The Music Education Podcast
Listen for authentic and challenging conversation on all things music ed. Brought to you by Charanga. Hosted and produced by Chris Woods of The Chris Woods Groove Orchestra.
The Music Education Podcast
Episode 66 - 'The Psychology of a Music Teacher' Dr Liz Mellor
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In this episode Chris chats to Dr Liz Mellor about the psychology of being a music teacher. This is our first episode with new sponsor Longy School of Music; find out more here...https://longy.edu/
Welcome to the Music Education podcast. I'm Chris of the Chris Woods Groove Orchestra, and this podcast is brought to you by the Soundstorm Music Education Hub and our sponsor, Longy School of Music. Now, this particular episode has an accompanying article in Music Teacher magazine, which will be coming out in February 2024. So you can read that by heading to musicteacher magazine.co.uk. Now I'm really pleased to welcome our first episode with our new sponsor, Lonchie School of Music. It's a really exciting partnership and it's gonna give you guys access to some really fantastic and interesting minds from the music educational world. So in this episode, we're delving into the psychology of being a music teacher, really, which is obviously serious stuff. My guest is Dr. Liz Meller. Now Liz is in the fantastically unique position of both being a music educator and a psychotherapist. So the insight that she can offer on the psychology of being a music educator is pretty powerful. So you might have this idea that you go into the classroom and all of your responses and your reactions, everything that you're feeling is simply based upon what is happening in the moment. It's actually far more complicated than that. And actually, just very mainstream thinking in psychology suggests that what we're feeling in that moment, how we were reacting and even responding, is based on what's happened in our previous experiences. And what we look at here is what's very unique to you being a music teacher. Traveling from that journey of musician to educator, or as Liz describes, leader. It's really, really fascinating stuff, and I hope you enjoy listening. Liz, thank you so much for joining me this morning. Can we start off with a bit of a who you are and what you do?
SPEAKER_01Okay, yeah, so thanks for inviting me this morning to talk about music and music education. I started off as a secondary music teacher. I was just deeply passionate about learning uh how young people lived with music in their lives, and that has been the spur to everything. So I've taught in schools primary and secondary and further ed and higher ed, and I've trained teachers at Cambridge University and also at York St John University, and that has been an absolutely beautiful experience. Again, always with the with the voice of the trainee or student at the heart of our relationship. I think we'll probably talk about that a little bit later on, but that's really where I come from, and it's led me in all sorts of directions. So, for example, music research, I then went and did a master's in creative arts with Malcolm Ross, which really gave a bigger perspective around music in relationship to other arts and fantastic conversations, and then it led me on to being really curious about um uh how young people value music, what they value about it, and that led me to a PhD, um, which I never thought in my wildest dreams I'd ever undertake. So I I did that with David Hargreaves at Leicester, and it was just a spur, it was about really what makes a good tune.
SPEAKER_03Wow, okay.
SPEAKER_01What makes what makes a good tune, and and all sorts of things came out of that in terms of um well in terms of what the establishment and the national curriculum of the time might have been saying in terms of how young people would be expected to understand music, but actually what came out of that is their hugely complex and differentiated understanding and their absolute love and knowing what they felt at different ages made a good tune. Fabulous, absolutely fabulous. So I guess that's kind of uh where I'm sitting with myself with you today.
SPEAKER_05That's fantastic, a wonderful summary, and just that blend of yeah, music education and therapy or giving therapy, psychotherapy, is wonderful to sort of get out there nice and early on to match up what was the inspiration behind the conversation, which was and we'll see where it goes, but teachers and their I do I I feel it's almost too simplistic to say mental health for what I'm interested in. I guess that's obviously a part of it, but I g I I feel that the mental health of teachers is something that maybe is discussed relatively widely, but I'm very interested by that sort of I don't know, maybe personal development. Um briefly we talked about trauma a little bit, didn't we, before we got stuck in here.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_05I suppose the the psychology of a music teacher, really, um, which might be uncomfortable to talk about being a music teacher, um, in such a positive um in such a public way, sorry. But yeah, really interested by that, the yeah, the brain workings of a music educator.
