Final Exams

I'm giving a final exam right now. For those of you keeping score at home, I'm a full-time music/creative arts guy at a relatively big church in southern California and also a part-time faculty member at a junior college - at least until I finish administering this final exam, at which point I'll probably categorize myself as a former part-time faculty member. It's been a long and relatively unsuccessful semester for me as an instructor; one that has me thinking quite seriously about hanging up the chalk (or, in this case, the dry-erase markers) for a while until I get the passion - or at least the effectiveness - back.

I'm an interesting case with my teaching history. I was actually full-time, tenure-track at this school a few years ago and resigned to take a primarily administrative role at a hot-shot music school back east. My experience at the hot-shot school was instructive, insofar as I was able to obtain great clarity regarding what sort of job I should never have. (Specifically, that would be the sort of job where I am Mr. Administrative/Staff Support Person for the faculty who have the best part of education, which is the teaching and interaction with students.) So, after about four years, I left the administrative/staff job at the prestigious place to take a job as the music and creative arts director at a church.

And some have categorized me as rather foolish for the decisions I detailed in the preceding paragraph. They are not without some cause.

You see, many, many people apply for tenure-track jobs every year. I got lucky and landed one at the age of 27 (!). After two years, I got a little antsy at my school (a community college) and started looking for other jobs. When I interviewed at the anonymous school back east, I was convinced that being around music and education being done at the highest level would be good enough to make up for jumping out of the tenure stream, so I took the job. I was convinced that just being around great music and great education would be enough for me.

It wasn't, and it isn't. I know that now.

And, interestingly enough, being Mr. Full-Time Faculty Guy probably isn't a good fit for me right now, either. Much as I love - and I mean really, really love - teaching, I only love it when the following conditions are met:

1. I'm teaching well.
2. I'm actively involved in creativity outside of my teaching work.
3. I'm actually doing the stuff I'm talking about.
4. Students learn in a significant way.

Turns out, those are some tough conditions to meet. I thought I'd do well this semester, because I'm hitting conditions 2 and 3 in my full-time job, but I've discovered that I don't really have the time I'd like to meet condition 1...meaning that condition 4 has little chance of happening, at least as far as I can tell.

So, in the event that years from now I'm up for a full-time teaching job and someone figures out who I am and digs around and finds this blog post and gets nervous, I think what I'm saying here is that great - not merely good - teaching is significant and meaningful for me. And, being honest, I haven't hit that mark this semester, so I think I might jump out of the pool for a while.

I always dreaded taking classes from the profs who had long ago given up on their creative output, but I loved classes with the ones who had stayed in the game creatively (remember, I was a music major). When I was a full-time prof, I felt that my teaching largely choked out my creative life, although that may have been the result of some workaholic tendencies I had as a young prof. Now that I'm full-time creative guy, I find it hard to take the time necessary to think through pedagogy and give both the creative and the linear processes of instructional planning a go. I hope that sometime (soon, preferably), I'll find a better middle ground where I can be effective as a creative and effective as an instructor.

As I grade the students' final exams, I think I'll have to grade myself as well. And just like their grades, I'll keep mine private.

Between now and December 25, I have 11 church services to prep for and be a part of. So if you don't hear from me until Boxing Day, I hope you'll understand. Many good wishes to all of you, my friends Teo and Vinnissimo of course, but also to all of you other folks I've gotten to know a bit on the blog over the past few months as well. And also, to any anonymous folks visiting the blog and actually reading down this far, good wishes to you. And to quote Tiny Tim: God bless us, every one.

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