Messiah Year 1: Lessons Remembered
I suppose that every now and then it is a good idea to have a first-time experience all over again. I didn’t really plan on having my first year teaching all over again in year number 23 of my career in music education, but it happened. There are still things that I don’t know that I don’t know, and it did not occur to me until I realized that I didn’t know it. Don’t think about that last sentence too much, as it will seem a lot less clever…Even still, the year at Messiah College has reinforced to me several important aspects of teaching, directing, and leadership. I don’t know that I forgot any single one of these principles during my career. It is comforting though to realize that they hold true regardless of the students you teach, what you teach, and how long you have been teaching.
People matter. That means names, and that also means making sure people understand how and why they are valued. It doesn’t mean that we spare an individual from a critique that will ultimately help their development, but it does mean that we need to carefully consider how we frame it. Social media have done enough harm telling young people what they should be and what they are not. I spend a significant amount of time in my day trying to see the possibility in what students can become if given the right opportunity, at the right time, and with the right words of encouragement.
Planning and preparation matter. If I could go back and tell young Travis (not Little Travis) one thing it would be this: if you think you are prepared, go study again or go practice again some more. The only thing that an individual can truly control in a given situation is their personal preparation and planning. Any number of things can and will go wrong. It is a process of learning how to work through a lesson or a score the right way. The ability to foresee and anticipate a potential problem is one thing. Understanding that some of those unexpected aspects can be accounted for by diligent planning and preparation is what separates good from great, and great from exceptional.
Failure matters. Throughout my career, I have learned more in my failures than I ever have in the times that I was successful. Nobody wants to fail. When failure befalls us, many people have a tendency to reject the outcome as it is not what they wanted. As human beings, it is an emotional and mental blow that we sometimes do not recover from. I can grant a student or colleague some time to process what has happened, as long as they are willing to look beyond the result and learn from it for the next time.
The journey matters. It is really an honor to teach at Messiah College. I work alongside some amazing people, and I am blessed to call several of them friend. There was a moment when I accepted this position that a friend of mine commented to me that “you have finally arrived”. Certainly, a position like this that checks the right boxes was a long-term goal that I had set for myself professionally. But as I spent last summer preparing for what would lie ahead, thinking about what the job would ask me, and what I could give in return, I realized another simple aspect: This is part of the journey, and one in which I will be required to grow in new ways that I had not fully considered before. The journey itself must be about excellence, courtesy, respect, collaboration, joy, and diligence. There is not really an end point here, but rather a confirmation of what I’ve known for a long time: More important than the destination, how we choose to live the journey is what matters.
