A year of teaching

By The Fireside; Turtle Island String Quartet

I have heard tell that many of the most effective public school teachers spent their own formative high school years at odds with the learning “establishment”. During that period in their life they might have lacked a vision of what their education could do for them, didn’t see how the present curriculum had anything to do with their preferred vocation or just plain, flat out didn’t like school. At this point in my life, I can understand and respect that viewpoint a little better than when I had to endure it in other students when I attended high school. However, that way of thinking confounds me.

I love learning and always have. So you can see how it brought profound sorrow to see my colleagues in school sabotage efforts to improve musical performance in order to see the band director lose his temper. I cannot wrap my mind, such as it is, around that type of mindset.

In South Dakota, the only visible objective to attaining a college degree in music was to become a music instructor. I remember a music educator telling my parents and me, “Well, you could go to SDSU, major in music education and become a high school band or choral director in South Dakota, or you could go to SDSU, major in piano performance and become a high school band or choral director in South Dakota.” It took a leap of faith to decide that the best thing for me was to attend SDSU, major in piano performance and resolve never to be the one in front of a group of kids holding the conducting stick.

It got worse. That image of them (students) verses me (teacher) became so pervasive that I began to see other music majors from a standpoint of sympathy. Why would they want to put themselves through the indignities that today’s high school students require of their teachers? It never occurred to me that my music education friends might have a heart for such an endeavor and it took me a long time to realize it.

After the five year era of working on cruise ships, I spent time on the farm deciding what comes next. While waiting, a call came from Brookings High School. On the last Friday before school started on Wednesday in August of 1995, BHS found themselves searching for a choral conductor for the school year. With more reluctance than you can see from the top of your house, I took the job. I didn’t do a poor job. Neither did I do an excellent job. Shall we say that I simply confirmed my suspicion: I am not cut out to be a music educator. The music was the fun part and we made outstanding music. But I didn’t care for the experience, and found myself looking forward with increasing intensity to the end of the year. I felt like I was let out of jail.

During the preparations for the Winter Holiday concert, Karen A., the orchestra conductor, had told me that she couldn’t wait for the end of school one day. She and her husband had plans to go to Sioux Falls so that she could purchase the new Turtle Island String Quartet CD. Who are they? “You’ve never heard of the TISQ?” Nope. “Oh, Erik, you would love them! They have successfully made the cross from classical to jazz, playing Mozart and Miles Davis on the same concert and winning over both the classical and the jazz camps in the audience. Their new CD is kind of a Christmas CD. Do you want me to get you one?” Well, yes, if they’re everything you say.

Whoa!! Everything and more. I can’t tell you how much their music energized and exhilarated my musical Christmas experience that year. I especially enjoyed the way that they jazzed up sections of Tchaikovsky’s “The Nutcracker” and portions from the winter section of Vivaldi’s “The Four Seasons. The arrangements are full of life, creativity, and, most of the time, good humor. Any “Prairie Home Companion” fan will find hilarity in the selection called “Do Something Nice For Your Mother”. A rambunctious version of “Happy Xmas (War Is Over)” will thrill the Beatles lovers in the crowd.

The gloom and doom that I have had for music educators since my “Mr. Apland” experience has toned down to about two from eleven. Virtually all of the music educators that I personally know expertly hone their craft with the students under their charge. But the pessimism still lurks. I guess I just don’t like to see anyone take a haphazard approach to music when greatness looms just over the horizon.

Credits: To the music educators who taught me: Miss W., Mrs. P., Mrs. D., Mr. D., Mrs. B., Mr. P., and Mr. T. Thank you for your patience and your passion. Thirty-eight to twenty-six years later, the lessons you taught are holding strong.