The challenge of not knowing what to prepare for when school starts in the fall is stressful. Stress contributes to all kinds of health problems, both physically and mentally. I know this from first-hand experience.
Are you prepared for whatever comes your way or are you already envisioning the 14-hour work days that involve Plans A, B, C, D and more? Will you have the energy for your own family while teaching in person and/or remotely while also monitoring students’ health and safety?
How will you keep yourself mentally and physically fit so that you can handle all of your responsibilities at school and at home without collapsing?
If you aren’t sure if you’re prepared for the challenges of having a healthy work/life balance come September, check out my Music Teacher Mojo Meter. This quick self assessment lets you get a snapshot of your readiness for teaching during a pandemic.
By asking yourself these questions, you can easily identify where your strengths have been and what your biggest obstacles will be moving forward. You can’t fix what you can’t identify.
Summer is the perfect time to invest in YOU – and this summer is the most important summer to put habits in place that will support you in the upcoming school year. We’ve got important work to do – and we must have the stamina to be able to do it!
I hope my Music Teacher Mojo Meter is a helpful tool in helping you figure out what you can do to support yourself through this stressful time.
As we wrap up the most unusual school year in the history of the world, there are a million things to think about and do as we prepare for next year. Not knowing what to expect and where to start can feel overwhelming. We can either freak out or figure it out.
As we have seen over the past few months, much of the work we do as teachers goes way beyond teaching content. We are shaping the hearts and minds of our students, too. We are walking with them on a journey for a more equitable world at the same time, and it takes a lot to do this.
This is hard work – and it is critical work.
A few of my author friends who have written books specifically for educators have offered FREE downloads of their eBooks to my friends and colleagues in an effort to provide help for you during this challenging experience. I’m delighted to be able to pass these resources on to you. Feel free to share them with fellow educators as well.
I invite you to download any or all of these awesome resources. Just click the links below to immediately access their books. And if you want to know more about any of these authors’ books, techniques, or ideas as they relate to your particular situation, feel free to reach out to them. They are real people who are on a mission to make the world a better place with their stories.
I have been a teacher for over 30 years. As much as I’d like to say I have this all figured out, I don’t. I have more work to do. I have much more to learn. And it all starts by educating ourselves and using resources that support us in our missions to help kids learn and grow.
THANK YOU for your tireless service to students and education. Together we are going to change the world.
May the summer bring you an opportunity to take a breath, reset, and focus your energy in a way that supports you so you can support yourself, your family, your students, and your community.
With you on this journey Lesley
Dr. Tonya Crombie is the Amazon best-selling author of Stop Worrying About your Anxious Child and is a certified life coach who likes nothing better than helping parents manage their children’s and their own anxiety. Tonya has an MBA and a doctorate in Industrial/Organizational psychology. She founded her coaching practice after leaving a successful corporate career to have more time with her family. She lives just outside of New Orleans, LA with her awesome husband, two amazing kids – including a beautifully perfect anxious child -and two extremely barky dogs.
Click image for FREE eBook Dr. Tonya Crombine
Most high school seniors don’t leave high school with the tools they need to prevent the likelihood of sexual assault. These are often learned over time, hopefully without any damaging experiences along the way. Even now when sexual assault rates have reached epidemic proportions, and half of all victims are between the ages of 18 and 34, we still have very few resources to offer young people around sexual safety. Be Strong, Be Wise in the Age of #MeToo, and the Be Strong, Be Wise safety education program provide all the tools necessary to develop “safety-mindedness.” Be Strong, Be Wise includes reflective discussion to improve personal and group awareness while supporting healthy independence. Keener intuition, self-knowledge, people perception and communication skill are just part of what students will cultivate after reading this book and participating in the safety education program. For more information, check out bestrongbewise.com!
Click image for FREE eBookAuthor Amy Carpenter
Is it possible to actually teach and go home?Effectively? And still, be a good teacher? The answer is Yes! Educator and best-selling author Danielle E. Felton has served and helped educators in the field for over ten years. After the success and feedback from her bestseller, “Teach and Go Home: The Sophisticated Guide to Simplifying and Managing Your Workload and More”, Danielle is now sharing the secrets personally with a free copy of her best selling book.
