Music Monday - Resilience in music teachers during Covid.
/I have been thinking a lot lately about what it means to be an effective and resilient Australian music teacher in 2020.
The ground has shifted multiple times this year and each shift has found music teachers seeking new ways to find balance and stay effective in the job.
First there was the lockdown- which of course is still in place in parts of Australia. In the early pandemic lockdown days teachers learned to adapt and implement online learning over a variety of platforms. Those of us engaged in teaching singing quickly found the frustrations of the lag on every online platform. We started to prepare and issue backing tracks so that our students could experience accompaniments in real time when singing for us. Ideas and tips were shared.
Zoom fatigue became a thing- after a day of online teaching in front of a laptop screen our necks were locked and our brains exhausted. But then we would turn to watching videoed self-tapes submitted by students for our critical response.
When some states returned to face-to-face teaching we felt relieved. But then a new reality kicked in. Teaching rooms needed to be sanitized between students. Piano keyboards were sanitized between players. Social distancing rendered some of our teaching spaces unusable. Points of assessment missed in first semester were scheduled into a much tighter time frame. At the secondary performing arts school I work in, we scheduled two senior school musicals in the space of two weeks with a fifty percent capacity audience in keeping with the level of restrictions still in place in WA.
Our final year secondary students who are applying for places in tertiary music performance courses find the rules changed here too of course. Instead of live auditions in November - after final academic exams will be over- most tertiary institutions are requiring self- taped videos to be submitted from the end of August. This has significantly reduced the preparation time.
And of course, running underneath these shifting rules is the consideration of ‘what if?’ What if there is another wave (as there has been in Victoria) and we are locked down again? Will 2021 be the year in which most students in elite performance courses - like NIDA, WAAPA, VCA to name only three- are sourced from their home state rather than interstate and overseas? So many ‘what ifs’.
In the meantime teachers are dealing with understandably stressed students.
There has not been one week this year when I have not had at least one student at the secondary or tertiary level in a state of stress which has significantly compromised their work. I get it- none of us knows what the way out of this pandemic really looks like. None of us were around in 1918 for the last one.
But as teachers we are the guides, the strong ones, right?
But who looks after us? And if we are responsible for that, how do we do it?
Among my colleagues I have observed several approaches. One friend took a term of leave and has returned to school refreshed. Several friends are drinking more alcohol in the evenings than in non- Covid times. Yet another colleague has abstained from alcohol altogether and looks and feels fantastic. I have started knitting- nothing complicated, just long scarves with uncomplicated stitches. I find it curiously calming and meditative.
As I write this I am reminded of a radio interview on mindfulness and resilience which I heard in my car early on in the pandemic. A three point approach was encouraged:
Each evening think of one thing which went well in your day.
Each day make contact with someone in your address book- by phone, by text message, by an act of kindness or a social media post.
Spend 10 minutes a day being mindful- eg walk around your block focussing just on the sounds in your immediate environment.
What are you doing to stay healthy and strong in these challenging teaching times?
As always, we encourage and welcome your comments.
