“The longer I live, the more I realize the impact of attitude on life. Attitude, to me, is more important than facts. It is more important than the past, the education, the money, than circumstances, than failure, than successes, than what other people think or say or do. It is more important than appearance, giftedness or skill. It will make or break a company... a church... a home. The remarkable thing is we have a choice everyday regarding the attitude we will embrace for that day. We cannot change our past... we cannot change the fact that people will act in a certain way. We cannot change the inevitable. The only thing we can do is play on the one string we have, and that is our attitude. I am convinced that life is 10% what happens to me and 90% of how I react to it. And so it is with you... we are in charge of our Attitudes.” - Charles Swindoll
"It's all invented!" - Benjamin Zander
In the last 15 hours or so I've had what might be a timely breakthrough, or at least the seeds for one. As far as what any of it has to do with music, or teaching, I'll get to that later, but the answer is, "Quite a bit."
Last night around 11 or so I went to Denny's to unwind. One of my favorite ways to unwind in recent years is to go to a place with coffee and do some planning. Instead of working on academia, I work on something else. But I'm productive. Maybe that sounds strange to you, or maybe not. Regardless, I prefer that or positive conversation to "veging-out".
When I was an Active Member of Kappa Kappa Psi, I spent that time planning or organizing something related to my office. Since I became Conditional just over a year ago, I've instead directed that energy towards my future as a music educator, or specifically a band director. For example, I've read books on inspired teaching (a couple), rehearsal techniques, running a marching band program, and running a total band program. I've brainstormed what my programs would look like, and various other things.
Last night I decided to start tackling the development of my leadership training materials. I've already outlined the curriculum for a Leadership Camp as well as a partial curriculum for masterclasses during Summer Camps. I'm now moving into a phase with my camp planning that I'm getting more specific than just topics, schedules, etc. etc. So I wanted to start working on those things.
After an hour of talking to a former ASU Music student (much older man than me), I finally got to work.
I started with the most basic, Role Modeling or Leadership by Example. Eventually I got to Constructive Leadership vs. Destructive Leadership, and so on, until I eventually started on the most complex topic, and what would surely be the first and possibly most fun session: "Attitude". I'm not 100% sure how I'll accomplish this yet, but my ideal attitude session involves not just explaining something to the students, but also putting them through activities where they experience the differences for themselves and hopefully buy in, thus planting the seeds for their own attitude breakthrough and consequent revolution.
Anyway, I remember writing about how you choose your mental reactions, whether you realize it or not, and later about how everything is what you make of it, like how failure can become growth and how whether you say you can, or you can't, you're right. To be honest, I was still really brainstorming the session. I was trying to throw in some specifics, but I found I was having a difficult time with it.
Interestingly enough, I've been having a tough time with some of these concepts myself. In high school I had them down pat. When the "Bad Old Days" came in my first two years of college, I often beat myself up more because I couldn't recapture it. And lately I've been finding it difficult to control my attitude, and my mental reactions to things. It's funny because every time I think I've reclaimed everything I lost during the "Bad Old Days", I eventually find something else I haven't fixed yet. Actually, I made some progress on this after meeting Benjamin Zander at TMEA earlier this year, but it seems my efforts were not thorough enough.
Case in point, I've been nervous about this semester all summer. And sure enough, every day this first week had multiple things associated with it that caused me great stress. I felt like I was already in the second half of the semester stress wise, and if that were the case, what did that mean for the rest of the semester? Events outside of academia have also occurred that could honestly force me to get a job and, who knows, drop out half way through to make sure we can cover rent. I don't know! But anyway, it's been a hell of a week, and starting when I got home last night my primary goal was to unwind. The a second goal came to me when, in a moment of realization, I said to myself, "I have GOT to find a way to deal with all of this stress!"
That wasn't a tangent. Stay with me!
So I was displacing stress in this case by planning for what could be my first job as the only band director in a small town. And it seems that anytime you have books spread across a table and you look concentrated on planning or doing some kind of work, people at surrounding tables, eventually, feel the need to make a comment or ask questions and pull you into a conversation. Have you noticed this? Because it seems to happen to me almost every time. Not that I mind, of course.
Oh, and sometimes when people find out you're going to be a teacher, and specifically a band director, they feel the need to tell you what kind of teacher you should be. That's what happened last night.
At the table next to me were two older women. The talker, let's say her name was Betty, had a pretty depressing story. She was the oldest of four sisters, and both of her parents worked, but couldn't afford everything they needed. So Betty dropped out of school in the 7th grade to work full time. She basically took care of her younger sisters, went to work, where she was paid like a migrant worker, and came home only to fight over who got to use the shower first. She didn't have her parent's support to do anything extra-curricular. Band instruments were not provided at the school she attended, and her parents essentially told her she couldn't do anything (no sports, etc) because it would cost money. So of course now she's helping to support her granddaughter to make sure she can excel.
