Hi everybody, and welcome back to Season 3 of the Common Time podcast. We're so glad to have you here to continue bringing our conversations, insights, and inspiration for music educators everywhere. Each week, we'll highlight voices from across the music world and share ideas that you can bring directly into your classroom and to your ensembles. Before we begin our conversation today, however, it's time for our Standing Ovation, a new segment of our show where we shine a spotlight on one of our incredible colleagues that is truly making a difference in the field. This week we're recognizing Matt Sawyer from Braswell High School and Cheek Middle School. Gregory Denson shared that Mister Sawyer teaches the Cheek Jazz Band once a week, and he's inspired those students and fostered a love for jazz like no other. The students and I love Mr. Sawyer, Gregory shared, and all that he does for the Cheek Jazz program. We know that in our profession, it's not often that the teachers get the spotlight, but we think that you deserve one. So to Matt Sawyer and all the hard working music educators out there, this ovation's for you. If you have someone you'd like to nominate for a standing ovation, the link is always in the show notes. And now let's turn to our guest. Our guest today is David Leach. Welcome, David.
Hey, it's great to be here. It's great to see you and work with you both.
We're so glad to have you. David is the former Director of Bands at Pioneer High School in Ann Arbor, MI, having recently retired after 35 years of teaching. Congratulations. He's also an ensemble conductor for the Blue Lake Fine Arts Camp and will serve next year as their conductor of the Blue Lake International Band, traveling in Europe and so forth. So with David's wealth of knowledge and experience, we're excited to dive into today's topic, which is early career teachers and advice for them. So, John, take us away.
Thanks. Hi, David. It's always good to see you, my friend.
Hey John, it's great to see you, my friend.
So I'm just going to dive in. Looking back and thinking about your first couple years in the profession, what do you wish that someone had told you at the very beginning that you know now but didn't know then?
You know, actually that's one of my favorite questions because I get that a lot. I think one of the things that I would often advise, and I do advise students today, is that you lead with kindness. I think that's probably the most important thing people need to understand. You get into a situation where you're in front of kids, you're in front of a new ensemble, and they see that right away. They're super smart. So I think that's really important that no matter where you are in the situation you're walking in, that you lead with kindness. It's so often that when young teachers get there, they want to play their favorite piece of music and they're worried they're not going to get a good first impression. So they're a little on the edgy side. They want to try to catch all that stuff. They're either trying to be too old or too young and so they tend to struggle with that. The other thing I think I tell a lot of students is be yourself. I think that's the greatest piece of advice I was ever given and the greatest piece of advice I give lots of teachers. When you walk out, if you try to be somebody else when you're walking into a job and you spend your entire time trying to emulate one of your old teachers or emulate your favorite teacher, and they hire you based on that — you know that moment, oh, it looks just like we want to hire him — after a point in time, you're going to become yourself and everybody is going to be disappointed. You are because you're not yourself. They are because that's not who they hired, right? And so I find when teachers go out to interview, new or old, just be yourself. I was lucky enough to get offered a job, and the first thing I said to them was after the first cycle, this is who I am and you have to know this is how I work and this is how I teach, this is how I conduct, this is kind of everything about me. And if it doesn't work out, it doesn't work out. But it would never work out if I tried to be my predecessor. So it's always served me and it's served my people that I work with and students that I teach and former students that are now teaching. That's the biggest piece of advice I can give is just be yourself. A few other things I often say: you were given two ears and one mouth for a reason. Listen first, listen again, and then say something. Don't lead without listening to what was going on around you — both the ensemble and the questions that the kids ask you. So I think that's super important. And last, as a young teacher, you're just so overwhelmed with everything — uniforms and marching band, blah, blah, blah — that you just don't have a detailed plan. And so you kind of walk out not having every moment accounted for, and you spend a lot of time trying to get to a moment. I think students, ensemble members, kids and adults are super smart and super observant. And so they know when you don't have a plan and they know that you're flying by the seat of your pants. And that's a pretty easy thing for them to understand. So have a good plan.
That's great advice. I love leading with kindness. We get so busy sometimes and I think that our attention gets shared with the students unintentionally, and choosing kindness always wins.
Always. Well, I think we're in that moment, right? And even if it's a passionate moment or whatever, you have to understand that you lead. One of my very dearest friends, John Pasquale, is great about that. Even in the situation where there's lots to process, with big jobs and high profile work, there are some really important people behind those humans that are in front of you. They have parents. And as I tell everybody, every child in front of you is someone's precious baby. And that's an important lesson to learn because that kid grows up, and whether they remind you of somebody who made you angry in the past, that's something you have to push aside. They're trying to figure out what a good relationship is — a good teacher-student relationship or adult-child relationship. They're trying to figure that out through you. And so if you don't lead with kindness, they see that's the kind of relationship that's acceptable. I'm a lifter upper, not a pounder downer. I had a conversation this summer with a friend of mine — I'm not about compliance. You're not going to comply to me. We're going to talk, and I'm going to try to lift you up so you understand my vision by lifting you up and letting you soar, as opposed to just making you compliant with what I think we should sound like.
