Teaching Insecurities

I grew up as a confident child & young lady, but the start of my adult life was a very different story. At the age of 18, having just moved away to study at music college (the music performance version of uni), I found myself in an abusive relationship. One day I’ll share my story about this, but for now I’m not ready. As a result of this year & a half abuse, I ended up with PTSD. I’m telling you all this, because I think it has a bearing on the main reason for this post – my teaching insecurities.

I started instrumental teaching when I was in my last year of university, having had to leave music college because of my PTSD problems. Once I graduated, I found myself a job teaching flute one day a week in a secondary school. I loved it! One of the problems I had though was that there is no required teacher training for instrumental teachers. I wanted so much to be good at what I was doing that I stressed myself out loads by worrying that I wasn’t doing a good job. Further down the line, I got myself a job with the local music service. Initially, I thought this was fantastic! After all, they understood that I’m not able to drive & so would need to be able to get to schools on public transport & were happy with this. Having been told at uni that I would have to keep my basilar type migraine a secret if I wanted to work in the music profession, this was a breath of fresh air! However, this was far from reality.

My boss had it in for me. I still, to this day, don’t know why. My husband worked for the music service for a number of years before I joined. My boss treated me as ‘Dan’s wife’ rather than a member of staff in my own right. This was to the point where I didn’t receive staff emails because she assumed Dan would fill me in on the things I need to know! One exam session, she emailed staff (obviously not including me) with information about students’ exam times. It wasn’t until Dan said something about one of his students’ exam times having been changed that I realised that yet another email had come out & not been sent to me. Unfortunately, with my dyslexia & Mears-Irlen syndrome, as well as the chronic pain & fatigue cause by my EDS & migraine, my memory is affected. Because I didn’t have the email myself, I forgot to let the parent involved know of the change. Imagine my horror when I received a VERY angry phone call from the parent to say that the student had turned up at the wrong time. I screwed up & I felt awful, despite me not being given the information in the way I should have been. It gets worse though. The parent was also angry that they hadn’t been told of the venue change. Wait! What!?! Yes, there had been a change in the exam venue & guess who hadn’t been told! Me. This devastated me. My oboe student achieved 138 in her grade 3 oboe exam. This mark is out of 150 & an incredible achievement. Instead of acknowledging this achievement, my student’s success was put down to her already having a musical understanding from her grade 6 clarinet & her clarinet teacher was praised.

I dreaded performance management observations. Without fail, my IBS would flare up & I would be a nervous wreck. What ever I did was never good enough. My observations would always come back as ‘satisfactory’ & once even came back as ‘requires improvement’. As someone who prides themselves on being the best they can possibly be, this really hit me hard. What made it worse though was that there was no support given to help me improve. After about a year of working for this music service, I got an additional job teaching for another service. They were equally as understanding about my travel needs & set me up with schools all in the same area. My line manager was the complete opposite of what I was used to. He was kind, personable & genuinely interested in me as a person, as well as being hugely supportive. As you can imaging, when it came to performance management observations, I was petrified! I needn’t have been though, as I received some really useful feed back with specific areas to work on & came out with a ‘good’. This was despite my nerves. At my second performance management  (that came only a couple of months after my ‘requires improvement’ from the other service), I was told “Unfortunately, based on today, I’m only able to grade you…” At this point I was expecting a ‘satisfactory’ or even ‘requires improvement’, I felt that insecure about my teaching abilities! He continued with “as ‘good’, though I would have liked to have graded you higher from what I know of you as a teacher.” I was shocked! My nerves had definitely played a part in what I was able (or not) to convey during the observation & my line manager understood that. I just couldn’t get over it. The polar opposite from the observation & feedback I’d been given just two months previously from the other music service. I know no one is a ‘good’ or ‘outstanding’ teacher all the time, but how can the same person get a ‘requires improvement’ from one person, change nothing as they’ve been given no indication of what needs to be changes & then come away with a high ‘good’ from a different person baffles me. This was when I started to realise that maybe the problem wasn’t with my teaching & was really an issue with my line manager from the first music service.

Unfortunately, it’s taken me a long time to shake off some of the insecurities my first line manager has instilled in me. Some of them are still with me. Teaching from home has really helped my confidence though. I had a 9 year old start clarinet with me after Christmas & she’s doing really well. She’s already started to learn one of the scales for grade 1 & is super enthusiastic. My GCSE student has started having hour long lessons instead of 1/2 hour lessons every other week to help get him through his GCSEs, as his school are pretty poor in supporting & even teaching him what he needs to know for the exam. He seems happy with this & the work we’re doing, as do his parents. I’ve also recently taken on a student who faces some unique health challenges. He used to have lessons with Dan, but as Dan’s school teaching work load has increased, it’s become necessary for Dan to pass him on to me. I get on with the student really well & I think he benefits from a shared understanding of the extra difficulties we face. Dan seems to think he’s responding a lot better to me than he’d previously done with him as his teacher, which I’m thrilled about. I’ve had students tell me I’m the best teacher they’ve ever had (I feel so big headed saying that!) & the effort some of them went to when I left the second music service ( the one with the good line manager) was overwhelming! They wouldn’t have done that if they didn’t like me & didn’t think I was a good teacher. I touched their lives in a positive way & they touched mine.

So the moral of the story is this: Don’t let one person bring you down. However much they are in a position of authority. They may be able to grade you badly or not put you forward for roles, but that doesn’t make them right. I always knew there were issues with my line manager at the first music service. Who doesn’t give their staff the information they need & instead relies on their spouse to pass on messages!?! Or doesn’t provide their staff with the tools they need to improve!?! Yet I let her wear me down until I didn’t believe a single thing I did was any good. Don’t fall into the same team I did. Get a second opinion, push for clarification & more information on how you can improve. If they can’t provide you with this, consider taking it further. Don’t let someone undermine you & make you doubt something you’re good at.

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