In her book, you will find out how to not only make this answer true for yourself but also discover the secrets and tips to do begin implementing them instantly! This book is a guide to creating the career of your dreams and time to enjoy falling in love with your life again.
Manage your workload and return to your passions today!
Click image for a FREE eBookAuthor and Educator Danielle Felton
It’s my 32nd year of teaching, so this shouldn’t have been a big deal. I’ve been through dozens of these and had no reason to believe this would be any different other than the fact that it was taking place online due to the pandemic.
Mr. Peters and I met on Zoom, and after exchanging pleasantries, he screen-shared my evaluation form.
There on page six he had a running narrative of what was going on in the classroom:
T askes Ss to raise their hands if they had a trill at the end.
T: …We don’t breathe before the deedle-eedle-eet – that would sound silly… I want you to hear the melody and realize how hard it is at this speed, because they have to take in gigantic amounts of air in…
T: Keeping a beautiful tone at all times, you’re doing a nice job keeping long phrases – keep doing that.
T stopped Ss playing just after a measure.
T: I’m going to show you what I heard and then I’m going to show you what I want.
T demonstrated the measure using the piano, tune with different fingers coming in at slightly different times vs. all simultaneously. Told Ss to “Lock in even better… nice and together.” Acknowledged when she heard the improvement she was looking for.
S took responsibility – “I know what I did.” T thanked him, moved on.
T: I loved that we didn’t all start our articulations the same and that you eventually came together!
As he scrolled through a couple more pages of that narrative, I saw in front of me what an ordinary day used to be like in the band room at our school. Oh, the things I took for granted.
I was reminded of the sense of accomplishment we’d feel when we’d woodshed a passage and finally master it. Or the wave of emotion that would sweep over all of us when we’d executed a passage with exceptional passion. Or the simple thrill of watching that third clarinet player finally get over the break without alarming the rest of the band with horrible squeaking.
All of the seemingly ordinary things we did every single day at school seem so much more significant now that we have been away from our kids for a couple of months. I long for the days when we could high-five ’em as they walked in our classrooms and then settle them in for 55 minutes of music and memory-making.
As I read the narrative of what happened in my classroom during wind ensemble on that ordinary day in November, tears poured from my eyes as it finally sunk in just how precious that time together had been. Those days in our classrooms did so much more than just teach kids how to play songs. Through the process of developing as musicians, I watched them grow up. I watched them overcome personal struggles and challenges. I grew to love them not just as music students, but as humans. We’d become a family and suddenly the pain of being ripped from my band family was really raw and all I could do was cry.
I am sad for so many things that we’ve lost as a school, community, nation, and world. I worry about the future of everything from education to survival and more. And I wonder how I can continue to be a band director and serve my students in a post-pandemic world.
I don’t have all the answers, but I know it’s up to me to do a few things:
Identify the core values and concepts I am charged with teaching my students
Figure out how to deliver that content in a safe and meaningful way
Implement strategies that will help me sustain my own mental and physical health so I can support my students for the long-haul
If you are a music teacher who is looking for strategies to support the long-term survival of your music program and sustainable ways for you to balance work and family lives while you do this important work, then I invite you to do a self-assessment that can help you identify your readiness for what lies ahead. It will help you ask yourself the questions you need to face as you plan for what’s next.
We have important work to do, and I, for one, plan to be ready to serve my students in spite of the obstacles that will arise as we get closer to September. Budget cuts, loss of performance and trip opportunities, and the fear of the unknown can be crippling – but our kids are counting on us to be brave, step up, and be there for them.
Take five minutes and check-in with yourself using this self-assessment. The peace of mind that comes when you get the clarity you need to take the next step can make the difference between stepping into the next few months in fear or with purpose. I choose purpose!
Join veteran band director and author Lesley Moffat as she discusses how to assess your readiness to return to teaching music in the fall. Lesley will present strategies to help you define your core values as a teacher, set goals for teaching to those values, outline strategies to achieve them, and design a 4-Minute Protocol to help students focus their minds and make rehearsals the best part of their day.