That's a great distinction. I love that. I'm curious, in terms of just building relationships with students, what habits or routines helped you build consistency and trust with your students over the long haul?
Wow, that's a question with an answer within it. I think having habits and knowing — I think we're all creatures of consistency. We know walking into a space what we expect, right? Or if we walk into a new space, it'd be nice to have some expectations out there so we know how we're going to act. So oftentimes when I sit down with new ensembles, I lavish them with praise about what ensemble they're in, whether they're in a beginning level ensemble or an advanced ensemble. I talk about how lucky we are to be in the space, how fortunate we are to work together, and that I'm looking forward to doing some really wonderful things. But then my rehearsal structure is the same. We're going to start with this type of warm up, we're going to start with these types of things. So they know what this time block is and they form habits with that. They know how I rehearse. They know what my process is. I often call it peeling an onion — like I'm taking layers away. You start with the entire onion and then you kind of peel layers so you start to hear individuals or sections. So they know what to expect. And again, leading with kindness is important. I think your question is so interesting because I think that's the process — having that consistency and having that routine that they know. So if something happens, their reaction isn't, oh, what's going to happen today? We've all been in classrooms like that, where you never know what teacher is going to show up. Is it going to be the teacher who's having a good day, or is it the same teacher who had a bad day and is taking it out on me? So I think that consistency matters. I'll tell my students, hey gang, I'm super tired today or whatever, so let's try to get as much work done and I'll try to be the best version of myself. And so they know what's coming in. Even if I just got back from the principal's office who said we lost all the money and you're not getting this or that — that's a lot of processing. We're not trying to take that out on the kids. I had to learn that lesson one year. I was really frustrated when I got to band camp because four kids the day before band camp decided they weren't coming. And at the first rehearsal, I'm not in a good space. And I thought, wait a minute, these kids are here. Why am I thinking about those kids that stayed home instead of the ones that are right in front of me? It was a pivotal moment when I figured out: work with the kids that are in front of you, and lavish the kids in front of you with praise instead of focusing on something that's not in front of you. So right above the banner door in my school it says, live in the moment. That's again one of the most quintessential things I take to my families and kids and bands I'm working with. I'm not going to be thinking about the future — I'll plan for it — and I'm not going to be reminiscing on the past. I'm going to live in the moment that we're in and we're going to make it the best moment we have. Because if we don't — I mean, Shakespeare said it, smell the roses — they all say the same thing: live in that moment and enjoy the moment you're in. And it makes teaching so much more rewarding. I'm not focusing on something like, oh, festival's in six months, you gotta get that eighth note. Hey, let's try to make some artistry. And I think Bob Reynolds said it best: when accuracy overrules artistry, we're in trouble. So I always try to make sure that wherever we are in the rehearsal structure, wherever my kids are, they have that moment to create art and to recognize that they're working hard to do that. Having a routine and being consistent are the two great things I think are foundational.
Perfect. So then I'm going to hop in and just say — now, this has never happened to you or to Doctor Clemmer, but this happens to me a lot — what happens when things don't go according to plan? Whether it's a rehearsal not going according to plan, a performance, a tough conversation, or just something that isn't what we all planned for — how do you handle that, or how do you tell especially younger teachers how to handle that?
