PATIENCE
Multiple Levels of Living and Multiple
Levels of Achievement
Throughout my youth, I was driven to achieve. My zest for the work ethic and knowing what adults expected insured me of daily approval and affection. Some would say I was a little adult as a child and others might observe that my childhood was unique as I took a leadership position in a variety of academic, artistic, and social circles that include both youth and adults. Somehow I sensed that my high level of achievement and my daily desire to go beyond what was expected was for the wrong reason. Simply, I was craving achievement towards another end: the positive attention, the spotlight, the press release, the photos in the local newspaper, the next large production, and the next adult thing I could achieve as a high school student. All action and all behavior was about making it all happen now. If there was a problem or challenge no matter how simple, I could drop what I was doing and solve the problem to its successful conclusion and then move forward with my plans for the day. Very seldom was there a challenge that I could not solve within a few days, and if the challenge involved the needs of another person I was much more efficient than if the challenge was a personal need.
My levels of achievement had a formula. They needed to be public which included school, church, community organizations, and eventually a part time job. The goals were very defined and within my level of ability. The pinnacle of achievement was attempting to achieve goals that had never been achieved or never had been thought of as possible. Simply, there was a strong drive to approach achievement as an entrepreneur. Being on the honor roll, selected for the honor society, being voted to be an officer of an organization, and participating in public performances via music and drama organizations were exciting, important, and fun, but I was looking to go beyond what everyone else was achieving.
With this vision of achievement, I found my self conducting my high school band for my final concert. My adult church choir participated in a town wide choral festival, and I found myself conducting along side my high school music teachers from other churches. Most high schools have their own jazz band program. A friend and myself organized our own jazz band, The Kingsmen, and I found myself ordering music, balancing the group's budget, scheduling concerts, and driving the group to the performances. I was sixteen years young! My number one goal with our group was to make a recording. This never happened to my disappointment, but I promised myself that as a teacher, I would give my students every opportunity to record as was appropriate, and I kept that promise over thirty years of teaching.
As I graduated from high school and college, I kept this zest for achievement at the forefront of what I was all about and my mission to achieve continued to soar with more doors opening in the teaching profession, more opportunities to write about what I was doing, and to live on the cutting edge of creativity as a young teacher. Soon I met other teachers who had the same zest for achievement, and I was introduced to interdependent thinking and the joys of synergistic interaction with other professionals. Within a public school structure, I was not only creating new programs and opportunities for students in the classroom, I was able to create, teach, perform as a classical musician, make recordings with my students, and pursue advanced degrees.
When I thought I had reached my zenith in achievement, the famous education report, "A Nation At Risk" was published in 1983, and I knew at that moment that I would have to step up all my achievement to date and begin to run faster, throw farther, and set higher goals. With this commitment in 1983, I began interdisciplinary programs in schools, public-private programs with schools, the business community and local arts organizations, and I initiated the Artist-in-Residence Program with a wonderful local guru in music who was 90 years young, Dr. Moshe Paranov.
While all this achievement was accelerating during the school year, I had an opportunity to develop Summer Music Institutes which began as an extension of the Summer term program at the Hartt School of the University of Hartford in 1981. This concept began as a spin-off of our Fall Workshops for Music Educators in the Glastonbury, Connecticut Public Schools which was an annual event beginning in the fall of 1977. From the Hartt School the program expanded to the campuses of colleges and universities throughout the country. As we enter the 21st century, the following schools are still thriving with this concept of summer one-week graduate courses for music educators that connect the gurus in the profession with the classroom music teachers: The Hartt School, Central Connecticut State University, VanderCook College of Music, Duquesne University, and Villanova University. In addition there were numerous satellite locations that extended this summer music program concept that ranged from the Royal Scottish Academy of Music in Glasgow, Scotland to Azusa Pacific University in California.
Annually, this concept attracts approximately 4,000 music teachers per summer which represents on average over one million students. It is a concept that attracts the best composers, authors, conductors, and master teachers who specialized in outstanding music programs from grades K-12. The uniqueness of this achievement is that the programs were developed to work together which allowed the gurus to cycle among the programs. The local music teachers could commute to a convenient site during the day and still be with their families at night although many used the opportunity as a combined vacation and graduate instruction. Others would take courses for multiple weeks.
Prior to this effort no one had thought about the synergy between the teachers and the gurus and the interdependent thinking that would transpire. Simply, the teachers need the gurus and the gurus needed to come face-to-face with the teachers. Prior to this program most of the gurus had no vehicle to meet the teachers who were using their published materials. One unique aspect of this program since 1981 is the location from which music teachers would travel to each site location. Music teachers from Korea, Saudi Arabia, Canada, Japan, and most states within the United States were included on the attendance rolls. At the same time each college and university who hosted this concept received worldwide recognition. From a university president's point of view, this type of self-starting international program was unprecedented in his years in this leadership position.
The success of this concept was interdependent thinking and the zest for synergistic experiences in every class. Every effort was made to bring the number one guru on each topic in every class setting. The cost of the classes were reduced to accommodate the financial challenges that teachers face with growing families. With these achievements I had completed 20 years of music teaching, music administration, professional orchestral performance, and private music teaching.
With this massive outreach to so many people of all ages, I knew that my future needed to take another turn. That turn was to prioritize my family and turn my energies inward towards my personal and private life. My wife, Judie and I, knew that we were ready to adopt children. We began working with the Open Door Society as well as Heal the Children, two wonderful organizations that help connect foster and adopted children with parents. Both the adoption and foster care energy began in 1979 and continued full speed through 1993. During that time we adopted one child from Connecticut, three children (non-related) from Korea, two children from Cali, Colombia were foster parents for children from the Dominican Republic.
