There is a secret that every teacher who has taught a few years knows. By the time career fatigue sets in, this secret gets you up in the morning. It doesn't come around very often, but sometimes it sneaks up on you, and it's enough to keep you going for a long time.
The secret is successful students who are anxious to share their success with you. When your path has taken a few zig-zags, as mine has, you don't intersect with your students with much frequency. And even though we're all connected to cell phones, email accounts and facebook pages, we still don't seem to stay in touch with people very well.
For some reason, though, I have seen or spoken to several former students lately, and every reunion has been career-affirming.
Terrance has started singing in the Birmingham Chamber Chorus. He is a middle school band director now, and was a student at Troy University when I taught choral music there. He was an instrumental major, but won the Outstanding Choral Student Award due to his consistent hard work and great attitude.
Through Terrance I've been able to speak to Emily, who was his close friend in college and was one of my closest students. She was the best kind of student, always early for class, always completely prepared, always eager to learn. When I left that job she was about to get engaged. I've learned that she and her husband now have two children and a great life.
I attended the National Convention of the American Choral Directors Association last week, and the highlight was the opportunity to see two students. One of them is a close friend, and we stay in close touch. He is very well-known now, and I am honored to even be seen with him at such a meeting. The other, however, came out of the blue. I was standing in the large exhibit hall, where several hundred choral directors were perusing the products of all the vendors, when I heard a vaguely familiar voice say, "Dr. Johnson?" I looked around and saw, about 50 feet away, a former student named Stephen. I had lost track of him about seven years ago, and wondered frequently about him.
Stephen is a highly capable guy, who had returned to college after a few years' hiatus. He was older and more mature than the other undergrads, and we asked him to direct the Gospel Choir. He took it from being an under-achieving student organization to performing as a regular ensemble within the School of Music, with a high performance standard, SRO audiences and very hard-working members. He also took care of aging parents every day and maintained a very stressful church position.
He is now a successful High School choral director, and has recently been asked to also direct the band after a sudden opening in that position. We had a really joyful reunion. He was way too flattering and I was struggling with the lump in my throat. You forget how much these students mean to you, and how validating it is to find them doing well.
All these reunions propel you into the next day's challenges. Maybe it's questionable to wrap your own self-worth in the success of your students. Surely there are really great teachers everywhere who are prevented from receiving this kind of gratification by their subject matter or geographical location. But I confess that these are great feelings, and I feel stronger to face my immediate challenges since being validated by these students.
You other teachers out there, you know what I'm saying, right?
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