I am a choir director working in a mid-sized high school on the outskirts of Indianapolis, and if you know anything about the Indy high school music scene, you know that means one thing: SHOW CHOIR. As a choir enthusiast with an extensive dance background, an over-active ambition mindset, and a lover of sforzandos and sequins, show choir is right up my ally. I love how kids respond to a taste of competition, I love the way that incorporating pop music can get students interested in other genres, and I even love the grind of late night rehearsals, early morning departures, all-day competitions, and the roller-coaster ride of being judged.
However.
Like many of my colleagues, I can be pretty mono-maniacal about my job. I don’t even really think of teaching as a job but rather as a calling, which can be a little unhealthy for me. I take it seriously because I want my students to take it seriously. I want rehearsals to feel important to kids so that they achieve their potential, so I subtly try to make them feel high-stakes. The better my choirs are, somehow the higher the stakes feel to both them and me. We all dive headfirst into the crush, and pretty soon my entire life is consumed by the details of my job. Questions that in the grand scheme of things are negligibly important suddenly feel life-or-death to me. Should the Expressions wear the curly hair extensions or the straight ones? Why can’t we get the set to rotate exactly on the right beat? Is our opening sequence two beats too long? Is it important that I spend seventy-five hours a week at school during show choir season, or is there time for me to have a life?
I have gotten used to the breakneck pace of this, and I really do enjoy it. I love working with kids. I love music, and I get a lot of satisfaction out of helping to create performance experiences that I feel proud of. I feel like I’m making a difference every day, and I have largely found a way to balance all of the pressures inherent in my job and the jobs of people like me.
I’ve been good with it. Until the pandemic struck.
The machine that is the DCHS Show Choirs ground to a stuttering halt last year in the middle of our competition season. One day we were planning our trip to a competition at Shelbyville High School, and the next day the students were sent home for months. My classroom was a graveyard of abandoned garment bags, a drum cart that we had been working on, and agendas smeared across my white board that were left with no one to sing through them.
There’s been so much uncertainty about singing during the pandemic, and that’s all been tough to sort through, but the thing that has really been difficult to swallow this year for me and, I’m sure, for a lot of my colleagues is this: despite an abundance of student talent and passion, my choirs don’t sound the same. They can’t. I see forty percent of them twice a week. They sit ten feet away from each other, masked and disillusioned. Theoretically, I am only supposed to have twelve singing at one time. They all sing well, and we’ve grown a lot this year, but how can you create a beautiful choral sound with those restrictions? I haven’t found the magic answer yet. There are some serious positives, but sometimes it’s hard not to feel guilt and shame over what the pandemic has done to my program, the mental and emotional health of my students, and the culture in my classroom.
Now, I know what you’re thinking. And you’re completely right. It’s not my fault. Every program in the country is in the same boat. Blah blah blah. My intellectual understanding of that concept is comforting occasionally, but it doesn’t help in the day-to-day.
I am constantly trying to push aside one toxic, spiraling, persistent thought-bubble that appears in my mind day after day: if my choirs don’t sound like I want them to right now, am I still a good teacher? Am I still a good mentor? Am I good at my job? Do I still have value as a human being? Am I still…. worth it?
Listen, I know in my mind and my heart that the answer to those questions is yes. It’s just hard to banish years of programming. Many of us find validation by professional success, and it is just plain hard to have professional “success” right now. It’s hard to even define what that looks like.
I’m going to try to define it differently this year.
Lots of teachers right now complain that their students won’t talk to them. My students still talk to me. They talk to each other. They are still excited to make music every day, or at least it seems that way.
I’m still delivering quality content. Music is still a worthwhile subject.
My students still have a safe space in the school and a community to lean on.
There is still beautiful music being made in my room, it just is in a different format than usual, and I can try to be ok with that.
I have the opportunity to explore new projects, concepts, and directions for my program and have the opportunity to engage in some self-reflection and that’s never a bad thing.
But hey. Some days I still feel bad. Because for years I unconsciously associated my value as a member of society with whether or not I was having enough professional “success.” And that’s a hard habit to break.
Teachers, let me know if the comments if you feel the same.