SPEAKER_01Well, I'm really curious about your question as well, and how how that's actually come into being here.
SPEAKER_05Okay.
SPEAKER_01Um, because I have a sense in order to ask the question, there's something that might be quite interesting to just nod to here.
SPEAKER_05What was what so why am I interested by that?
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_05Well, I think I think like um God, you're such a therapist, aren't you? Look at this. Oh no.
SPEAKER_01Um whatever feels right for you, Chris. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_05Well, I guess what I'm getting at, Liz, is I'm kind of I'm I'm aware of this uh a degree of hypersensitivity around music because it's uh it's an emotional thing, it can become an emotional crutch for adults uh and for children, so for students, musicians, and teachers alike. Um and I guess that element of awareness of the uh hyper a hyper-sensitivity, if you like, isn't really doesn't seem to be discussed that often. I mean, I mean, is that a thing?
SPEAKER_01Well, let's yeah, yeah, and if we contextualise that and and we think of you know some of our greats like Bach or or you know, some of our uh, you know, when we think about you know popular musicians that have uh their struggles have been very much in the in the media, you know, I'm thinking of Amy Winehouse and how music, you know, for has become uh a way of managing the life experience. Yeah, you think of the grief and the sadness, the isolation, um the loneliness, the overwhelm, um, where music has has the expression of music has really um given us support uh in lots of different ways. So it's not something new that we're really talking about. We we know this as a function of our of our human our human um possibility that music offers this. This is a a transforming. But if we wanted to put a kind of lens on it in terms of um you use the word I think when we were talking originally about trauma, you know what what this might mean or and what you know what this might and in terms of perhaps trauma is a huge word, isn't it? So I don't want to get too caught caught up in talking about trauma per se, but where there perhaps has been um acts of omission in a in a life where there has been neglect or emotional absence the absence or um specific critical moments of trauma or where there has been absence perhaps of uh a caring other um or a grief or a sudden loss where where music can actually be the go-to place listening to music, um being with music, and I think some people that I've talked to, some clients, um your music doesn't let you down.
SPEAKER_05That probably suggests a lot of music teachers have well, like any musician, we've all accessed it, accessed music for probably a very similar reason, haven't we? And that doesn't absolutely doesn't necessarily go to say we're all completely bananas. Uh no, but I guess it's it's yeah, we it's it's that emotive. Very few people I would say have become a musician or a music teacher based on the fact that they really enjoy deconstructing music and understanding harmony just because of that emotional connection or whatever, yeah.
SPEAKER_01Um and that's I think what I'd like to really really keep hold of here because the journey then of a musician gets quite complicated, doesn't it? The journey to becoming a music teacher can become infused. Um, and if we just tracked that, so for example, you know, say you've got this really close relationship to your instrument that's quite private, it might go public, but basically it's yours, and then it and then you maybe get some status for being a good player at this or good this, and you know, or or you get your positive reinforcement, um, which takes you. I don't know if that relates to your your experience of becoming a Liz.
SPEAKER_05I I literally get up in the morning because of positive reinforcement. That's you know, a validation, right? That's what we're talking about. Yeah. Um I I I eat that for breakfast.
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SPEAKER_01So there we go, eating music for breakfast. You know, it's a just absolutely. Um then of course it gets a bit complicated because they've got choices then. Do I keep my music for myself? Uh um or or or do I train to to become or do some more maybe grade exams or something like that? Or do I just choose to do my own thing and learn? And those are often that's quite a cuspical pathway. It depends, I guess, what type of instrument you play and how you know whether you you learned it. I don't know what your story is there, Chris, whether you were hanging out with mates playing the guitar or whether it was more formal route.