Lesley Moffat has taught high school band for over thirty years in the Pacific Northwest. Following decades of chronic illness and exhaustion that were the result of the stress that comes with running a band program, she revamped her teaching strategies to support a healthier balance and lifestyle. Now on a mission to help other music teachers navigate the responsibilities of teaching music in a post-pandemic educational system, she founded the mPowered Music Educator Academy, where she runs the Band Director Boot Camp – a program that gives the music teacher tools to build a successful program without burning out.
Lesley is the author of I Love My Job but It’s Killing Me as well as the upcoming Love the Job, Lose the Stress.
Are you a “Type-A, super-organized, ultra-planner” who is used to being in control kind of teacher and now feels like a fish out of water as you undo all of your spring events, plan new activities for distance learning, and try to figure out what next year might look like for you and your program?
This is a pretty unnerving place to be, especially for those of us who like to plan in advance and be prepared. How can we possibly do that for our programs when we have no idea what next year might look like? How can we offer music classes to students and grow our ensembles when being socially distant might mean limited in-person classes and activities next year?
Now that the initial shock and disbelief that our in-person school year ended in March has worn off, many of us are beginning to wonder how we are possibly going to be able to do our jobs when school finally does resume. There are so many unknowns about what education will look like that it can be paralyzing, frightening, and extremely overwhelming to think about. And when we consider the impact all this can potentially have on our music programs, well, it can be downright discouraging.
I remember the same kind of feeling after 9/11.
I was just starting my 14th year of teaching. As a parent, I was scared about what this tragic event meant for my own kids’ future. My girls were 4, 8, and 12 at the time, and in order for my husband to remain employed, he had to transfer to a different work location, making his commute three or more hours per day. I found myself with very long days that started with zero period jazz band classes and ended with evening activities, trying to balance the extra parenting responsibilities I had while my husband was commuting. As a teacher in the changing landscape of education after that event and the stressors that came with it, I really struggled to keep it all together.
Fast-forward 19 years. Ready or not, as a result of this pandemic, we are at another major changing point in education. Having experienced teaching and parenting after a major event that impacted life as we had known it before, I am prepared to share what I learned through my personal story so other teachers can skip a lot of the growing pains and be the teachers, parents, and partners they want to be and come out stronger on the other side.
Educators are natural leaders. Being a leader at a time like this requires vision, passion, and stamina. Being a leader during distance learning while juggling your own family, limited access to resources, and sketchy internet can be incredibly challenging. But as music teachers, we are not intimidated by challenges. In fact, we often thrive in situations that seem impossible to mere mortals.
If you are a music teacher with a vision of helping your students be the best version of themselves through the magic of music education and you want to be a leader who does that in spite of the circumstances, then I want to invite you to check out my new book.
In my latest book, I share all kinds of strategies and resources that will help you do this important work efficiently, with greater ease, and with less of a drain on your energy. Having taught more than 30,000 classes in my career while raising a family of my own, I’ve walked the walk and am delighted to be able to pass on what I’ve learned.
The book will be published next month, but YOU can get a FREE advanced copy of the ebook NOW and get started on tapping into strategies for your long-term stamina as a music teacher!
If you read it and find it helpful, I’d love to know. In fact, if you send me any feedback before May 4, I can include it in the eBook that will be published next month on Amazon! I would be really grateful for any reviews because that will help me get it into more people’s hands, and that was the whole reason for writing it in the first place. 🙂
I’m really grateful to Dr. Tim for his enthusiastic support. I put a sneak peek of his foreword below so you can see for yourself if this information will be helpful for you.
In-person teaching will one day resume. It will look different than what we’ve known it to be. We can either wait and see what happens, or we can be the leaders and visionaries who use our platforms as music educators to shape the future of music education.
Our students are counting on us, so let’s do this!
Lesley Moffat’s newest book, Love the Job, Lose the Stress, redefines the term “self-help.” Her first best seller, I Love My Job, but It’s Killing Me, awakened us to a new landscape of personal and professional sanity. This latest-greatest contribution offers a tried-and-true blueprint for vocational success while embracing the critical importance of fueling one’s mental, emotional and physical health. Spot on! Bull’s eye!