"So what I wanna know is, what are you gonna do about those kids? How are you gonna help the kids that can't afford it, and have no choice but to work to support their families?"
Oh boy.
So I engaged the two women, Betty in particular, in a long discussion about the challenges those students face, and what they really need to succeed. My primary argument was that what they really need is at least one teacher that actually does care about them, and encourages them to succeed, perhaps even giving them opportunities or presenting them with pathways to success. But they need a great teacher who will just invest in them personally (to the extent that professional ethics dictate, of course!). I used the movie "Freedom Writers" as an example, which they were both familiar with.
And her friend was nodding with me the entire time. Betty also admitted that I had good points here and there. But the truth is that nothing I could say would satisfy Betty. I knew that from the start, though. I knew that she was venting her bitterness and frustration onto me as a future educator, because her educators couldn't help her. So eventually I changed courses. I dared to start down the path of talking about her directly. I almost did something really gutsy, but really great last night.
Almost.
I disagreed with her that some kids don't have a path. I believe that every kid who is determined can find a path to whatever it is they want to do. Call me an optimist. I admitted that kids from low income families have a wider range of challenges and obstacles, but I refused to accept that it was impossible. I then started to note that there exists many paths to the future. I said, "There are plenty of people who drop out, but later get their GED and go on to college."
Betty responded, "Yeah, I got my GED. I passed all the classes in six weeks. Hell, I'm smart! I know I'm smart! The only thing I struggled with was fractions!" Ah, progress! Opportunity, perhaps?
"Well, let me ask you Betty, who takes care of your siblings now?"
"Huh, I do! I still take care of them."
Not exactly what I was looking for, but good enough.
"Wow. Okay, so at what point do your siblings become responsible for themselves? We all have to grow up and take responsibility for ourselves at some point, right?"
"Heh, when they're 50 I guess."
And that's where I stopped. I knew what to say, but honestly I was afraid of telling her the truth. So I transitioned out with something like, "Well, at some point people need to grow up and learn to take care of themselves, right? At some point you should have the freedom to not have to support them so you can do what you want to do with your life, right?"
Now of course I knew that there were probably plenty of other obstacles preventing her from continuing her education after her GED outside of her siblings. I'm sure she isn't care taking the way she was as a teenager. But who knows, she's probably still giving them money here and there. I know how it is in that kind of family.
But here is what I almost said.
I almost said, "The only person that's been holding you back since your siblings became adults is you. You proved you were smart enough to move on to college when you got your GED. As far as your siblings go, part of parenting is teaching independence, right? So if they're still holding you back, do what a loving parental figure would do and force them to become independent. It's no different from me having to teach my son to use dinnerware to feed himself, or to use the potty, it's just more emotionally complex when they're older. You could probably get financial aid, but even if you couldn't you could probably knock off a class or two at a time until you had a degree that would let you live out your dream, assuming your dream job required a degree. And all of the wisest people I've met would agree that it is never too late to be who you want to be. That the regret of not having done something at all is far greater than the regret of not having got to do it for very long. Your circumstances as a child were very tough, and I'm sorry. But now you're older, and stronger for all of that, and you have the power to do whatever you want to do with your life. And once you set your mind to achieving you dream, once you really truly commit, nothing will be able to stop you, because nothing that has ever happened in the past or present will be a good enough reason anymore for you to not live your life's purpose."
I was on the brink of giving this a shot. Because after all, what better way to sell her on me as a teacher and my strategy of investing in students to help lead them to success, than to show her how I would do that? I learned about her past, and a little bit about her life, and even if she just considered the idea for a moment, that could be some measure of success. Had I gone through with it, it probably would have met with harsh resistance, but that's not to say perhaps she wouldn't have considered it more in a few days. I don't know.
But before I took that risk, I received a text message from my wife asking me to come home. It was after 2 AM. This was the perfect reason to excuse myself and cordially part ways.
But between planning for leadership training, and thinking about how Betty's attitude influenced the course of her life, it all must have gelled together somehow to cause me to reflect on my own attitude at the moment.
How could I have been so blind, so stupid, this entire time as to what I myself was doing?
I have such a high stress level because I choose to. And sometimes I rationalize this because it has been largely successful. I tell people that while I don't intend on using fear to motivate, fear has been an excellent motivator for me. It's gotten worse the more successful I've been, and the longer I've been with my family and at ASU. Funny, right? You would think that after a year in which I passed the Upper Level Jury (with all A's), and took about 20 courses that resulted in 19 A's and 1 B, that I would be pretty confident in myself. But this week proved that I'm more nervous and afraid than ever in my ability to overcome the obstacles before me.