Again, the first thing I said to you is lead with kindness — and sometimes kindness is a firm conversation about what it's like to be a good human being to another human being. I think we've all had that moment when a kid made a really bad choice. I can talk about situations where kids show up at band camp and they brought things that aren't supposed to be there and did things that were wrong. That's a hard conversation, way harder to have with their parents than it is to have with them. But the conversation still needs to take place. When those things happen, you have to be consistent, you have to follow the rules, do all that kind of stuff. But you don't need to either celebrate that you're punishing a child or be angry because the kid hurt your feelings. You go with kindness and you say, hey, this was a really bad choice and there are some ramifications. Let me explain this to you. I'm not going to hate you. This is what's happening. We're going to do this together and it's going to be hard — harder on you, and even harder on your mom and dad, who I have to tell about this. We're going to do it together. I'm still going to write your college recommendation. I'm still going to be your biggest advocate. I'm going to sit with you in the administration if we have to process something, and I'm going to be on your side. I've had students — after college, as adults — a situation happened to them and they called me and said, can you write me a letter? Can you speak on my behalf? Can you talk about my personality when I had you? And that to me means the world. I just had a phone call this summer like that. It means the world because they know how I see them, they know how we worked together, and they want me to help get them back on track. And whether it's a rehearsal — John, we've all had those situations where you had the best rehearsal plan in the world and it rained and you're like, OK, we're at band camp and I have only one field, we'll figure this out. So you pivot, but you pivot with a solution, or at least a plan on how to problem solve. If you just walk into a situation without thinking those things through in advance, without going through scenarios in your head, then when you walk in there, you just react. And a long time ago, my favorite middle school teacher, Rodger Lund, said a knee-jerk reaction is a jerk reaction. So be careful. Take a moment, take a nice deep breath before you react. Think about what you're going to say. And remember, every moment with a child or ensemble person is a teaching moment. One of my favorite things happened when I was with a band up in Canada — a lot of professionals who play in big orchestras. They invited their kids to come watch them rehearse with me, and it was a wonderful rehearsal. These guys could play anything — members of major symphony orchestras and major military ensembles. But they were kind of screwing around, and the kids were there waving and doing all the stuff that was super non-rehearsal oriented. When we got done, I said, so everybody, that was an interesting rehearsal — we've never had that much talk and motion. What did you teach them? And everybody kind of went pale. I said, what you taught them was: you can mess around in rehearsal, you cannot be focused, you cannot do your task, you can be silly, and that's OK. So now when you go to your rehearsal with those kids, you just told them this is OK. And they're like, oh. It was something to process. And they were all band directors with other ensembles — it's a festival setting, so they teach all day long and then come for these two rehearsals and play a concert in front of everybody. A couple of them, who are pretty far up in the world of music, said, I screwed that up, didn't I? And I said, well, not really, but we had a moment to teach and you taught them something I'm not sure you really wanted to. And so that goes true for us. If I'm solving a problem, I'm teaching a child how I solve a problem. If I'm lashing out or hysterical, that's what you teach them. And so I think that's an important lesson — every time we're in front of anybody, we're teaching. Every moment is a teaching moment.
That's so true. Well, I'm curious, just taking that a little bit further — what's your advice thinking about new teachers trying to earn respect from students and parents and administrators? You're 22, 23 years old, you don't want to be too strict, you don't want to be too soft. You're trying to find that middle ground. How do you do that at the beginning?
Well, it's going to sound like a broken record. I think leading with kindness is a start, and then being authentic, whatever that means. So again, you go back to being true to yourself and who you are. You're going to grow and you're going to have people have reactions that are not supportive of who you are. You're not the same person as whoever was before you. You're not your predecessor. And we all have to process that. My favorite story — John knows this, I've told him the story before — John Whitwell, John L. Whitwell, was my high school band teacher and he went to Huron High School and took over after another very famous band director. Now John L Whitwell, for those who don't know, was eventually the director of bands at Michigan State University and on the board of directors for the Midwest Clinic. And I was in high school in Ann Arbor with him and we played the Midwest Clinic and so that band could play. They were stunning. But he took over after a very popular band director and the first semester he's here on and this band is again, they here in high schools played Midwest 4 * 5 times. And there's a girl in the French run section who's teary every day. So finally he calls her in the office and he goes, hey, is everything OK? And she just said, Yep, you're not Mr. Downing. Now, if that can happen to John Whitwell, that can certainly happen to John Pasquale, to Dave Clemmer, to Jason Fettig. I mean, you walk into a situation where you're not your predecessor if you lead with kindness and you try to be the, which he did, by the way. Obviously, he didn't quit. He led with LED with kindness and just said, this is who I am. And while I do it different, we both have the same end in mind. So when I took over at Pioneer High School, my predecessor is much not better or worse, just much different. How we how he solved, problem solved, right? And I told the kids, by the way, he was my elementary school band teacher. So I said, I've known Mr. Albritton longer than any of you. And if I handle it different, please understand it's not a commentary on how Mr. Albritton did it. It's just what makes me feel comfortable and how I live in my skin and how I can go home to my wife and we can have a nice wonderful dinner. And I'm not overthinking how I'm going to process this. Like, how would all Britain do it? And by the way, he's still a good friend and we still talk. But I didn't want to try to be him. I want to try to be Dave Leach. And so I think that's my advice to them. Be true, be honest and be kind. And if you do those things and remember you're they have see you all those teaching moments at parent meetings, at rehearsals. My rehearsals were never closed. I'm always shocked. People say, well, I don't want to camera my rehearsal. I've never not had a camera rehearsal. Or John Pasquale at Michigan has stands for people to observe his rehearsal technique. Right. And by the way, it's in a town where people are intelligent, so they come and bring children with them. Can you imagine if he was aggressive? I mean, all those people would be like, what? And he's up there swearing some French arm player who didn't turn the right way. I mean, there are kids in baby seats who they marched the band when the back when the band was good. That's our standing joke. And by the way, that's the best marching band in the country. But those things happen. And so you just have to understand that you're always teaching. And so if you do that, you're going to be more successful and be true to yourself.
