Wow. It's May already. I mean, really? It was just Christmas Break, wasn't it?
Or was that Spring Break?
Huh. Well, either way, here we are. And where are we, exactly? We're at the end of another year of teaching. My twentieth, by the way. Twenty years teaching music to kids. I need to let that roll around in my head a little bit. Twenty years. It's funny, really. Twenty years ago I took a part-time gig at a local high school while I was finishing up my master's degree in conducting. I was planning on getting the degree and go straight to a doctoral program. Didn't know if it'd be in conducting or composition, but I knew I wasn't going to be teaching, that's for sure.
Boy, was I wrong about that. And thankfully so, I must add. That first year of teaching I fell in love with the kids, with the process, as archaic and bizarre as education can sometimes be, and I just ran with it. I remember being in the "teachers work room" my first week when an older teacher tried to run me out of there. "This is for teachers only," she snapped. I showed her my brand-new district ID and smiled. "I'm the new band guy," I said. She slunk off, embarrassed. And, now that I think about it, I never did see her again. I also remember how badly the choir teacher hated me and resented my ability to get through to students. Those two situations taught me my first two important lessons about teaching: 1) Learn to laugh; 2) Wherever there are people there are politics.
A couple years later I won a national composition prize while teaching here in my current district. I was a long-haired whipper-snapper who thought I was pretty big stuff. "Award-winning composer, that's me!" I thought. But, then as now, my students didn't really care about that. Or the conducting gigs across the country, or the fact that I have a hundred pieces published. Around here, I'm just Mr. Bishop.
I'm the Mr. Bishop who is up at school early in the morning and stays too late some afternoons. I'm the guy who writes the most amazing recommendation letters, well, as long you deserve a really amazing one. I'm good at writing letters that don't say much, either. But I try to avoid writing a bad one at least. I'm the Mr. Bishop who guides kids through the murky waters of college auditions and deals with the tears when the boy/girlfriend is found to be less than perfect. And I am the guy who gets to stand in front of the most amazing young people on this planet when they rise above themselves and play absolutely sublimely, if only for a moment. Because, at the end of the day, I'm just Mr. Bishop, their teacher.
Twenty years ago, sitting in the band office of that old high school in an urban core, I was daydreaming about writing movie soundtracks or conducting a major orchestra. Now, I'm sending students out to do just that. Two former students of mine were chosen, from two different masters programs, for the Yale School of Music doctoral program. I'm sending another student to major in composition for the first time in my career. And, I'm happy to report, he's already writing music better than I did when I was thirty! I've got several music teacher alums, too. And that makes me so very proud and happy.
May is rough. April is brutal - more required events (concerts, contests, festivals) than all the rest of the school year combined - and it doesn't let up until graduation. But, like tonight, as I'm sitting here in my studio with the sun streaming in, the fan in the window blowing in the smell of fresh cut grass, and the cat lounging nearby, waiting for a belly rub, there are moments in May that I harken back to that first year of teaching. That moment when I decided that I wouldn't be pursuing what I thought was my dream, but instead looked around me and saw that I was already exactly where I needed to be.
It's trite, but it's true: teachers often learn more from their students than the students learn from the teacher. And, as May bashes her way past me once more, ineloquently pushing me to the ground as she makes a mad dash for June, I think I'll just lie here in the cool, fresh cut grass and enjoy the view as I think about all I've learned these past twenty years.
And, if you happen to be one of those students from whom I have learned so much, I invite you to stop by, plop down in the grass beside me, grab a dandelion or two, and just sit and listen to the clouds pass overhead. And, if you can't do that, well, let's just leave it with "Thanks. I wouldn't be here today without you."
Peace,
Jeffrey
