Hi,

I'm only 15 (16 on Sunday !!!) so I dont need to decide yet really, but I don't know what to do as a career. I really really want to be a music teacher (as in secondary classroom teaching) as I love music and I love teaching people and helping people. Also, I wasn't into music a couple of years ago, but I got an amazing teacher in year 9 and have been hooked ever since...and I really want to be as good so that I can 'convert' people as I think music is a really positive and motivating subject.

But what's stopping me is the fact that I'm really really overly shy. I know lots of people who say they're shy just don't like talking to strangers...but I literally have known people for a few years yet I'm still not comfortable in being 'myself' with them. I'm banking on this improving as I get older, but time's running out and I still don't think I'd be able to control a rowdy class!!

So the point of this post is, how similar to classroom teaching is the teaching of instruments? And do you think that this is better for me to do, or should I completely forget about being any form of music teacher?

Any advice or opinions on either form of teaching would be great

Laura

You have got a lot of time to make your mind up. Do your A Levels....you may have more idea then....and then University or College..... by the time you have done all that you will be more confident and less shy.... I was painfully shy when I was in my teens...keep going with your love of music...I wouldn't rule out anything at the moment....like you say...you will change with age.

I remember shy teachers at school and they were often very approachable and excellent at their job. Most of my relatives are teachers and they told me that there are lots of tricks you learn to control a class. They all agree that it was terrifying to start with, but it's rather like acting and in any case you'll start off just by observing other teachers. Nobody will expect you to start without sufficient training.

You can also consider teaching post-16, ie further education, evening courses, university etc.

My only advice - as someone much older - is not to feel pressured into starting a teaching career too soon. You have plenty of time. I reckon the best teachers are those who come into teaching after other careers.

Good luck.

Steve

You'll likely change with age, and become confident in your ability to teach as you do some.

You'll probably find you develop 'hats' as well. Bear with me, I'm not totally insane.
See, you think of yourself as SingerPianist. Well, your first class will think of you as 'Miss SingerPianist'.
If you think of the good teachers you've had, think about what they are like, and then when you go out there as 'Miss SingerPianist' to face a class, you can adopt some of those qualities. You may find that 'Miss SingerPianist' can do things with 'teacher hat' on that you might otherwise not do.

See, I'm just me. People come and ask me to advise them on this that and the other, and sometimes I wonder why. And then I remember they aren't asking 'me as I see me', they are asking 'me as they see me, top programmer in our department in the UK'. I never wander around giving myself that label, but I find it helpful when I am asked to do something that I find scary to think that I can do things with my 'work hat' that I find hard.
What I find great with this is that when 'me with work hat' was able to travel to the US on business and spend a week being 'working Maizie', it made it quite difficult for 'me as me' to object to walking in to town on my own because it's busy and there are people and it's just all too hard. So the confidence from one 'hat' gets lent to the other hats. You find yourself actually being the person you thought you were just pretending to be.

The other thing is to remember that teachers are inherently 'different' from a pupil's point of view.
It doesn't matter if you are straight out of teacher training, aged 22, teaching 16 year olds. You think 'my goodness, I'm only six years older than them', they think 'Oooooh, teacher' (well, OK, maybe they don't; but even when you are 16 you still think of teachers as a different species).
I remember my primary school recorder teacher as being ancient. I found out the other day that she still teaches - and that she was probably only fifteen years older than me!
Like your parents, teachers are never young When my mum was my age, she had my brother who was aged nearly six, and me who was about 10 months old. I can't even begin to imagine how I would cope with one child at the moment, never mind two! I can just about be trusted to look after a cat, but surely not another human being!
Talking to my mum - she felt exactly the same - what the heck was she doing, surely she couldn't be trusted to do this, how could she manage?

I think we all generally find ways to do what we have to - and I think if you really want to be a teacher, you'll find you can manage it. And I hope you bring musical inspiration to those children just like your teacher did to you

Maize has summed it up brilliantly.