SPEAKER_05Oh right. Um, yeah, quite quite informal until university. Well, I like I studied BA music, but because of audition, so I didn't have um like a good I didn't have any grades or anything like that. Um but that became formal in that in that sense, as formal as university is anyway.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so and there's and within that system of grades and then university, there's a whole ramp of expectation. Suddenly the stakes potentially get higher, the stress gets higher, the s the the um the potential trigger or um for critical voices to enter. Um you might, you know, you might have different experiences of teachers at the time. I know sometimes conservatoire, I don't want to generalize, but um sometimes conservatoire teachers or that have a very you know, very focused. It's a journey basically between a technical um accomplishment, growing in accomplishment, and an emotional journey that that overlap. And it's very subtle, the messages that we might be imbibing, or as we might say in therapy, introjecting. Am I good enough? You know, what's expected of me here? Um and and sometimes the terrors, the performance fright that comes around. Um people might might not have this, but I think it's quite common. Actually, there's a huge stories in around performance, and how sometimes that can create a bit of a split in yourself between the part that you hold um very deeply as your deep musical experience, your sort of private musical experience, always your private life that has suddenly become the relationship has suddenly suddenly become something quite different. Not all bad, all good, it but just different. Yeah. So I'm guessing as then there's another choice. So what do you do with your music? So a lot of my work has also been about supporting identity and understanding identity as musicians, certainly around the employability um choices that um that young people face, navigating a life in music is a another story, isn't it? Um you know how we you know some students will I'm thinking of my stepdaughter here actually. Oh I'm sure she wouldn't mind me mentioning her name, Amy Hollingrake. Um little plug for her. Right, right.
SPEAKER_05She's an artist then.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, she's an artist. But her story, very much, you know, seeking the validation, inspired by a music teacher. Um, really just it was the force within her. I have to sing, I have to sing. Um, and now she's uh quite an accomplished um folk singer. Um she's she's doing some touring this summer uh plug, um unashamably, she's marvelous. And but her journey from from university and trying to make a living and then COVID, which has I never had thought really about teaching, and is now really quite a committed teacher in teaching singing. So it's not it's not an easy journey, um, that I'm I think what I'm trying to say here. You know, the challenges that musicians face in navigating a life in music, which might serendipitously end up in teaching. And then um another route might be more formally, you know, going to university and then making a choice to teach a train. And then all the different messages that come into teacher training about what makes a good teacher, whether it's said or not said, and then the question is how much how much is really how much time is really spent in looking at the relationship again for yourself, you know, uh intrapsychically, what now is my relationship to music? How do I how do I furnish my life and feed my life as a musician whilst I'm also working as a music teacher? Uh and it's a very complex picture. I don't know if that makes any sense.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, definitely. And speaking interesting talking about that, that uh yeah, where is the sort of self-reflection, isn't it? I I remember looking at an MA in um music therapy, which was I think was like a Bristol uni, and this was many years ago, and um I remember an element of that being you taking regular therapy sessions of whatever kind I can't remember what it was, but accompanying that. I guess the idea being that you understanding your own relationship with music or just stuff or like ego, right? Because that's I'm quite amazed that we've got this file without talking about ego. Do you know what I mean? So where does that where does that come in in such a yeah, a goic subject, I suppose? Yeah, where when I've never ever heard that mentioned, or any workshop that I've ever been to, no one's said, you know, should we reflect on what's going on with with your ego, you know?
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Well I'm look I'm really loving the fact you we've brought that in because I I guess there's quite a lot of narcissistic processes go on in musicians, sometimes necessarily to keep to keep um a sense of yourself uh um steady.
SPEAKER_05What does narcissist because narcissistic gets just thrown about, doesn't it?
SPEAKER_01In describing Well, I as I said it, I thought we might be red rag to the bull at that point.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, but please tell tell us, like give us a an a definition of you know narcissism is or being narcissistic.
SPEAKER_01Okay, well don't say me, please. Well, I think we've got to be really careful with any labels. Okay. We're always more than a diet any diagnosis. So I would use the term lightly here, and I would say that perhaps there's it's a process, and so there's healthy narcissism that gets us up and out and in the world, and you know, feeling good in our bones, you know, and you know, walking out with our tails up in the air in the morning and sort of believe in myself. I can I believe in myself, yeah. Um, I guess um when narcissism can start to move towards the unhealthy side, there's a sense that the other person in the relationship um isn't really seen. It is potentially all about um the person that's at that time in their life, it might not be for their whole life, but at that time in their life, it for whatever reason, it might be very difficult to see the other, acknowledge the other. So, in a sense, like narcissists always looking in them in the water, sees an image of them of themselves.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay.