I found myself more and more interested in teaching private music lessons in my home and having a more profound relationship with my students as a professional oboist and English hornist. My home became the focus of my life. My family and my private students became the core of my focus. In reflecting back over the years of my nonstop zest for achievement, I began writing about topics which I thought were important and eventually published some of those writings into book and e-book formats.
Over time I learned that I was reaching outside myself for external praise and recognition, and although my energies and efforts to help others with my achievements were noble, helpful, cutting-edge, and creative, my motivation for doing it all was for the external praise. To continue that effort would require more trophies, medals, ribbons and a hall of fame nomination in a discipline that does not include any of these athletic-type rewards. I had to learn to be motivated inwardly and begin to find out who I was in my private life and find my higher self.
With much reading, praying, and meditating, I found my higher self and decided to live within my private life. At age 50, I was on track with my new vision of who I was, where I was going, and why I was going there. Could I have done this at age 20, 30, or 40? I was not ready until age 50. There was a mountain of achievement for me to climb, and only when I had reached the top of that mountain and could see the larger vista in my life could I accept life with an internal view with internal rewards rather than external rewards. I am dedicating this e-book to a list of very special people who have greatly affected my life. Each one of these individuals has a large sphere of influence and each is changing the lives of millions of individuals from week to week worldwide from their presentations and publications. I chose to spend four years listening to their words of encouragement and reading their visions. This was followed by rereading and listening over and over to their mission over four years.
With this effort I could apply multiple visions and multiple teaching into my personal and private life. As such, my public life has more direction, more meaning, more purpose, and is in balance with my personal and private life. I am glad I discovered this new vision of living where I can flow with my talent, and I can connect with all people and all of nature and all of the universe within my mission. Finding my higher self and living a non-dual life on the human plane has given me so much hope for the future and so much vision about the past. Reading and learning about the heroes of the Old and New Testament of the Bible has been profound and overwhelming; however, it has been the re-reading and the daily application of the biblical teachings that has made the difference.
I decided to keep a daily journal of all the wonderful spiritual things and all the miracles that I experienced daily in my life from my students. I found that I was emotionally “shoving down” all the little golden moments and all the little miracles in my classroom while exaggerating the frustrations of the day. Keeping a daily log of these spiritual moments made all the difference in my perception of my teaching and the success that the students and I were having together. On average students have approximately 60,000 thoughts per day and 32 different emotions. When you break those figures down to each of your classes there is "big time" mental and emotional energy going on in each class and much of it is nonverbal.
The challenge for me as a teacher is how much of that nonverbal activity and the sequential verbal activity that follows can I remember on a daily basis? The eye contact, the voice tone, the interaction among the students, the questions at the end of class, the anticipation before a class (especially on test day), and my emotional reaction to each situation. Should I be following up with a student based on what happened in a class? Should I be reinforcing what happened in a class? Should I be sharing my classroom experiences with my colleagues for help?
Trying to take the time to reflect upon what happened in the classroom and how to follow-up in the next class became my mantra. This required more relaxation, more emotional involvement, more spiritual connection with the students, and giving students a second chance with their thoughts, achievements, feelings, and behaviors. I found that giving students a second chance is one of the best teaching tools I have found at the middle school level. It also gave me time for more reflection and it said to the student that I cared more about them than I did their right or wrong behavior or level of achievement.
Every student in my class has one major goal with the information I am sharing. That major goal is to teach at least one other person the information. As I teach students to perform music via acoustic instruments, I know that many students go home and teach the daily lesson to a younger brother or sister or in some cases to mom and dad or to a grandparent. The joy of seeing this process take place is a peak experience in teaching. Students need to know why the information is important in their life. Understanding music means more than dancing and memorizing the words to your favorite tune by your favorite group. When students move from a passive approach to an active approach to music, there lives are changed forever. Simply, “they get it.”
Achievement needs to apply to one's life. Survival skills includes having appropriate emotional reactions to the ups and downs to the human behaviors on the human plane. There are many levels of achievement and there are many levels of living. Living begins with knowing who you are, what is your mission, and the level of achievement necessary to accomplish your goals. Living is also about principles and knowing that although your goals may change principles about living are universal in all cultures for all time.
Each student is unique. The teacher's role is to discover that uniqueness in each student and tell them what you see. Too many times students do not know they are unique until you point it out to them. My example of achievement and living took 50 years of effort. My story may motivate a student to seek a balance of both living and achievement. Finding one's inner strength and inner self and staying within that core takes time and maturity. Everyone is not ready to find this balance at the same time. Being a slave to external praise is an emotional roller coaster ride that is exhausting and full of disappointments. When students find their strength can come from within themselves and that they have full control of their emotions and actions, it is a most liberating moment. Students have 100% control of their reactions to any situation. The teacher's role is to set the example, step back from the situation, take a deep breath, go with the flow of the situation, and react on a spiritual plane which is where your students are living.
A major part of achieving and living includes your dreams and vision for the future. One definition of youth is to follow one's dreams. When we stop following our dreams we begin to age mentally and emotionally. Many critics of education feel that too many teachers have stopped following their dreams, and as a result, they bring no joy or spontaneity to the learning process. Finding the balance between your private life and your public life is critically important. Finding the balance between your internal principles and your external opportunities is essential. However, finding the balance between living and achieving is the goal. One of the most popular clichés of the 90's was “get a life.” One translation could be “find purpose in your life that gives you joy and then begin your mission of achievement.”