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When I was a student, I recall very few instances where teachers would make any effort to learn about me as an individual. This was especially true in band. Due to an odd series of unfortunate events, my high school had five band directors over a four year period. One was fired, one had a family emergency of an undisclosed nature, another was an unqualified long term sub, one just flat quit, and then we had one more. Unsurprisingly, the program suffered as a result of this turnover. On an individual level, I never felt seen or understood by any of these teachers. They weren’t around long enough, for one thing, but also several were clearly not interested in who I was as a student or as a musician. I stagnated in my musical skills for several years, putting me well behind my peers from other schools, and I also did not behave very well in class. Though I was willing and able to practice outside of class, but I wasn’t getting instruction at school that was relevant, personalized, or even at my grade level most of the time. Though this debacle isn’t the reason I started teaching music, it was something that spurred me to move my teaching in a different direction.

My teaching is now based on building positive relationships with my students and using that rapport to hone in on individual needs and interests while also facilitating achievement at the full ensemble level. I default to doing what all those successive band directors in my high school did not. It is difficult to teach a nameless horde of students that I do not know well, but easy to work with a group where I know each student, their hobbies and activities, their strengths, their weaknesses, their preferences, their family members, etc. I make a point to converse with students during downtime, instead of other adults, and I try to incorporate what I know about my students into the way that I teach to them during structured time. The analogies that I make, the references that I bring up, the metaphors I construct are all related to something that I know my students will connect with. I also make a point to show my students that I am on their side, even when that means telling them to do things they do not necessarily want to do or making executive decisions they may not immediately agree with. In the end, they know that their education and their success are my top priority. As a consequence of my approach, I end up with quality student engagement and I am able to make progress with them on both their individual skills and their ensemble success.

I teach the drumline for the marching band at Los Alamos High School, and I have done so for the last seven years. Because I have cultivated a positive professional relationship with that group of students, I have had a lot of success with that group, both in their individual musicianship and in the context of the larger band. There are ten students on the drumline, and this year four of them were selected for the regional honor band. Last year, two of them made it into the all-state band. In our school’s top concert ensemble, seven of the eight percussionists came from my drumline (the school has 27 percussionists in total, so the competition is stiff). As a group, the drumline is considered to be its own performance ensemble and my students are often asked to play at school events without the rest of the band. When with the marching band we consistently score well in our caption, often exceeding the placement of the band as a whole, and we contributed to the band winning the 2025 state marching band championship. This individual and collaborative achievement is possible, in part, because of the relationship I have with the students. We are able to have fun, but also get work done efficiently. Many times, I do not even have to speak to run a rehearsal. A hand signal or a disapproving glance is enough to correct a problem, meaning we can move quickly and get lots of repetition in a short time span. Students make the corrections, not because they feel threatened or because they are in a position of powerlessness, but because we simply have a mutual understanding of the common goal and the path forward. When a question does arise, I consult them as musicians and artists to come to the correct answer together. Because of this frequent collaboration, they are also able to accept the necessary directions and demands that I sometimes place on them from the top down. Ultimately, this is the kind of environment I wish I had as a student and so it is one that I strive to consistently provide for my students now.

As an educator, I nominally teach musical skills in the interest of building a successful and great sounding musical ensemble. In reality, I teach much more than that. Statistically, most students will not continue playing music in an organized group after high school. Many will quit their instrument entirely. Music educators are very rarely training career musicians or the next generation of music educators, as the students on that path are few and far between. Just a select handful of Los Alamos band seniors this year are considering continuing music into college. As far as I know, out of seven senior classes, only one singular student from my drumline has ever participated in their college marching band. Despite this, the work music educators do is important and useful beyond the music building. Learning to play an instrument and participate in a musical ensemble requires a number of executive functions that are necessary in all disciplines and transfer extremely well to non-musical subjects and careers. Music classes are intense and authentic experiences that require discipline, perseverance, teamwork, leadership, initiative, timeliness, responsibility, work ethic, and a host of other traits. While other classes foster some of these same functions, music is especially good at it because a music class is not a space where students learn about music, it is a space where students learn to do music with no caveats or reserves. The performance aspect means that students must actively participate constantly and must learn the same skills to produce the same products as their professional counterparts (at a developmentally appropriate level). The necessary executive functions to achieve long term musical success are invaluable in the workplace or in other adult life situations, so I am not just teaching musical skills, I am also teaching life skills that go beyond my classroom.