SPEAKER_01So always looking, you know, in terms of their own genoflection, you know, what it means to them, very difficult to really connect.
SPEAKER_05So being a musician, the performance element, for example, solely narcissistic, especially as a soloist, going out on stage, you're thinking about how you're doing, how you sound, how you look, and the the crowd is a sort of ambiguous, homogeneous silhouette. Yeah. So that's just like a perfect narcissistic sort of scenario, is it?
SPEAKER_01In some ways, we could we could we could we could see it that way, yeah. We might differentiate because I guess there's a quite a lot going on between the audience, it starts to become quite quite an embodied and relational experience on stage, especially if you're improvising. You but but nevertheless, you know, improvise improvising different bands, different qualities of of relationship is so different, isn't it? Sometimes you really feel like you're out there and you you know it really is you and there's nobody else really feeling you or supporting you and then other improvisatory experiences just can be just a beautiful communication so okay yeah um yeah but I just I as you spoke then I just wanted to um uh share a a little bit of a project that I I did with um alongside um interested in uh young people um who were on the music course I had an interested in in leading groups and we did a project called it was inclusive leadership um we called it iLeap but we actually used a frame from gestalt psychotherapy on the presence of the trainer so we kind of made a framework that included all sorts of things um about how you might be authentic as a leader okay um how you were aware of um um you know what the the group's interests were um uh how you might include their ideas so it was a co-facilitating role right so rather than being a narcissistic teacher performing or well I guess a lot of them in the we we ran groups um discussing different aspects of what they called ego which you link back to to to to later um sorry to earlier and and and some of the things that they were saying I've I I can't actually funnily enough I just brought it with me today I just won I'm just wondered if it would be nice to share rather than me try to describe um ah okay so one of the one of the uh comments that one of in the framework that one of the uh students picked out for them as being really important was letting go of the perceived need to control oh wow yeah and and and I've I've written here's something I'm sure every music teacher relates to so um uh the person said letting go of control and when does the singing group exist without me I think that's really important my ego likes to think that nothing can happen till I'm there or once I've gone but the real the reality is hopefully and should be very different. That of course it'll exist without you I mean the idea that nothing can happen without you there is just well it defeats the object of the whole thing. The idea is to create a group that can perform and I mean you may be making all the decisions about you know about bits and bobs and go and organizing stuff and blah blah blah but the idea is that the ultimate result the end goal is a group that can perform something and it shouldn't need you to be there ultimately and at some point you won't be someone else will have your role perhaps and you know it's important that there is autonomy I suppose you know that it can go on without you cool that's how old are those students or that student is that one is that several students I couldn't quite work out that's one student it was uh we recorded the um the discussions and that was a transcript um 1920 wow fantastic yeah and um uh and another one um she brings um yeah a a personal an anecdote um about what what is not respected by a choir leader say uh this person says I think we've all experienced choirs and ensembles where the leader has been at pains to really ram home the point of their experiences or what they've done. So we were talking about narcissism. Back home there is a community choir and the conductor most weeks would remind the choir of what he's done and the fact that he's done his postgraduate degree and he's done this and that and so on. It has the total opposite effect as to what I suppose he's trying to do inspire people and resure them that he's skilled enough to do the job and that they're in safe hands.
SPEAKER_05Fantastic because it's so there's so many excuse me simplistic examples of that ego in education isn't there I in my own experiences of seeing of well actually sorry this is hugely widespread still now anyway of the idea of a music teacher providing information on this is how music is given I mean I go as far to say the curriculum as a whole is sort of based on that anyway isn't it's providing here are the bits of information which is kind of based on the idea of you being up there as a performer anyway isn't it and I know that um letting go thing um from personal experience of so my my type of guitar playing is very much based on virtuosity being very technically good really without wanting to sound too egoic but that is that's you know that's the sort of what it is but I would find because of that when I would do workshops and I was students were coming who were incredible because they would have to be a certain level to do it anyway and I would find that hugely intimidating and be so stressed that I've got to I've got to remain above them but these guys are getting better and better and then coming to the realisation well actually that's not how it is at all and I have a unique perspective and can offer that just the same as any of those students can and then then started realizing that that works the same as working with four year olds as well you know they've got something they've got this different perspective to sort of share and that that letting go is is hard but it's really cool when you when you do it.
