As a music education major and soon to be classroom teacher, I can only assume what sort of responsibilities I will have when I get into the working world. I can infer from my current work load that I will have to find a balance between my personal musicianship as well as my teaching career.As a musician and a teacher, I think I offer an interesting perspective when it comes to balancing personal and professional lives; mostly because both my personal and professional skills cross over.
What I fear most going into teaching is allowing my music to become trivial. By this, I don't want there to ever be a day where I tell myself I don't want to practice or play because I do too much of it in my job. As it stands now, I don't see that happening, but I hear horror stories where fabulous musicians in the height of their skill and careers burn out because they have no time away from their craft. While I can only hope this never happens to me, knowing it does happen is an added bit of stress in my day to day efforts to be a better musician and teacher.
To prevent burning out, I think it is incredibly important for musicians and teachers to find some other sort of personal entertainment outside of music. For me, I like to play video games and make crafts. It surprises a lot of my friends when they see the jewelry that I throw together half-assed when I am not feeling very musical. A lot of great teachers I know also have an incredibly wide array of other things in there lives that pull them out of the music world. One very influential teacher quilts and sews in her free time as well as struggles with an addiction to candy crush. In short. I think it is extremely important for a music educator to explore their other interests.
Being a fellow future music educator. I share the same worries and struggles. Personally, I love spending time with my family and friends, but lately it seems that everyone and everything is connected to the things that are stressing me out. I always liked to try and keep a thick line between personal vs. professional, but that line seems to get thinner everyday. Sometimes I am happy that music is everywhere around me, but sometimes feel anxious thinking that music education is consuming my entire being because everything in my life is connected to it. As much as I love the craft, it is so relaxing to just get away from it from time to time. Music is the thing that I used to do to de-stress, but now it is more of a responsibility. Luckily for me, I play guitar strictly for recreational purposes, so if I want to feel like I am taking a break while still improving my musicianship, I can just practice guitar. Is there a specific instrument you can play that never crosses the line too far into your professional life?
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