I love the concept of authenticity is I just, I'm reflecting on when I was a young teacher and entering the classroom and trying to be, I mean trying to know everything, not knowing everything, trying to present myself as though I'm, I wasn't being authentic. I was literally trying to be something I wasn't. Had I been more authentic with them, honest with them, I don't know that answer. I'm going to get it. I'm going to help us grow together because that's where I am in life. I probably would have gained a whole level of trust that took me 4 or five years later to develop had I just been more and Someone Like You told me, hey, just be true. Just be yourself and be kind. It's now this. Is, I mean, I think everyone listening to this has had this experience. Like even my own experience, like I still have imposter syndrome. I mean, I sit in an office and I look at the portrait of William D Rivelli every day going on. I hope I'm not screwing this thing up right. And I mean, it's but it seriously took me about a decade to feel comfortable like I am not. Imposter syndrome is. It's real, a real thing. We talked about this over I. Don't know that it goes away. It's how you know. Process. You get comfortable with it in at least my opinion, right? So like when like I'm not trying to be Professor Hathcock, I'm not trying to be Professor Reynolds, I'm not trying to be Professor Fettig. I'm me, just like you said, David Bleach. But I mean, you just have to be yourself. And finally, the students, I think react better because I mean, they can see through it, right?
Yeah, that's my point, right. Again, we tend to walk in the situation and we don't see students as intelligent human beings. We see them as so and so plays the flute. They're just part of my instrument, my as artistic conductors, right? The instruments in front of us, we're trying to get an ensemble. And by the way, this is true from professionals down to 5th grade band. John knows this, right? You're you're the artistic director in front of whatever that is and you're trying to get them to understand your auditory vision of what that selection is all about, right. And you're trying to bring your heart and your soul and your authenticity to it. And so when you. When you go with that thing, not knowing what kind of not knowing that they're not recognizing them as their human from their humanity and who they are, it gets it can go sideways. And so if you recognize them for their for their and don't treat them as a oh, they just hold that flute, make music with it. But the person right and develop a relationship with them. That's that's more important. And I think that's at the crux of everything. Our job is to show people how to build healthy relationships. We use music as the tool but to build healthy relationships. One of the reasons why I have so many friends and I'm so lucky and John is another one. And David, you, I'm sure you're going to be 1 when we spend time together that you are an incredible person and we have to spend time getting to know one another and recognizing each other for who we are. And if you do that and you and you appreciate their intelligence talent, you know, no, no, I don't have good looks, but I certainly have some semblance of intelligence that they appreciate that and they see you for who you are and that you're, again, you just have to be the best addition of yourself. And I think that's important, maybe the most important piece of less not given. You just have to be the best, the best addition of yourself. And so if you're screaming at some kid for an eighth note, is that the best additions? And what's that kid learning? I mean, they're just learning to fear you, right? That's just not, that's not a healthy place for them to feel safe and they have to feel safe. And again, everybody says these kids are all different because they have phones, Man, I can tell you I taught in the, I taught in the, you know, early 90s, those kids didn't have phones, but man, they had lots of things we had to process. And they're just good kids at heart. And so it's just kind of a thing to process.
So I'm going to change tracks just a bit. Let's let's talk about mentorship and how important do you think mentorship is for young directors and what should they be specifically looking for in a mentor? And then if and then also just to follow up with that, as an experienced teacher, how can one be a really excellent and productive mentor?
Well, first thing, it's the most important part of a young teacher's career to find somebody in their area and we get trapped. It's got to be in our district because the districts now nationwide set up a mentorship within the structure of a district, right? That and that's designed to help them understand paperwork, get to class on time, class schedules, the stuff. That's just the administrative duties of being a teacher, a young teacher that's different than an artistic mentor. So what I've often encouraged young teachers to do, and some have sought me out and some have, some have asked questions about, oh, I'm in this area and how do I find, find somebody who's successful and whatever that means to you, right? That doesn't mean getting all ones, but they have a lot of kids who go play college, whatever year. However, you as a young teacher view that as successful. Watch them introduce yourself and then start to establish a relationship with them and ask them questions. If it turns into a mentor mentee relationship, which you can only hope it does, then you have the ability to be authentic with them and honest because that relationship that. Do you guys know who Carl Rogers is? Carl Rogers Therapy. So Carl Rogers is an early therapist for psychotherapy. So what he talks about is client centered. And this is one of the greatest things I did when I got my master's degree. I spent all of everything outside of music in Rocherian therapy, which was lovely for me because kids were asking questions I couldn't answer, like I didn't know how to help them. And so I sought out that as part of my graduate when I got my graduate degree. And reading Carl Rodgers, and actually, you can watch him work with clients reading him as opposed to a Freudian. So Sigmund Freud would tell you the answer. This is what you need to do. But Carl Rodgers would listen to the client and the client who had the answers because we're all good people at heart. Mostly