SPEAKER_01Do you think that's the key to sort of a healthy ego in teaching or I I do I do and I I think what I learned um working with just enabling a space for these young leaders that were making the transition as a performer into leading and understanding that it might not be something that how it was modelled to them might not be how they wanted it to be for themselves. Really absolutely they they were learning that the humility a humility about the material that they might be teaching as well whether you know they would think oh I'll go in with this but actually the needs of the group were very very different and so how they you know they and certainly working I'm just thinking my own experience of working with Bulgarian refugees just sort of how we meet in the room as you say you you might bring all your assumptions about what you think you might be doing there but actually when you really start to listen and really tune in to the emotional needs of the group then and and you get yourself out of the way in a sense you're still there but you're holding ground for and this is a therapeutic term for their figures to arise and then something different starts to change in the room the energy of what we're doing in the room changes.
SPEAKER_05Wow I mean that's a lot of language that I've never heard in an education sort of context before do you think that fits in with um you know year two have to be able to understand the concept of pulse by week three you know do you think it's or is it just not compatible?
SPEAKER_01That's a really good question. I try to make them good Liz I try to well I guess that was um one of the major themes in my PhD which was like eight years of study. Wow okay cool cool um it was a while ago um that was a question that really troubled me actually what we were actually doing in the classroom when we had atomized it so so we're doing pulse today we're doing that today of course there's got to be a sense but children have these these innate senses of of rhythm and melody and what makes a good tune um with and and I guess given the spent sense if your teacher can let the experience become the heart of where that's where the magic is the experience of and what better way to do it than well we use the word compose but really it's just get dirty with the music get get the feel of it get the sound of it match it with another sound what's that how does that make you feel um then then um then the words kind of emerge the children have the have their own words for this we just need to listen um and then it but there's the other thing that I also found primary school teachers just they were they had to let go because they didn't have the specialism they had to learn alongside and facilitate it and it was quite traumatic for them to actually go into a space that they didn't have uh you know necessarily all the answers they might have what pulses and whatever but the experience was really quite quite difficult and there's a lot of literature around that the second but what they did do which was amazing it to to see coming through in the uh my research was where they really connected with the children were things like the mood the flow the meaning how they felt it together how they it was valued how the children were valued in doing it and that was the gift um that and also very reassuring for the primary school teachers that actually they they they didn't need to know it of course they need to know something but they just had to create this ground this space this potential space as um Winnicott might say for this experimentation to take place fruitfully the secondary teachers had a different experience because they were very invested in the technical language what they you know what they perceived and and in a sense the curriculum demands to teach and there's power in language isn't there there's there's power in all these musical terms and sometimes I think getting underneath um what it is when you when a when a teacher might make a a a really valuable col comment to about a rhythm or a lick or uh maybe an ostinato or you know these words that we band around but actually underneath that I think there's it it power in mu power in language in music education I think is a complex area um can be potentially sometimes misused. Sorry do you mean in it's like giving critique and criticism or do you mean in okay yeah yeah yeah yeah um and I guess if you've got your your fantastic um composition that you might have um it might have come from the depths of your soul yeah and then your music teacher will rip into it yeah in terms of all these technical things where does it leave you yeah yeah and I think that awareness or um that sensitivity or even you know quite often I would used to witness as a a trainer uh of teachers that the the classroom would have lots of children's really lively compositions and they'd all play them and then the teacher would say right good right yeah very good pulse very good this not so good that or work on this and the the energy in the room would just yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah and I guess part of keeping the magic alive in the classroom um is understanding an awareness of the music teacher of what is actually happening in these processes and maybe they've interjected from other music teachers from other critical voices now we're coming back into the trauma land of what what had happened to them and what they might unconsciously be perpetuating.
