Just now I was watching Jane Caro on ABC The Drum talking about the morale of school teachers. She was saying, “...if politicians 30 years ago had set about to systematically destroy the morale of the teaching profession they couldn’t have done a better job."
I agree wholeheartedly with this statement. It dovetails beautifully with what I have been thinking regarding music teachers that teach in schools. If school teachers have been dealt a bad hand then surely music teachers are right with them regarding morale, if not in a worse position.
First of all in Australia music teachers come across the problem of attitude towards music. Music is generally seen as a subject that is expendable, not necessary. Why this is is another story completely and an often told one but it does come from the government itself leading by example, cutting music and arts in schools and in general. And it does come from schools proudly and constantly talking about STEM. It also comes from schools actually bullying kids out of choosing music for Year 12 as it brings down the schools’ ATAR scores and makes the school less money.
Music is the first thing society clings to in times of trouble or celebration, but the first subject to be dropped in school when the new sports pavilion needs to be built, homework gets too much, or parents are too busy.
So music teachers at schools have to deal first with this underdog, "you-are-expendable" attitude towards what they choose to do with their lives. It’s not a great start.
Add on that the fact that most music teachers are part-timers or short-contractors—and therefore are seen as outsiders. Even music teachers who have been at schools for years and years on a part time basis aren’t acknowledged by principals and school teachers alike.
Classroom teachers’ attitudes to taking students out of class range from: outright hostility and refusal to let the music teachers take their students; passive aggressiveness regarding students missing classes going to parents first not music teachers themselves; to polite but unthoughtful requests like “can you come back later?”
I need to say here that I don’t think this is the school teachers fault- not at all. Apart from any open hostility (such as what happened to me when a teacher raised her voice at me in front of her class of 6 years olds, lost control of herself and shouted her refusal at me to let me take my student at his regular time) I can completely understand why teachers do this. It isn’t their fault—they have their own set of problems. But the way the school system is set up pits these two amazing types of teachers against each other.
So now the music teacher knows that their choice of profession is looked down upon by their government and other school teachers themselves have their own issues and are protecting their turf.
Add on to this the fact that music teachers who are employed directly by the school are worked to the bone. Directors have no time to think about leading or supporting with any real intention as they teach full time themselves, classroom music teachers barely have time to scratch themselves, are given bigger and bigger workloads as costs are cut and slashed, are always working by themselves and rarely, if ever, get a chance to work in a team.
Okay, and now add on that it is a very lonely profession and support is practically nil. If a teacher doesn’t initiate Reaching (for personal and professional development) then there is no support that will help them Reach. Reaching for something better in life and work takes time, effort, curiosity, determination, confusion, being in it for the long haul, and grit.
Like Jane was saying, teachers are "human” and not all teachers will do this. Not all teachers will have the strength, when faced with a broken school music system and a thankless job, to Reach. They might ask, why should we? It’s completely understandable that the big Reach isn’t done. As Jane was saying they also might be going through a tough time personally, like a divorce, when it gets even harder to Reach, let alone on your own.
So after years of parents seemingly not caring, barely acknowledging any extra effort, and other teachers complaining loudly about everything including the students themselves, even the most resilient teachers fall into the trap of negativity- the “dark side” which goes hand in hand with bitterness, cynicism and frustration.
Music teachers have no leader in the government looking out for them, school teachers are pitted against the part-time music teacher taking their students away, directors aren’t able to lead and support change, and the music teacher, working by and for themselves, thinks that trying to be better is simply a waste of their own limited time and effort.
It goes on. Now add on to this that music teachers are pitted against other music teachers. They desperately feel the need to look after their own turf, perceiving threats in new faces and ways of thinking and doing. They backstab each other relentlessly, say the most horrible and poisonous things about one another, and bullying happens often. What is even more scary, however, is that this can happen in the open- they often don’t care who hears them say these things.
Also, unpaid expectations on top of music teaching are growing. Expectations around parents are murky at best and any communication has to happen in unpaid time. Reports are expected to be completed in unpaid time, domestic violence awareness and first aid modules are now expected to be completed in unpaid time. Staying back to support student concerts is often expected in unpaid time, and meetings with other teachers and directors are expected in unpaid time.
Now add this onto the Mountain of Horribleness: the hourly rate for teachers doesn’t go up each year. Forget inflation, bonuses for doing exceptional work, overtime. Since I started teaching at schools 5 years ago the hourly rate has barely moved.
So as a music teacher your government is against you, other school teachers are protecting their turf, directors of music can’t care, music teachers don’t have the care and energy to Reach for positive change, music teachers themselves are protecting their own turf from other music teachers, and this whole thing is underpaid without much hope of it getting any better.
To run with Jane Caro’s statement above, I am going to say that the music school system couldn’t be designed any better to ruin music teachers' morale and their love for music and education.
But here is the question that I now ask. How long can we, as teachers, keep blaming the system and not do anything about it?
This is where I am at. If we keep blaming the system, nothing will happen. This minefield of invisible political and emotional walls which makes up this system can’t change itself, it can’t hear our pleas, and won't do anything unless we Reach for the change ourselves.
I have been pondering all of this with my husband lately, saying that if I start (and keep) speaking out about this that I will probably not be able to continue to work in, or ever be able to work in, a school again.
But I feel that this might be just worth it if my poking and prodding can help Reach for something different to what is happening at the moment in music education.