02.27.09
Quest for a Teacher
Her name: Miss. Schwartz. Her job? Music teacher. The catch? I’ve not seen or heard of or about her since the end of my fifth grade year (when she came, and left again), and I’m now into my fifth year of college.
The story is rather simple, really. My hometown had just lost it’s last music teacher halfway through the Spring semester, and Miss. Schwartz, newly graduated from college, was given the joy (or perhaps nightmare) of being the replacement. She arrived at a small town school that was at the time filled with various random blackmails, replacing a teacher who gave the high school girls A’s based on what they did with him, and a town wide belief that music is generally worthless.
In three months, the high school band SOUNDED like a high school band. But, sadly, she was an honest teacher, and (the story as I know it) after she gave a teacher’s kid a B, she wasn’t rehired. Or else she chose (probably wisely) to leave.
I’ve no idea if she even remembers me, but I was the scrawny little girl with braces and glasses who played the flute. By chance, her own main instrument was flute and I guess my enthusiasm towards music inspired her enough to give me private lessons (for free) after school, advancing my skills considerably.
After she left, we went through another nine or ten music teachers in a five year period, one after another being driven away until it became a contest betweent the classes to see who could break the teacher first. Some actually finished a semester before leaving. A couple left partway through. None had even a smidgeon of the luck that Miss. S had during her three months of teaching here.
And during those years, I began to wonder why there weren’t more teachers as good as she had been. Why we were getting new teacher after new teacher that – half of which – really had no idea what they were doing. It lead to my own motivation and decision that I wanted to be a music teacher. Prove that music was of real value, and that there could be a good music teacher that knew how to teach it. But my role model to this day, the one I’ve always wanted to take after, was Miss. Schwartz.
She’s probably married by now, maybe not even in the state of Kansas any longer, but perhaps someone that might someday skim over this blog will read this, and might even think ‘I know who she’s talking about!’ and let me know.
It would be nice to let her know what a powerful influence she was on even one kid from my hometown.