SPEAKER_05Yeah yeah now we're talking okay because that's um I guess what I was so interested by to have this conversation because it's really cool to talk about ego because obviously it's so applicable but that um potential damage that you can well when you're in such a sensitive space to use that word that some people hate anyway it's you'll have to you have to be hyperaware like if you're in a band for example and you're working with four other very delicate egos you know and Johnny on the guitar is playing something that you really don't like you know that in order to continue working with other musicians you're gonna have to deliver that criticism with you know sort of walking on eggshells whoever whoever they are really whether they're you know a spicy kind of person who jumps on on everything you say or whether they're super chilled you know that you you're trying to do it very delicately so you know in in the classroom it's it's exactly the same isn't it but that does come down to your own expectations isn't it and those internal voices of maybe how you talk to yourself or what's happened to you how you've been treated right exactly and I think you've you've brought up a a a really important concept here around hypersensitivity and sensitivity um which I think um the the um so much of our lived experience um of playing an instrument is in that ground of um sensitivity to self to others um and um you know when when for whatever reason you know you mentioned the your band member might have got locked into their particular groove or had lost had have lost the other you know this is this is the relationship between self and other which we're always moving I guess we're also here in this conversation we're also moving between ourselves and each other but that that that journey and then when somebody's got locked in and it there's a point where you perhaps gently have to bring that um delicate moment is is quite as you say an eggshell moment there's so there's a lot of hypersensitivity I think in in um in in musicians and I this I don't want to I don't want to to say that as a in a disrespectful way I think it's part of the territory um hypervigilance how we prepare for performance um you know even uh and and even in the classroom when you see um the groups you know like I've got to perform my piece you can you can feel you know some are really raring to go and then some perhaps are very you know quite reluctant and there's a sensitivity there about how we how we support young people to thrive or have choice in those situations yeah um I think when we if we were talking a little bit more about um trauma um and if we didn't use the word trauma I would like to put the word in regulation how we regulate ourselves as t as teachers as educators well as musicians I think we learn a lot of regulatory techniques so you know for myself um I'll breathe um um and just also just just remind myself always to listen rather than uh just get locked into the messages that might be going on in in my head um well as so as a way of overriding yeah the voices that Liz you're rubbish or like you know that be angry at that person and you're just okay you breathe you listen and that helps it opens up the react respond place yeah opens up the space um um so I was just I was also working uh doing a little bit of work with um some um music music education and music students uh and and we were talking about um performance anxiety because this is also in the area of trauma isn't it yeah potentially um and I was asking them um you know what what happened when they when they kind of lost it you know or felt that they lost it and where were they because the context is so important as well isn't it when they lost what sorry exactly where they where they felt like they experienced the stage fright or what actually yeah so um you know one person says I was on stage at a theatre for an art showcase so high stakes yeah and what happened you know I felt a sudden sense of consciousness as where I as to where I was and what I was doing and I completely lost my focus and my voice cracked and I was on my own you know what who was with you at the time I was on my own in front of 500 people so we're getting a sense of the formative experiences that music teachers have may have had that have been quite frightening um and she said you know what were your responses and she what were you saying to yourself and she says well just get through this and I can cry later wow okay um and what you know how did it make you feel really vulnerable um and then she said you know what happened in your body because music is such an embodied experience um all our fight and flight mechanisms are held in our bodies um you know she said I flushed my voice cracked and and um I might felt my face go red so if we're talking about trauma in the crossroom what might not get really spoken about is teachers' vulnerability you know where is the space for uh teachers to really express how they actually feel about their own vulnerability because so much of this has had to be plastered over the cracks or perhaps not shared um and and yet when we're when I'm facilitating these workshops or working with um clients that have had very difficult music experiences um then we start to learn that actually you know it's very common but it's so rarely um talked to facilitated well uh as a discussion because I think you were talking early about how how teachers um perhaps haven't had the opportunity to share their experience or develop their personal awareness. Yeah yeah I think that's the most um the thing that most interests me is that lack of conversational like you yeah using this term creating a space for uh educators of of all kinds just to um yeah develop in what understanding what's sort of going on in In their head, how that might have been shaped by previous experiences. I mean, we're talking a lot here about specifically musical experiences, which is great because obviously they can be hugely traumatic. I mean, as we're talking about this, I'm thinking about all those concerts and gigs that have made me want to curl up and die. But I've actually just sort of buried that into a band to throw, oh yeah, do you remember that gig that you drive, you know, a thousand miles for, and there were three people there, and then someone told you you were crap at the end of it? Oh yeah, that was funny, wasn't it? But you know, deep down that um obviously then had a you know plays a part in who I am now. But what about the sort of uh effects then of all those wider um uh life experiences? And I'm particularly interested by the behaviour thing, because that's such you know, a triggering situation, isn't it? Especially maybe working with older children, you know, or or not.
