Teaching Again

When I left home and went to college, I was absolutely certain I was going to be a teacher. My music education teachers all gave me glowing recommendations, including one from a notoriously tough teacher that read "Tom has the potential to be a leader in the field." (That was from Thomas Wisniewski, if any of you readers happen to have majored in music education at the University of Illinois. He had a reputation for being a difficult teacher, but I loved his orchestral conducting class.) I had a terrific student teaching experience in Oswego, Illinois, and I was all set to make my mark. My budding school band director career came to a screeching halt when I found myself in a difficult first year teaching situation in a small town following a band director who had retired after teaching there for 40 years. Ugh! What a horrid experience!

I left area of public school teaching and refocused on performance.

It's ironic that, after all these years of avoiding the classroom, I'm focusing my efforts on teaching again. I'm recruiting private guitar students, and in another couple months, I'll be offering guitar classes at Tessitura. For starters, I'll offer a class for adult beginners and another for young beginners. Once those classes are finished, I'll be able to continue offering beginners' classes, as well as a Guitar II class for those who completed the beginner's course.

I'm not sure when it happened, but lately I've realized that teaching is one of my favorite things. Maybe I just needed some life experience. Maybe I needed to find a way to teach on my own terms rather than be part of a school system. Whatever the reason, I'm happy that I found my teaching mojo again.