What is uniquely wonderful about Lesley’s writing is based on her own teaching journey. Her wisdom reflects reality rather than hypothesis. She has “been to the well,” she “walks her talk,” and she does it with a sense of understanding unknown in common hours. Rather than simply focusing on the obvious, she delves into the why, what, and how of the given situations:
Here’s why you need to take stock of this concern or breakdown.
This is what you can do to reset your compass to achieve resolution.
… and this is how you can do it to reach your destination.
A bit of history: By all standards, Lesley Moffat was at the top of her teaching (band directing) career. She developed a program-of-excellence recognized (and envied) by her colleagues. The numbers grew, the quality soared, and the awards continued to spotlight this one-of-a-kind culture-of-artistic-excellence being driven by her ongoing desire to serve the students, the school, and the community. However, all of this manifested at the expense of Lesley’s health and well-being. To attain these high, self-appointed educational standards, she was short-changing the most important part of her program: Lesley Moffat. Let us be reminded of this cornerstone truth: “You can’t lead others until you lead yourself.” Fortunately, she recognized her plight and executed a massive course-correction. Now, we are the benefactors of her self-explored research via her trademark writing talents.
This manuscript is an endless treasure chest of immeasurable value. From the self-reflection templates to proven time-management skills, each page reveals yet another golden nugget you can integrate into your own daily agenda. This is not a book you read and then put on the shelf; rather it is a file cabinet of priceless data certain to bolster the health, happiness and good fortune of every (music) educator.
We’ve all heard the familiar teacher outcry, “I’m tired. I’m frustrated. My health is suffering. I live in stress. I don’t have a life. I don’t know what to do. I want to give-up. I’m just plain burnt out!” It truly is “a sad state of affairs” when one experiences this kind of desperation. Might I suggest that reading Love the Job, Lose the Stress offers-up a powerful prescription availing us to a personal/professional avenue arriving at one’s desired contentment and fulfillment.
Lesley, thank you! We know the master teachers are also keystone role models. That being said, you are an exemplar for all of us!
Helping your students and program thrive after this long school shutdown and months without in-person instruction is going to be incredibly challenging, even for the most experienced teachers among us.
And supporting your students while you are grieving the loss of this school year, missed opportunities, and proper goodbyes will be emotionally draining.
What’s your plan for maintaining your own sanity and stamina so you can serve your students without experiencing the emotional drain of secondary trauma? And how will you engage students who will experience increased anxiety, depression, distractions, and trauma of their own that will make learning even harder for them?
I’ve thought about this a LOT, and in week three of Music Ed Mondays with Moffat, I go through some concrete steps you can take to help you prepare to teach in a post-COVID world.
I can’t make your situation change, but I can share proven strategies for coping with the emotional and physical toll it takes to effectively connect with students and reach them when they are struggling with difficult issues that make it challenging for them to settle down and focus on learning.
I invite you to check out this link for all of the webinars and slide decks, which include links to tons of FREE resources I’ve created in my mission to help music teachers combine their passion for music education with a lifestyle that keeps them healthy enough to have the stamina to stay in the job for a very long time.
Please join me on my webinars every Monday in April for Music Ed Mondays and use the time you are away from school to prepare for the new kind of educational environment in which we will all be immersed. You can be a leader in the transformation or wait and see what happens then figure out what to do. I prefer to be proactive and prepared, and I hope you’ll come on this journey with me.
Things were very different as a teacher, parent, and community member after September 11.
The images of the planes hitting the towers and all of the horrible things that happened impacted students who already struggled with anxiety.
The event and everything that happened afterward triggered depression and impacted kids’ (and teachers’) ability to focus. Parents became reluctant to let their kids participate in events that required traveling very far for fear that we didn’t know what was safe anymore.
Returning to the classroom and establishing a new normal and doing that while leading hundreds of students through it at the same time took a lot of energy and mental stamina as we navigated new territory. I had to learn new ways to engage students who were dealing with all kinds of stressors that made it difficult for them to learn. Simply jumping back in and teaching the same old way wasn’t going to serve my students. They needed more than that and I had to figure it out fast!