that you would walk with him through a journey of discovery, knowing the right thing to do. And I think that was again, pivotal in my young teaching career. Again, being at band camp, being angry at a kid, going back and reading Carl Rogers going, why am I frustrated with these people in front of me? And having a mentor like, like, like the folks are. Bill Gorley was a really good mentor for me. Gosh, there's so many. John was a stunning mentor. John Pasquale was a great mentor. Michael Hidcock was a great mentor. H Robert Reynolds I totally understand. I live in utopia because the people that I'm mentioning are the best in the business, But I sought them out to ask questions and some of the questions that we're answering here. How do and they and they gave me the advice of, you know, if artistically was Bob Reynolds and listening. I sought him out for all kinds of questions and I never stopped doing that. I mean, I never stopped seeking out mentors, inviting them into my world, having them watch me teach and then watching them teach was incredibly important when I was young, when I got older, Alfred Reed was an incredible mentor to me and I got lots of warnings. Oh, he's really and he could be. I mean, we've heard that about people that are of that era that were a little more Stakowski ish. And apparently he was not with me. He was the kindest, most loving person. And when we had him in our state conference, we played his music. At the end he said no one's ever treated me this look nice. And John knows the story. Like we went out to do with the band bought him in a super restaurant. David, this is a super fancy restaurant in Ann Arbor. And we had the band do it and we had everybody do it. And it was his birthday. So we sang happy birthday to him in the entire restaurant saying happy birthday to Alfred Reed. And he was like, I've never made treat this well before. I'm like, you're Alfred Reed. Excuse me so he actually invited the band to Austria. We played at the mid year clinics in Austria the first time I've been to schleming Austria and it changed my life forever because he said to me, Hey David, the reason your band's good is because it all boils down to who's in charge and you're in charge and in the best possible way. And I'm like Bing. So if I'm responsible for being a good, being a good person, being a good leader, setting a good example, everybody will do that thing with you and they'll have that stuff and they'll have those expectations about how you work together. And it made, I mean, mix some of the students out of that ensemble are still some of my very good friends to this day of those years. They were kids. So. And the percussionist who was that? Matt Kasmerski is still one of my very dearest friends. And he was playing percussion with that band on Alfred Reid's Concertino from Herman Wins. I mean it was life changing.
So then on the other side of that, though, as a teacher who's experienced, who is going to take on a mentor, how do you have any advice for them?
You, you have two ears and one mouth. Listen, listen again. And then offer, I guess what I did, what I tend to do is I give them situations of where I had something similar. I don't give them the answer. So there's so many examples I could tell you. So this summer at Blue Lake, we're talking about some mentorship stuff. And teachers were like, oh, we have to bring somebody and play the part for this kid. And, and, and people are starting to get really anxious. They call it gaslighting, right? And that's a new term to me. I didn't understand it. And so I pulled that teacher aside and said, Hey, listen, our job as educators and your teaching at the highest level is not to give them the answer. It's to provide them with tools of which they can find the answer and help them in the future. So don't just feed them the answer. Walk them through the process of solving the problem. So if it's they can't play other parts, right. We had a kid in my wind ensemble couldn't play all the notes and this was the 5th or 6th day and he's teary eyed and I'm like, look, I believe you, everything's going to be fine. Talk to teachers like we have to have someone come professional come sit next to them. I'm like, Nope, Nope. Let's talk about how to problem solve. Let's teach that kid the tools to survive the next time this happens. So afterwards he wrote me this lovely note about the fact that he's been given that a lot of thought instead of solving the problem, giving the kids a way to self soothe, to self relax, to die at the park and all these tools to get them to be successful. And I think that's what we as mentors need to do. We don't solve problems for our for our folks who we're helping. We give them ideas to think about. So they solve it under their own thing because we're not going to be with them all the time, right? So we teach them the solution. What is it the Bible says give a man a fish, you feed him for a date. Teach someone to fish, you teach them to feed themselves for the rest of their life. So if we teach them how to problem solve, right, we teach them those things that they're not coming back to us the next day. So, OK, so this kid now did this. How do I solve that? We've had a conversation about how to how to solve a situation with it. How about giving a kid tools to survive and tools to solve those problems. So I think we do the same thing with mentors. We don't we don't solve the problems, but we watch and we listen and we interact and we support. I think that's really important because we all know as young teachers were like everything we imposter center is huge, right? We just want someone to come in and fix it and suppose to Bob Reynolds did that. He didn't come in and fix anything. He said, here's the things you need to work on and think about. And so it was massive. And so I think that's, and I never forgot that Max Planck, all these people that were just great to my life that I taught that taught me how to show what problem solving is all about and how to be a good person through it. And so that's what I think we do as mentees, mentor mentors, sorry, that we teach them how to be successful, not by solving the problem, but by giving them examples on what how we handled a situation that was similar and some things to consider that they do and again, leading with kindness. So I think those are huge examples of success to do that. Right.