SPEAKER_01Okay, so when we were talking about um the challenges that a music teacher might face that might be a trigger, I think you mentioned that right at the beginning, didn't you? Um, you know, how we how how we learn to respond, or um, so okay, well, I'll give you an another an example um maybe from this young person that taught me so much. So, this young person, she was um in secondary school, um, she had a history of really troubled traumatic behaviour. Um and arrived in the music room one day, and a lot of the children were quite frightened of her, a lot of parents didn't want her to be in the same classroom.
SPEAKER_05We're talking kind of violent outbursts and your language as well. Yeah, okay.
SPEAKER_01So I I'm you know, I had an awareness, so it was this particular class on a this particular afternoon, and already I have some sort of fear, uh or fear is maybe too strong, but I wonder what's gonna happen. It there's always an unknown. I wonder what's gonna happen.
SPEAKER_05You're anxious about it, right?
SPEAKER_01I'm anxious, yeah. My anxiety, yeah. Um and um so I remember this one particular day, uh, this let's call her Lara for the sake of today, um, and she came in in quite a bullish mood, you know, didn't really want to line up, um, uh and the the class went into the class went into the classroom. She started banging her bottom on the piano keyboard.
SPEAKER_03Okay.
SPEAKER_01Now the choices at that point, what are your choices as a music teacher? And I think this is where um you know the trigger, the response, the reaction moment is really, really important. How many different choices could a music teacher make at that point? And what would really support regulation? And you're not only regulating yourself, you're you have a responsibility in a sense to regulate um each child individually at some level, but also the group, because the group is a is a form in itself. So I guess at this point, there was a part of me didn't know what to do, and I can honestly own that, but there was a part that really did know, and I just thought, actually, we just let her need her need, we need to just let her find her way in the classroom. So if that means that she's really angry and she can express it, and this is how she's doing it, I just said, okay, let's just listen and wait. And she did this for a while. There was no reaction from me, there was no reaction other than we just held, she stopped, she came and sat down, and later on we were doing a sing circle, which we often used to do at the end of the lesson, and she said, Miss, I'd really like to sing. So having she moved from getting a lot of attention with you know difficult behaviour to suddenly knowing that the ground was supporting her here, and she sang. I will never forget how she sang, um, I think it was Strawberry Fair, and she had the most beautiful singing voice which you would never heard before, and there was such validation from the rest of the group, and that she was more than um what she had normally presents was just a gift to us all. Um but uh if if if I hadn't if there had you know the choices that you could have made at that point, you could have sent her out, you could, you know, you could have you could have escalated the whole situation, everybody would have got agitated, but there was just something about respecting that somehow if the grounds is supportive, there can be regulation. So those are the sorts of things I think are quite interesting, uh dilemmas. Each one equally for a music teacher is d is a dilemma.
SPEAKER_05But for those I mean that sounds hell of idyllic.
SPEAKER_01Well, well, it's that it might not have been, yeah.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, it could have been, she's doing that, and you just hold it there, and then um Jimmy, who keeps getting mentioned in this podcast at the back, starts throwing something in, and then you know that triggers that, and then but that that's all dependent on also you as a psychotherapist, or I don't know if you were at the time, but at least someone who probably was quite self-aware to be able to do that, whereas us most mere mortals would be sort of thing like that.
