My influential teacher is most certainly my secondary school teacher, Mrs. Tess Robbins. Not only was she a teacher to me, she was a mentor and most importantly my friend, I continue to be inspired by Tess even 2 years after graduating from high school, still going to her for things I don’t understand or just for a chat about life. Mrs. Robbins pulled me through some very stressful times in my life, whether it be delaying exams due to my development of vocal nodules or the stress of important exams. Tess helped me achieve my grades to put me into further education and then into university to study the subject I adore and did this by guiding me, because I was an only music student, she always based our lessons together on the ways I learn. I have always admired my teacher for her positivity throughout my school life, unfortunately due to the politics in education within Britain my school was changed from a specialist arts college to an academy in 2013, with this came huge cuts to all faculties but the worst being the arts. Our school lost our state-of-the-art dance studio, a music classroom, storage rooms, a music teacher, and the number of students taking instrumental lessons dropped from 80 to 5- it then fell on Mrs. Robbins shoulders to run the entire faculty this included classes, choirs and ensembles. Mrs. Robbins continued to stay positive throughout all of this, despite this she may be she always kept our ensembles, open nights and events running, and she always tried her best to keep our music department alive.
Mrs. Robbins has been teaching for over 20 years, so has an extensive knowledge of the teaching field. I am fascinated to know what keeps someone in their profession for such a long period of time, so the first question I had to ask was “what is the most rewarding part of your job?” and she had an immediate answer “when something clicks” to watch a student struggle with something for whatever amount of time, and they have a breakthrough moment, the students eyes light up and she knows they’ve understood the problem, doesn’t matter what it is “whether it be picking up a new instrument, reading notation, or think about you (me) understanding four part harmony you see your eyes light up and that’s when I know I’ve done my job”. This to me describes perfectly how a teacher should teach and influence students, knowing their student to the extent that they don’t need confirmation of understanding they can tell just by their body language because their relationship with the student is deeper than just an education.
I asked Tess, “what has teaching taught you about yourself?” she then replied “patience”, she goes on to explain that certain situations she had been in, when observed by other students or teachers she was praised for her patience because the observer believes they would not have reacted that way. She was surprised how much patience teaching has taught her as she is known as a ‘stress head’, I was amazed how much teaching can bring out traits in your personality that you didn’t realise you had and had me wondering what students and teachers could observe about me.
The next question I asked, made me slightly apprehensive, “Is there anything you would do differently if you were to start teaching over again?” I was apprehensive about asking this as I believe we should live without regrets, and after teaching for 20 years I feel like you wouldn’t do anything differently you would just learn from your mistakes and grow to the best of your abilities. Having said that my teacher replied with a comical reply, she wouldn’t be such a “hoarder” she keeps everything a student does, whether it be questionnaires, quizzes or essays. I believe this shows Tess’ thoughtfulness when teaching, and how it’s not just a day job for her she’ll keep these things and have them there as reminders of past students, she won’t put them in the bin and just forget. So as much as her answer was comical there was a deeper emotion behind it which I found lovely, as it really illustrates her as a teacher.
This project really opened my eyes to the world of teaching, I believe as students we tend to not appreciate the work that goes into teaching, that it’s not just a day job and that our teachers take home with them the things that have happened at school that day. It was interesting to talk to Tess about how teaching has affected her, as much as she was my influential teacher before, once discussing teaching with her she’s become more of an influence to me and the way I think of educators, her positivity in bad situations, her resilience through the arts being ripped from our school and just her relationship with her students is something very admirable, and one I hope to take with me when teaching.