I'm curious in if we shift from mentor because in that room there's mentors and there's students. Has there been a time where, or do you have an example where you learned something valuable from the students in the room?
Oh my gosh, yeah. Every day. Because I think it's a, for me, it's about relationship building. So they come in and talk about stuff and so they're honest with me and they and they're honest when they talk about those situations. So I think that's really important to listen to. And again, that's the two years when mouth discussion. You know, I just take the time to listen to kids so often. You know, you, you, you, you walk into a situation and you handle whatever it is and you walk away not knowing their experience. And so I think when we when at public education, we're evaluated and I think it's valuable. By the way, all these people say I'm going to be evaluated. They get all nervous. Please, any principal come in my room any point in time, because it's, it's all of us together who are having who are holding up this building, right? And so having them come in and do that. So with kids, you know, I love debriefing with them and finding out what I could have done better. And I think that's really important. What even from a point of conducting like Leech, I didn't catch that at all. I don't understand what you're doing right. And so those are important moments for me to listen and to help them navigate and which in turn helps me navigate and gets closer to them. Because then again, it's the authenticness of a relationship. I'm going to make mistakes. I apologize every day. And that means that they can make mistakes and apologize every day and we can move past whatever that is.
You also have to check your ego at the door.
Yeah, I could. Yeah, that's again, if you're going to have a good relationship, it can't be about you and it has to be about them, right? And they need to feel it's about you. So, John, that's that's the biggest and most important part of a young teacher. It's not about you. You're not teaching Holst first week. I'd love to say that we're going to teach Holst first week. You introduce them to Holst first week, but together you find out how you make the artistry of it right and you show them how you should learn how you cooperatively learn how you do all those things that space they're looking to you to how to be a good human being. You're just using music to show your humanity and they're doing the same thing. That's how things get cleaner, better. They say I can play that right. Well, if kids, kids, it's about your ego. They're like what? You didn't tell me to fix it, right, And supposed to I should have. I should mislead Toby better. I should have played that phrase differently, right. And so that's the relationship that you have. That's again, authentic and lead with kindness.
So I think those are John, you couldn't have said any better. Yeah, check that ego. So changing gears just a bit back to early career teachers. I remember when I was there now feels like forever ago. I'm starting my 25th year to teach this year from my word right. But I, I remember feeling the pressure of having to do it all right. You have to teach the students. You have to make them feel safe. You think about all the things that all of us have been talking about for the last half an hour, but exponentially more, right? How do you teach early teachers to prioritize what really matters? Because it feels like everything does.
Yeah, but it actually does. Yeah, for sure.
I think the best piece of advice is, you know, you have to be able to live a life. And that's the thing that all of us young teachers, particularly me, become obsessive with that space, right? They want to do everything. They're making the cassette tapes, they're copying all the music, they're doing all that stuff. And John Whitwell, I'm sorry, going back to name dropping, when he got to here in high school, the kids ran the instrument store stuff and the kids ran the uniform pass out. Not parents, kids. And he walked in that space and one of the one of the head folks for uniform said, Mr. what are you doing here? This art job? You go do music and art. We've got this taken care of. And so empowering kids to help make decisions and to help be part of the process is going to save your soul and will allow you to go home and spend time with the people that are really important. So again, a John Whitwell story, he said to me early in my career, he said, so Dave, you need to understand that it's not about your students and you need to get that when you get old and go to the old band directors retirement home and you're sitting across from your colleague who doesn't recognize you and you don't recognize them because that's where we are. It's your own children who are going to come in and take care of you, not your students. Set your priorities. So friends and family and loved ones are the priority. Do your job to the best of your ability. But at the end of the day, make sure you're taking care of the things that really matter, your health, your happiness, your health and your happiness, mental and physical. I mean, that's number one. And so I think that's really important. If you try to do everything, you're always going to fail it. But if you try to incrementally take care of things that are in front of you, if, when I talk about students with ADHD, they spread their homework out or get overwhelmed and shut down as opposed to stacking their homework and doing this piece and then flipping it over and doing that piece and flipping it over and doing that piece. As young band directors, we walk in and we have that moment. Oh my God, I have all this to process. Stack it this way, do one at a time, set a time limit and then be able to go home and do that. You're going to be happier if you have a budgeted amount of time. When we're young, I know you two have done it. You're 10 o'clock at night. You're still in the band room, right? Taking care of business because something's going to happen the next day. As we get older, we get much better and much more efficient and much better at delegating. But I'm not exaggerating in any