As a teenager I was desperately shy. Being bullied at school for having wonky teeth, being academic in a non academic school and worst of all having no interest in pop music and thinking that Beethoven was probably the greatest person who had ever lived did set me out as being a little 'different'. I was really lucky, a music teacher gave me some advice about joining a new orchestra (I was more than a little underqualified so v nervous) go in acting as confident as you can, never claim you can do/know things you don't but don't instantly advertise the fact that you are out of your depth, establish yourself....then and only then vollunteer the info about your weaknessess. I've used this advice with every change of school/orchestra/university/job since. At 1st confident CJB was all an act.....sometimes it still is, but more and more especially in a work environment it is the real CJB.

I found it easier making these concious efforts to 'be confident' when changing schools etc. something about no-one knowing that really I'm shy helped.

Good luck - I'm sure you will be fine.

Hi Laura,

Is there any way (perhaps not this year, but before you leave school) that you could help out in some music classes at school? I'm rather quiet but was given the opportunity to help with some first year English/Music classes this year and it's really helped me to come out of myself more. I was really scared at first, but realising that they now look up to me on occasion ("Wow!! How can you play that without any music?" ) has helped me both in terms of confidence and in deciding what to do at the end of this year.

The 'hat' idea is a good one. When I was asked to teach a group of boys about quotation marks (thrown in at the deep end! ) I initially had no idea what to say. Then I realised that I wasn't being 'me', I was being someone who knew what they were talking about. I'm completely comfortable most of the time I now spend with them, although there are moments when I wish I hadn't started to explain something .

I'm slightly older than you, and when I was your age ( It's so weird to say that...) I was thinking pretty much the same things. In the next couple of years you'll probably experience things which will sway you either in one direction or the other, hopefully having a positive effect on you. You've got the time to think about it carefully, and even if you decide to pursue it and hate it, you can always do something else later on. Good luck, and I'm sure you'll be fine .

I think Maizie has summed things up very well. When I was about 7 I really wanted to be a teacher, and by the time I was in my teens I found that I had similar feelings of doubt like you do. So I went to uni, and dropped out (a bit of a stigma attached to it in those days) went to work in an office, got bored, went to uni a second time, determined to see it through.

When I left uni I still maintained I didn't want to teach and got another office job (managing the office I first worked in!). And then light dawned and I did the 1 year PGCE. I had an easier time of it than some of those who were straight from school, to uni, to teacher training because by then I looked older, and was married. But I'm a shy person, and I found that when I was teaching in the classroom, I sort of "acted", and I suppose I had my teacher training to give me mental support, and you have to remember that the class don't know you're a bit scared or worried if you don't let it show.

I have to say now that as an instrumental teacher the problems that arise are totally different - it's 2 different types of teaching. But if you really want to teach there's nothing to beat it.

Don't worry about it now, age 15/16. Carry on with your studies. If an opportunity occurs (and it's surprising what "comes out of the woodwork") to teach as an instrumental teacher, give it a go. Then you'll know whether teaching is for you and you can plan accordingly.

Sorry this is rather a long post. I think you should just see how things evolve.

You've had some really excellent advice here already - especially Maizie's. She is so right about the 'pretending to be confident' actually BECOMING feeling confident.

I was a complete mouse at school - never spoke in lessons, felt that I didn't have a personality at all and spent my teens feeling completely crippled by shyness and lack of confidence and self-esteem.

I went to teacher training college because a few of my teachers when I was younger had said to my parents that they thought I'd make a good teacher.

I remember the first classroom visits being a nightmare - I just wanted to hide in the corner and for none of the children to notice me. It slowly dawned on me that I couldn't be like that and gradually I began to speak to the children.

My first teaching practice (with juniors) was six weeks of H*LL, mostly due to an unsympatheric class teacher - I won't go into it all but I was as near as 'that' to giving the whole thing up. Just at the end of the practice I went into another class (infants) and really enjoyed it - and began to think that maybe I COULD do it.

To cut a long story short, I started to discover that I DID have a personality and actually quite a strong one! I was one of 20 distinctions out of 200+ students for my final teaching practice and was continually commended for my class control...

Now, 30 years later *gulp*, I STILL get nervous every time I have to teach a class (of whatever age as I now do lots of teaching adults too) but once I start speaking I cut into the 'confidence mode' and by the end of the session am thoroughly enjoying myself.

So, as Maizie says, what starts out as acting actually becomes real.