As I think about returning to school post-COVID 19, I realize education will look very different once again.
The miracles teachers have worked in a matter of weeks and days to still serve students in spite of every school in the country being shut has been nothing short of astonishing. Now that we’ve explored many innovative ways of delivering music education through virtual teaching during the stay-at-home orders, we have new tools at our disposal, so the actual teaching we do may look different as we begin to implement some of the new ways with the old.
But the biggest challenge we face as teachers will be helping our students put pieces back together. During the school closures, we all know there are some kids who will have enriching experiences and others who will struggle with some pretty scary situations. Some will academically be just fine, but others will have slipped further behind while school’s been closed. We may not have a chance to say goodbye to our seniors or other kids, and when we do finally get back in the classroom, we’ll all be wondering what’s next.
I don’t plan on waiting until school starts again to figure out what to do. I’ve already lived through a major change in society that impacted education and I can see the potential pitfalls and opportunities that are around the corner for us as educators. We can either react to the new situations we face when they happen in class, or we can be prepared to support our students and ourselves in ways that are sustainable.
Join me for FREE Music Ed Mondays with Moffat at 9:00 AM pacific time where I will share strategies you can think about now so you and your students are prepared for creating and nurturing a new normal when we get to go back to school.
This is the perfect time to evaluate your vision for your music program and take the steps you need to take to make the transition back to school successful for you and your kids. I’ve been through a similar experience and would love to share what I’ve learned so you don’t have to figure this out on your own!
If you can’t make it to the webinar live, register anyway and I’ll send you the replay.
If that seems a bit overwhelming to you in the current situation, you are not alone.
Music teachers are known for being uber-prepared, super organized, and ready for anything. And now our whole world has been turned upside down, and yet we teachers, who are still trying to acclimate to this unusual scenario, are redesigning everything we’ve ever done and are working miracles to ensure our students don’t miss out on learning while we’re apart.
But this is SO hard to do – especially since there’s almost TOO much information out there to filter through. That’s why I’m offering to help.
In case you missed it, on Monday’s webinar I shared a few things that you might find helpful during the school shutdowns and resulting upheaval to education as we know it. A few highlights from the webinar include:
Understanding the “three types of teaching,” pre-, during-, and post-COVID
Recognizing how our roles as music educators are changing and will continue to change and how to use this opportunity to grow rather than feel overwhelmed
Discovering the power of how we music teachers can emerge as leaders to help our students and communities deal with the losses and changes that are happening at warp speed
I want to be sure to invite you to be part of my FREE series on Mondays in April where I’ll deep-dive into the content of my second book, in which I teach teachers how to reduce their own stress levels and how to most effectively teach students who come to us distracted by overstimulation of electronic devices, anxiety, depression, ADHD, and so many other things that keep them from learning.
When I wrote the book, I knew teachers around the world struggled for ways to keep students engaged in a very distracting world. Now more than ever, the techniques I share in my book are critical building blocks for helping students and teachers adjust to a new normal that faces us when we return to school.
Rather than waiting until the book comes out in May, I am sharing the content on these webinars NOW. This is the time to start thinking about how you’ll teach students who have experienced all kinds of trauma, new stressors, and situations that will make “normal” learning even more challenging.
I’ve taught over 30,000 classes during my career (so far!) Long before the COVID-19 outbreak happened, I’d experienced personal challenges of teaching when I was dealing with my own stress and exhaustion, and over the years I’ve seen more and more kids coming to my classroom with all kinds of barriers that make it difficult for them to learn.
That’s why I wrote my books – to share what I learned so you can learn from my lessons and not have to struggle as much. The content of the books are more relevant now than ever.
Here’s what Dr. Tim Lautzenheiser said about my most recent book:
“What is uniquely wonderful about Lesley’s writing is based on her own teaching journey. Her wisdom reflects reality rather than hypothesis. She has “been to the well,” she “walks her talk,” and she does it with a sense of understanding unknown in common hours. Rather than simply focusing on the obvious, she delves into the WHY-WHAT-and-HOW of the given situations:
* Here’s WHY you need to take stock of this concern or breakdown.
