Last October, I wrote about burnout. I had been feeling the pressure from teaching a STAAR-tested subject coming back from the pandemic and felt I couldn’t take much more.
It turns out that even with a chaotic school year, things seemed to start falling into place, and now I’m teaching…drumroll, please…
K-6 Music!
Wait. English Language Arts and Reading and Social Studies for most of your career and now you’re teaching music, you ask? Well, it makes sense if you were to take a look at my background.
It all started back in high school. I was a choir nerd. By my Junior year, I had decided that my future career would be teaching high school choir in my hometown of Small Town, Texas. Big dreams, huh? I applied to Baylor University, was accepted because I was 5th in my class of 71 students (top 10%), and auditioned for the School of Music.
My intent was to get my Bachelor of Music Education in Vocal music. I actually failed my first audition as a soprano, took private voice lessons for two semesters, auditioned again as an alto, and was finally admitted. Unfortunately, life had something else in store for me. It turns out that taking 17 hours of challenging classes in a single semester was a bad idea. Yeah, I was young and stupid, and I crashed and burned. I ended up transferring to the University of Texas at Arlington my sophomore year, and got my BFA in graphic design. I quit performing, and only sang in my church choir. For years.
Fast forward to now. I don’t wish to go into details, but suffice it to say that my campus has not had a solid music education program in a very long time, and our students are quite lacking in basic music knowledge.
After a few heartfelt conversations with my amazing principal, she offered me the position this year. As it turns out, a music certification is not required to teach elementary music. A teacher with a Generalist EC-6 certification (as I have) can teach not only the core classes but art, music, and PE as well. As I already have a music background (even if not the degree), I’m definitely able to teach the subject.
Now I have a new type of pressure to give me sleepless nights. My husband pointed out to me that I’m basically starting a new job. I get to build a music program from the ground up with limited supplies (and no classroom instruments!). I look forward to this challenge and will be sharing as much as I can about my new journey.
If you’re still reading this and would like to help out a developing music program in a Title I school, please check out my Amazon Wishlist. It’s automatically set up to deliver items straight to my campus, and our students will be forever grateful.
Anna Sparkman 