But you know, most successful people see failure as growth (sound familiar?), something not to be feared. Despite that, I fear failure because I fear letting down my family, or dealing with repaying my student loans with a minimum wage job, or that if I don't succeed my entire life will be different. Instead of living my purpose and making a positive impact on the world, I'll end up in a job that I hate, trading time for money, instead of doing what I wanted to do, what I could've done, which is to positively impact lives through the power of music and music education. I fear ending up bitter over that.
Like Betty, I suppose.
But it's a simple matter of how I choose to perceive things, and how I choose to react to situations. After all, I have experienced first hand the difference when you treat life as though it is 10% what happens and 90% how you react to it. It's all invented, anyway, right? Everything is what you make of it. So why on earth have I been inventing situations where the likely outcome is failure (even though it never happens that way)? For motivation, of course. But after this week, the first week of the semester, I just don't think it's worth that anymore. The truth is, I don't even get that excited about making awesome grades anymore. So it's not worth the stress, especially not when I could still be just as successful and motivated with a different mindset.
I will be a better player and musician because of the Senior Recital. Playing at the high level of technical prowess and musicianship that they demand to pass will indeed require endless hours of practice. But as long as I make the decision to do what I need to do to pass, and I really commit to that, then nothing can stop me. So why be so stressed out about it?
Yes, my course work is going to be challenging and burdening this semester, and will make it more difficult than I'd like to get enough practice time from day to day. Challenging, but not impossible. Why stress about it when I know I can handle insane amounts of course work? I know, for example, that what I consider to be poor quality work usually comes back to me with a high A marked on it. I don't know why. That's just where I've gotten to now. Again, it will be challenging, but I will grow through those challenges. And as long as I commit and do what I know must be done, I will be successful.
And granted, things beyond my total control, like the ability of some family members to help support us during all of this (or lack of that ability) could force me into a situation where it probably would be impossible to get everything done, and practice enough, and maintain healthy family relationships. That's true. But instead of being stressed, I'll just do what I can, when I can, and hope for the best. There is a newly established scholarship that is being awarded next month that I qualify for. It won't make up for the grants I didn't get, but it will get us half way there if I am awarded it. If I'm lucky, maybe I'll get another scholarship for being the principal tubist in Wind Ensemble. Who knows? If I'm lucky, my lesson student will be reliable, and if I'm lucky, my part time job teaching elementary kids about the tuba will book me for more presentations this semester. If I'm lucky, maybe Tuba Therapy will pick up an occasional paying gig. But that's all outside of my control. So I'll do what I can, when I can, to manage the financial impossibility of this semester the best I can, and just hope for the best.
If I have to get a full time job and am unable to continue classes part way through the semester? Well, it's a possibility. But in the long run, isn't there always a path? Maybe it's not the one I intended. I certainly don't want to make Jenn wait any longer before she can live her dream. That's part of the agreement of her working, after all. We're building a life together, and if I fail, that life at least gets delayed. But even if it takes longer, it can still be done. If I give up entirely, that's my fault, and nobody else's. So I'm going to do whatever I can between my two unstable, part time jobs and hopefully a scholarship or two to get us through this semester, and other than that I'm going to do my best not to worry about it.
After all, as Dave Matthews sings in "Cry Freedom"...
"The future is no place to place your better days."
Instead of inventing scenarios where failure is the likely outcome (that doesn't create many possibilities, does it?), I need to invent scenarios where growth and development are the likely outcomes, and where I know that success is virtually guaranteed once I commit to doing what needs to be done. Feeling overworked is still an issue, but fearing failure is no longer an issue in these mind sets.
That would be a major step for me.
And besides, how can I expect to teach students these concepts if I have not been successful with them myself? I can't. They'll never understand it if I don't, even if I once did. I have to role model the concepts.
Fear is indeed an excellent motivator. But fear can become a tyrannical force in your life. Most people fear their true potential. I don't have that issue. I fear failure. But I don't have to. Not ever again, if I so choose. There is a difference between accepting success as the only possible outcome, and underestimating what is required for success. I made that mistake the first time I attempted the Upper Level Jury, so I won't make that mistake again.
But I'm just worn out from the fear. And from now on I'm going to do my best to be done with it.
Thank you for following me on this little journey. Thank you for reading. Feel free to comment or discuss, but otherwise, until next time, take care!
Musically yours,
Mr. Cooper
No comments:
Post a Comment