There is a huge amount of acting in teaching! It's partly why I do suffer from exhaustion a fair bit, because (with music teaching especially) you are up front, centre stage, 'giving out' all the time, balancing what the students are giving back to you and constantly thinking on your feet.

My dad, who used to work in training, tells me that I am 'an introvert with an extrovert shadow' which is just about right, I guess. Once I've finished teaching I have to go back and retreat back into that quiet dark shell which is the other 'me' and recharge my batteries.

People always tell me I look very calm when I'm teaching but I think it's a classic case of the swan swimming serenely on the surface and paddling like fury underneath! I expend a huge amount of energy on looking calm and in control!

So - do follow all the excellent advice here and also believe in your suspicions that you will grow in confidence as you grow older.

And if you do go into class teaching - you will find that you just HAVE to act confident and in control - and then that's exactly what you WILL be.

Best of luck with your ambitions - teaching is an enormous job but the rewards (not financial, sadly ) are HUGE.

Thank you so much everyone for your replies (especially Maizie's), they're really helpful and have made me think that maybe I can do it if I really give it my all.

I started helping out at a music club at my school, but after a couple of sessions it stopped because not many people came and often the teachers had to lock the department due to meetings etc. But hopefully it will start up again soon.

Hahaha I know what you mean Maizie about students my age thinking that teachers are a different species!!! Most people are so mean to them behind their backs saying 'they don't care about us' and everything, but of course they care because their a teacher and they are REAL PEOPLE!!

But definitely, the whole 'hat' acting thing...I'll try that! I know someone asked me how to do something in music club and I was like ahhhh, and you're right, I had to think of myself like they see me, and they expect me to know the answer, so I told them something which I think was right!! haha!!

And, CJB, I completely understand what you mean about trying to be more confident when you go somewhere new...it definitely helps that people don't know you're shy. At the moment in my school EVERYONE knows I'm shy and hardly talk to anyone but my couple of best friends, and so I feel like it'd be silly if I suddenly made an effort to be more confident. So I'm trying to do it gradually!!! It's much easier when I'm hyper....I'm much more relaxed!

Again thanks for all of your replies

Hi singerpianist

I hope it all works out as you want - the replies you've had sound really encouraging.

But just in case....

Have a look at this website (the Incorporated Society of Musicians) and this one (the BBC) - they both have some really good information on alternative careers in the music industry in case you decide teaching isn't for you after all. Best of luck with whatever career you eventually go in for

I would agree with most of what other people have said. I was also extremely shy and ended up (more by accident than by design) teaching English in a secondary school for fifteen years before getting a job as a lecturer at a university.

I was thrown in at the deep-end with no teacher training whatsoever (this is in France where how you get into teaching is different) and, although the first year was difficult, I did learn "crowd control." As others have said you are not yourself when you are teaching and I can lecture to 80+ students without feeling nervous (but still, for example, dislike phoning someone I don't know).

My shyness has, however, always shown through. At meetings, for example, we would be discussing a very shy pupil and colleagues would say to me "well, you must have some ideas since you're shy yourself." As part of my university job I am responsible for selecting students to go abroad as Erasmus students and ask colleagues for references for the students and they say things like "X is rather shy, but you know from your own experience that this doesn't stop them being good at languages." Rather more disconcerting, when I was teaching in the secondary school, were parents' evenings when a parent would turn up saying "X said I'd recognise you because you would be the shy one sitting in the corner."

I would also disagree with those who said that pupils automatically recognise you as a teacher. This is certainly true for younger children but I started teaching when I was 22 and had pupils in my classes who were 20. They most definitely did not see me as older than them (in fact I looked younger than lots of them). Also in the first school I taught in I was the only young female teacher and on several occasions I was subject to unwanted attention (for want of a better word) from the part of 17-18 year old male pupils.

Thanks for the latest replies!!!

What a coincidence - today in English we had a woman teaching us who was just finishing her PGCE...she was obviously really nervous, but she managed to give us a good lesson. Although we were a pretty nice class

Thanks also to skylark for those links....I had a look and they sound interesting. One of them said something like 'class control comes as you learn what works and what doesn't' so that's good to know.

Laura