Mentoring Yourself as the Only Music Educator

Mentor (noun): A wise and trusted guide, adviser or teacher who uses their experience to help a less experienced person, a mentee, grow in their career, studies or personal life.

We have all had mentors in our lives – parents, teachers, coaches, activity advisors, group leaders. And many of us have been mentors – to children, students, colleagues and others. Mentors are a valued and important part of learning how to complete a task or fill a position. And they are just as important in supporting and inspiring improvement in how you do that task once the basics are mastered.

Every position in education, from staff member to teacher to athletic director to administrator, is accomplished through a combination of what was read, observed, taught and tried. Having a mentor provides one the opportunity to observe what works, hear about what was tried and didn’t work, and get opinions on what might be successfully attempted the next time. Simply sharing with someone who has “been there, done that” expands the possibilities and opportunities for improvement.

So, what if you are the only music educator (or band person or chorus person or general music person) in the building and possibly in the district? How does mentoring happen?

Certainly, the skill set used to conduct a musical ensemble is one that only another music educator could observe and make worthwhile suggestions or comments. To have someone serve as your mentor for that portion of your job, you need to provide an opportunity for another music colleague to observe you in action.

Invite local music educators to come to your concerts or performances, and provide them with a short comment form to complete afterwards. Ask any other music educator in your district to come to your rehearsal to do the same. You can use that opportunity to introduce your students to them (likely they had them at some point) or have them share a musical experience, short performance, or anecdote with your students. What an inspiring moment for your oboe player to find out that the K-12 music teacher is also an oboist.

Because you can’t see yourself conduct, video recording yourself on the podium to self-review (or share with others) can reveal some unintended habits that have formed. Those habits may be causing some of the issues you are having with your group, ones unexplained previously. And like a good mentor, find something you observed in your video to improve upon, work on making that better, and then record yourself again to see if the fix sticks. You can also record your students in rehearsal, setting the camera behind you and over your shoulder, so you can better observe how they are interpreting your conducting gestures and in-class instructions.

Conducting, however, is just one part of your teaching day with simple time management, classroom management, and basic organization taking up most of the rest of each rehearsal period. Those skills certainly require a unique approach when dealing with an ensemble, but every teacher in your building deals with their version every day. Ask a veteran teacher (who likes music) to sit in and observe your class to make suggestions on how you might communicate with your students better, organize your time more efficiently or simply smile more. Such visits are even more beneficial for your music theory, music appreciation or history of jazz classes where the mentor’s skills match the flow of the class work better.

Teacher observations and evaluations are on every administrator’s To-Do List. Rather than wait for your turn to come up so that it can be checked off that list, invite your administrators to join you for a rehearsal early in the school year. Don’t limit the invite to just the one responsible for your evaluation, but invite them all – superintendent and school board chair included. Provide them with a short questionnaire to complete after the class that has questions you feel they can answer that would be of benefit to your teaching. And by all means, ask them to share their musical history (hoping they have one) with your students. Don’t forget to re-invite them to return to a rehearsal nearer the concert to hear the improvement your students have made with the hope they will also attend the concert itself.

And while the majority of your students would not be able to provide you with usable feedback, there is often an older student who could do so. Don’t ask the older student to do an extensive observation or provide comments on all the aspects of the rehearsal. Simply ask their opinion on one specific thing and start out with something easy. As an example, “How did they like the march you selected?” Then, occasionally when the opportunity arises, ask their opinion on other parts of the connection you have with them. You will be surprised what you might learn.

As the only music educator in a school, you may feel like a solitary sailor on a vast sea, but you can still find support, improvement and inspiration through observation and evaluation. Keeping the focus of that effort on what is going well and what might work better allows those opportunities to be more than gripes and complaints. Self-observation, done from the viewpoint of your students, can reveal minor issues in your conducting style or presentation well before they become real problems and concerns. Improving how you teach will improve how you feel about teaching. The task is well worth the effort.

Steffen Parker is a retired music educator, event organizer, maple sugar maker, and Information Technology specialist from Vermont who serves as the Performing Arts/Technology representative on the NFHS High School Today Publications Committee. He received the NFHS Citation Award in 2017 and the Ellen McCulloch- Lovell Award in Arts Education in 2021. He can be reached at steffenparker@ gmail.com.