way, shape or form. We can talk about travel. I had a travel committee. I didn't choose location. I sat down with kids and said, hey, where do you want to go? What do you want to do? It morphed into a lot of the similar things because they remember hearing their friends do the same things, play Carnegie Hall or go to Italy. Crucial. So those are things that are important, but I didn't choose it because it's not my tour, it's theirs. I had a committee the last 10 years of my career that we would talk about music. I learned some great music from kids. Libra, Oscar Navarro. One of my kids came to me, ran to me. Wasn't even my kid. It was an orchestra kid at Pioneer. Goes, Leach, this piece has Leach all over it, so I wouldn't listen to it. It does. It's so well written and so cool and so unique and so different. And so kids got to know me and I got to know them. And so the process is I started to, I continue to delegate more, and again, I'm not trying to shirk my responsibility. But I had kids help with attendance. I made sure it was there and I logged in, but I had a kid and we would together greet every kid who comes to the classroom. So I got to know names and they knew that was it. So by the middle of semester when I knew everybody, that kid was doing attendance and I was greeting kids differently, they're coming to ask me questions, I was available. And so I think for me to try to delegate big chunks of stuff, have a parent organization that handles the yearbook, they handle all this kind of stuff so that you're not trying to do everything. And that's hard because you want to be successful. So who's better equipped to making you successful other than you? But they want you successful too. So let them be part of your journey and you will make friends for a lifetime. I can tell you I have parents from both. I taught at Ypsilanti for 15 years. I taught at Pioneer High School for 22 years. Some of those folks that traveled together or worked together in the band association are still the very best of friends. So you've helped them develop relationships and I have students. The current director of bands of Pioneer High School, Ellie Pollitt, married his high school person when he was drum major with me and she was flag captain. They're now married. He's the director of bands of Pioneer, because they were empowered to make decisions. They made a great decision because they took care of one another. But they knew, both of them knew that they were responsible for things that I wasn't. I'm not going to write flag drill. Holy mackerel. You know, you got kids. That's what you know. And again, I had my wife part of it. My wife was my flag coordinator for years. So they got a chance to meet her and know who I was.
Yeah, that's great. You know, we could keep going. I think we could probably talk for hours about advice and you've given so much thus far. If we could think about the first five years of a teacher, like the first five years, what's a single piece of advice or something compact that you could offer, like here's my best, if I've got 2 minutes to tell you something, what would you say? Someone that's in there going to deal with this for five years?
Did you say 2 hours or two minutes? Because I'd rather have two hours.
I don't know.
Live in the moment, lead with kindness, right? Those are things that I think are the most important part of that. You have to show your humanity, right? You have to show who you are as a human being, and that's important. We're not there to, I know it feels like that when you're young. You're there to be a band director, you're there to teach band. That's a failure. You're there to show them how to develop a healthy relationship between a student and a teacher at the next level. It's much different, way different. We have to come in, we have a job to do in marching band. We have all the stuff that's compacted. It's way more complicated. And yet the good ones still build wonderful relationships because that's what they're showing and they're showing it by example. Here's how we — okay, John, I'm going to call you out for a second. So we talked about this year not having a one week show in his program, but he's still going to try to plan one so they know how to do it in the future. That's great teaching. You're thinking about stuff to help them be successful in the future. Pioneer High School did not do drum corps. We did not do the whole competitive marching band stuff. We actually did the old lockstep 90-90 and we still to this day do a park and play show. Those are still things we do. We have a flow in the pregame. We do one show every year where they float. They have to do the whole glide stepping set to set. I teach them that because I want them to be successful at the next level. But that's not our forte. Our forte is concert music. We've had many people come in. And so I think being that person that takes care of the people in front of them, that's first and foremost. So again, live in the moment, lead with kindness, please have a plan. That's going to be something you have to process. I think those are huge to you being successful, and be yourself. That's just so important. You're not there to teach music, as I said, you're there to show them what it's like to be a good human being. Your bands will be good, if that's choirs or orchestras, they'll all be good if that's the kind of person you are. And I know lots that are successful in all those genres, and they're authentic people. And in almost 90% of the time, they lead with kindness. And if they don't lead with kindness, they get kind of snuck in there somewhere. And then eventually that just takes over because kids see them and they go, can't you be like that more often? You're like, oh, I suppose I can, right? And that changes them. It changes all of us, right?
That's fantastic. So I so very much appreciate all of this and I think we can keep going for hours, but now is the time of the conversation where we ask all of our guests 3 standing questions and I'll take the first one. Do you have a soapbox topic? I know you will. So just pick one, a soapbox topic that you want to share with us without any bad words.
