What do you do with a pen that doesn't write? Do you scribble in long spirals to encourage the ink to flow? Do you shake it and tap it? Do you look for another piece of paper that isn't as ink-resistant? After all of those failed attempts, do you throw it away?
Seriously, do you throw it away? Or, like me, do you put it back in the pencil holder with the hope that somehow it will be rejuvenated amidst its cohort of non-writing implements?
Seriously.
I don't know why I do this. It makes no sense.
After all, I have no magic powers. I'm a humble piano teacher. I scribble in my students' assignment books daily and make notes to myself on what we accomplished. My pens are nothing special, usually black ink sold in packs for the best price. They write for a reasonably long time until they don't. I need to let them go when they go dry.
At some point I must have confused being a teacher with being a magician. The more I learned about aspects of piano playing and student learning styles, the more assumptions I made about what I could change. Presto, change-o! This student can now sight-read like a whiz, thanks to me! That student can now find the practice time to learn a major piano sonata, thanks to me! All families will provide the best learning environments for their children, thanks to me! Students with learning challenges will overcome them, thanks to me!
At this point in the timeline of pandemic teaching, we are still struggling with this form of self-care. Yes, I said self-care. When things aren't working well with a student, we keep hanging on. We put even more of ourselves into the project of saving a student from whatever obstacles are present. Sometimes it works. Sometimes we bleed out our own ink to no avail.
Reframing this part of our teaching relationships as self-care is worth considering. Sit right down and write yourself letter about it. Make sure you have a working pen.
A new pen has a thin vein of ink. A used pen has a dwindling supply of ink, and it goes only one way: towards total depletion- if you give it a chance to live its total useful life. Most get tossed at the first sign of skipping. I do. I have no patience for an underwhelming pen.
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand...
A child or any student for that matter; a bad set of practice habits; pain and physical tension from bad setup, posture or form; parents who are uninvolved in their child's learning process; in contrast to the depleted, nonfunctioning mass-produced, replaceable pen ... where do we begin! Need I say more?
Great projects. Much at stake. We have great work to do. And not a moment to lose. For such projects I find patience, even enthusiasm. This fuels my life. I might not make a difference. But there's a good chance I do. I've already witnessed it. And I feel so lucky to have had a good number of "difficult " students. They've helped me learn and now I've developed a whole Pedagogy to serve students whom other teachers "threw away".