Thomas J. West Music

I was a middle school and/or high school band director in public schools in central and southeast Pennsylvania and southern New Jersey for the first nine years of my teaching career. I still teach middle school and high school instrumental music, but I no longer am directly involved on a daily basis with a marching band and concert band program.

Separation from that lifestyle has brought some perspective on what being an American public school band director really is. As those who are "in the trenches" know, the job has many rewards, but basically is self-imposed insanity with a modest to moderate salary attached.

People in the private sector can't begin to understand why band directors put up with:

• An 8 hour work day that really is 12 to 14 most days - with no overtime
• A 3rd quarter with 2 to 3 public presentations per week, judged and scrutinized by an entire community who can pull their funding dollars from your department at any time
• A salary structure based on how long you've been on the job and how many degrees you have rather than what your position is worth to the company
• A position that requires about 4 to 6 more weeks of work per year than all of the other employees at your level of management
• A work schedule that asks you to work miracles with as little time and money as possible (well, ok - every professional deals with that)
• Having to train and manage a supprt staff of para-professionals and volunteers with little or no training in how to do so
• Beginning your profession right out of college with no training period, minimal mentorship support, and the expectation that you should function as effectively as a 10 year veteran
• Being expected to know the technical details for about 100 different pieces of equipment (if you include the various commonly used percussion instruments) with minimal training in the most rudimentary aspect of the basic 10
• Managing all of your own administrative tasks, including fundraising, extended programs, accounting, records, file management, procurement, HR, and project development with no administrative staff of any kind
• Being held accountable for the moral and ethical conduct of a large group of adolescents every time they gather as a group, whether during the work day or not
• Having to choose material for your organization to use that hides your organization's weaknesses, will be well-received or tolerated by the membership, and will be accepted by the general public
  

What those same private sector employees can't possibly comprehend that makes all of those challenges worth it:

• Showing adolescents how to build their own work ethic
• Training adolescents to have longevity and patience when developing their skills
• Teaching concepts such as "excellence" and "esprit de corps"
• Performing stirring and expressive music that changes students' perception of the world around them
• Providing adolescents with opportunities to exercise civic and school pride and function as part of a team
• Continuing the American wind band tradition, which has had an imporant role in shaping the youth of our country for over 100 years
• Because marching band and wind band repertoire is dynamic, exciting, passionate, and engaging
• Because being a band director means affecting the lives of unborn children (think about that for a moment)

Teachers of all kinds in communities all over the world have a tremendous impact on the future of the world, because they change the lives of our youth in impactful and long-term ways. Band Directors and other music teachers have a special connection with their students because they spend countless hours in and out of the classroom with them. They get to watch them grow up just like their parents do. They create a culture of musical expression, the pursuit of excellence, and even a feeling of extended family for hundreds of people over the course of their teaching careers.

That, however, still doesn't change the fact that the wind band's military roots combined with the culture of American football and the antiquated structure of American public education has led to an educational offering that has some very odd quirks.

I'll take quirky over stunted and close-minded any day.

This article (c) 2011 Thomas J. West. All content on ThomasJWestMusic dot com is licensed under a Creative Contributions Attribution-No Derivative Works 3.0 License. Please contact the author before publishing on or off-line.

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