Yeah, again, I think it's the same thing, I'm sounding like a broken record and I apologize. I think it's live in the moment and lead with kindness. The things when I see that go wrong, and I've seen that go wrong in lots of spaces of my career, right. When people aren't people and directors aren't that. And I've watched it at the highest level. You know, some kid on stage at a major performance crying because at the rehearsal, the last dress, something didn't go well and that director dressed that kid down right there. And they're going on, we're not going to mention spaces, right? But they're going on to maybe the most important performance of their school's history. And something didn't go right at that dress. And that kid got dressed down in front of their friends before they walked on stage. So what's that kid remember? Do they remember playing at this huge event? No, I remember being at Carnegie Hall and I'm in tears in front of my students. Not because I'm miserable, because I'm standing on a piece of wood that Leonard Bernstein stood on, that Tchaikovsky stood on. I mean, the list of people that have played at Carnegie Hall — everybody we've ever loved in art and every other art form have stood there, done jazz there. It goes on. So you're in the moment living with all that weight in that space. And if some kid plays something wrong and I chew them out there, I'm dishonouring all those people. And granted, a lot of those people before us chewed folks out in that space, but that's not me, right? I want them to be able to say this was the greatest moment and the greatest rehearsal that I've ever had with Leech. And if it's a senior, it may be my last. So shouldn't it be miraculous? Even if I make a mistake, I'm not making a mistake to harm you. I just made a mistake, right? And so I think that's — John, that's just huge. And thank you for letting me share that. I just think that's huge that you spend time being that kind of person in front of your kids and being that type of teacher. If you're that type of teacher, I guarantee you'll have a long, wonderful career because you're going to go home every day in a good space in your heart and soul. And you're going to walk in every day to your place in a good heart and soul and people will know you for who you are. And I think that is my soapbox. Lead with kindness, live in the moment. Please do lesson plans. Please have every minute quantified. If you come to my concert band rehearsal, every minute is accounted for because I only have two hours and I have an hour and a half concert to prepare for. I can't sit and go for 72 minutes on Blue Shades. Everything else will sound horrible. So we better time it out and make everything specific. And so I think while people say I hate lesson plans, yeah, okay, but if you're not having a lesson plan, you're going to go on for half an hour on that quarter note release. How about other stuff? Other things are important. So I think that's it. So I could go on for two hours, but you gave me two minutes.
Way, no, no worries. So our next question is, are there — could be one, could be many — is there a book or books that have inspired you in your journey? It doesn't have to be musical, just something that you could share with our listeners.
Yeah, Carl Rogers. I mean, okay, he changed my perspective. And again, all the great teachers that I know share that perspective, client centered, student centered teaching. He changed my perspective early in my career. I mean, I was successful. We played the state conference. Our bands did all kinds of great stuff. We were being invited to do more. But I just didn't get that aspect of it that it's not about me. I was not checking my ego at the door at 24. Sorry, I was 24. I tried. I wanted to be John Whitwell, but I learned quickly that didn't work. And then when I had that situation where the kids didn't show up and I was frustrated that the kids weren't there, that's when Carl Rogers stepped in and said, hey, what do these kids in front of you have to do with those kids? They're not even here. And of course, he didn't say that. He's been long since passed away, but that made a difference in reading his philosophical approach to humanity. So the book, and there's many books that I've read about music teaching and I can go on forever, and artistic conducting I can go on forever because those people are my heroes. But thinking about being a good teacher, Carl Rogers was really integral in being student centric, right? Everything I do has to be centered around the students, not centered around me.
And then finally and arguably the most important question that we have for you today is what's your favorite time signature?
So mixed meter is my favorite time signature because it's so complicated, but if you really had to boil it down, it's 6/8. I love it. And by the way, that was John Philip Sousa talking about that, El Capitan. Yeah, what a great march too. I replayed it at my middle school at MENC National Conference with William D. Revelli, and that march stuck in my head because it had that lilt right, you know, based on an opera, all that crazy stuff. I love it, but mixed meter officially. Unofficially, yeah, 6/8.
I think almost everybody that we have interviewed would be at least eight in the bottom. Eight in the bottom. It's almost all mixed meter.
Yeah, 7 or 6. Handful of people have said 4/4 or 3/4. It's almost all so you're in good company.
I'll take that as the highest form of compliment knowing who's been on this podcast.
Well, we think it should be common time. That's our official answer is common time, but if we're being honest.
4/4, I mean, it's the easiest too, right? It's the first, it's the first and foremost time signature we learn.
It is. It is indeed. 5th grade, baby, I crossed bonds.
Yeah, David, thank you so much for your time today. This has been invaluable information. I know I've learned. I'm certain that if I were a first year teacher now, I would have been just immensely more successful with this information. So I know that's going to be helpful in the world.
I appreciate it, knowing you and knowing John, and knowing the people that you are and the kindest people that you are, that means the world to me. So thank you so much.
Absolutely. That's it for today's episode of the Common Time Podcast. And thank you for spending time with us. We hope that today's conversation will give you something useful to take back to your students and your program. And if you enjoyed this episode, make sure you subscribed so you don't miss what's coming up. And if you know another director who might benefit from this, please share it with them. Also, don't forget you're able to nominate a music educator for our Standing Ovation program. The link to submit is in the show notes below. Thanks again for joining us on the Common Time podcast. As always, keep making music and keep making a difference.