* This is WHAT you can do to reset your compass to achieve resolution.
* …and this is HOW you can do it to reach your destination.”
Dr. Tim Lautzenheiser, excerpt from the foreword for Love the Job, Lose the Stress, releasing in May 2020
Join me on Music Ed Mondays to dig in to the new realities of what it takes to be a successful music educator in a post-COVID world. See you on Monday! Lesley
Now is not the time to leave my students. I still have work to do and I need to be in my classroom with my kiddos when they return to school next year for a different kind of experience than what any of us have known.
In addition to the many ways they’ve always counted on us, our students will need us in new and different ways. It will require intentional preparation to have the mental, emotional, and physical stamina to serve them without becoming overwhelmed in the process.
This is the exact topic of my second book, which comes out in May, but I’m going to be sharing the content NOW because it’s relevant to any music teacher who wants to use this time to be prepared for what’s to come but who doesn’t know where to start.
I’ve already thought through a lot of this and have a plan – and I’m going to share it with you so you don’t have to start from scratch.
Join me tomorrow for Music Ed Mondays with Moffat to find out why I believe our roles as music educators are critical to the healing of our students and communities during and after this pandemic and resulting upheaval to everything we’ve ever known.
I will share a plan you can access for no cost that will guide you step-by-step through the process of being fully prepared to support yourself and your students through crisis and beyond.
The webinars will be on Mondays at 9:00 am pacific time and I’ll share how you can access the full course of my signature program that goes with my second book, Love the Job, Lose the Stress, for FREE!
_______________________
You are invited to a Zoom webinar. When: Mar 30, 2020 09:00 AM Pacific Time (US and Canada) Topic: Music Educator Mondays with Moffat
Maybe you’re so overwhelmed right now that you haven’t thought very far beyond how to survive and function as the whole world is transitioning from what we’ve always done and known into a completely different reality.
I’m 54 years old – I was set to retire this year, and for the final few months of this school year, it looks like I’ll have the opportunity to completely revamp everything I’ve ever done!
I understand your stress. And I also know what you can do right now to protect yourself from going to those dark places where you feel so overwhelmed that you just want to give up.
Filtering through all the information that is coming at us and changing by the minute can put us in survival mode, which makes it impossible to access the parts of our brain where creativity and planning and functioning are regulated. It feels chaotic as everything we’ve ever done has completely been upended. And on top of making sure we and our families are okay, we are now thrust into a world where we must figure out how to teach band, choir, orchestra, and other music classes online.
Online. Seriously.
When I was at Indiana University in the early 1980s, computers weren’t really a thing for most of us. For the first seven years of my teaching career, I didn’t even have a computer at school. Everything I taught was done with me in front of my class delivering instruction and interacting with my students in real time.
Teaching face-to-face was how we learned and how we learned to teach. But in light of COVID 19, everything I’ve been doing in person with my students for the past 32 years has come to a grinding halt and, like you, I must figure out how to connect with my students and their families and somehow deliver meaningful experiences for them in spite of not being able to be physically present with them.
Even though I am a pretty chill woman who has been there and done that, I, too, am experiencing anxiety about how I can serve my students in a situation and future that are unpredictable.
I figured that I’m probably not the only one who needs to have coping mechanisms in order to not just survive but actually thrive, so I wanted to be on the forefront in talking about how music teachers can minimize the stress and maximize the opportunities that are arising.
Dr. Matthew Arau and I teamed up on Monday to share what we’ve learned in our combined nearly six decades of music education experience to help you cope with the stress that comes in the moment as you are trying to figure out how to get through each day as well as what you can do to prepare for a smooth re-entry when you and your students return to school.
Things will be very different. We can help you prepare now so your new normal will be one where you and your students can thrive. I hope you’ll check out our webinar and tons of free resources we’ve put together for you.
You are not alone in this. Reach out to people like us rather than spinning your wheels and trying to figure it out on your own.
Music educators have always changed the world through the magic of music education – and we’re gonna keep doing it no matter what obstacles arise.
PS – Join me next Monday at 9:00 am pacific time to talk about what you can start doing NOW to make returning to your classroom as smooth as possible for you and your students.
