him yourself?  What if he rejected your help?  I feel like my questions are literally endless.

If you think that Architects taught themselves, you could most certainly be right.  I have no way of confirming that you are, but if you are, it goes to show that with the right amount of dedication, it’s possible to teach yourself anything nowadays.

…So why are we (as teachers) here?

I’m considering the aforementioned.