SPEAKER_01So you said fear, like you know, it's not quite fear, but well, I guess you're inside your inside messages that are kind of going, Oh my god, what the what the hell's going on here? I'm gonna get hurt. Oh my god, yeah, oh my god, what's gonna happen next? You know, she she you know, this isn't right, she shouldn't be banging a bottom on the piano for goodness sake. What you know, I'm not a good enough teacher in this moment, you know. I should be doing this, I should be doing that, but then um, yeah, and also I guess sometimes the authenticity in a classroom is sometimes to say I get it wrong, sometimes I'll get it wrong, yeah. And then then I guess it depends at different ages as to how much you you can um, but I do think regulation is the key. Yeah, so and music is the form from music, is the form to regulate, it doesn't have to be the words. So as soon as you can get into music rather than the talking about it, well it's ironic we're talking a lot about it today, then you're in the form, you're in the music, and the form holds feeling, and feeling holds form.
SPEAKER_05So the more we can be it, do it, then then you've got the mechanism of music in the room to to support to to help people regulate themselves, basically.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_05So aside from music itself being a form of regulation, how do educators regulate and begin by you know being aware of the things we're talking about of ego and all those previous experiences, be they musical or not? How do they do something about that? How do how do we almost like what's the takeaway from this? Because I think anyone listening to this it would be very interesting, but what's the sort of homework?
SPEAKER_01Well, I think it's a really complicated task being a music teacher today. There are so many demands, not just on what to teach, how to teach it, how to record it, how to demonstrate it, how to, you know, every music teacher I've talked about seems to live a life of perpetual stress, really.
SPEAKER_05Yeah. High stress, entire exhausted, yeah.
SPEAKER_01Put a show on, you know, give give more than you've ever ever got. So the boundaries are are really kind of shot at in some way. Um and um so a self-care is huge here.
SPEAKER_05Okay.
SPEAKER_01Self-care. And and I guess around the boundary of you know how you can pace and grade your your week, your day, your term is really important, and each lesson. And I guess we have something in therapy that we call the window of tolerance, which suggests So people get thrown out of that window sometimes. Well, I think music teachers live it are often caught, you know, living on the edge.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, hanging out the window of tolerance.
SPEAKER_01Hanging out absolutely, you know, or or wanting to jump out of it sometimes, you know, get me out of here, you know. Uh yeah, so I mean, when you know when you're kind of getting out of your window of tolerance, because you you can go what two ways. There's two ways out of this window. You can either get hyper-aroused in terms of you know, everything gets very fast, very pacey, very um, you know, your heart starts to beat, your anxiety levels go up, um, you you you find it hard to focus, um, get very agitated, etc. And then sort of once you have a sense of your embodied uh responses, then there are ways to to bring you back, if you like, into a window of tolerance. Conversely, you can fall out of the window out of the bottom into a hypo arousal, which is the withdrawn place, um where you you push everything down, it's withdrawn, um, it can sometimes uh be a very desensitized place. Um and you know, when if you're working with trauma, uh trauma, this is also relates to the uh trauma when you're if you like supporting uh clients to come back into their window of tolerance. Some clients in the traumatized states can be very um uh dissociated. So we're not necessarily saying that um this this extreme response is evoked in the classroom, but nevertheless, there may be a feeling inside in a very difficult situation that you are sort of desensitizing to cope. All understandable, no judgment on these responses, it's our fight or flight freeze, but still but still we don't want to respond to that, right?
SPEAKER_05Because as a teacher, we don't want to what we don't want to be angry, we don't want to be cold and disassociated when a kid meets our.
SPEAKER_01And I guess we're all the time we're bracketing, there's an inner conversation all the time about what I'd really like maybe to say to you, but I really can't.
SPEAKER_05Uh-huh. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01But what you know, what you know, what what you'd really what you have to in in uh in the gestalt language, what you'd have to retroflect, you have to push down so much in the classroom. Yeah, sometimes not, sometimes it's just a beautiful, you know, really great experience, and everybody's but when it's when there are really tricky behavioural sit situations, um then I think also I think learning about groups, how often do we we learn about teaching music, but we don't often learn about the group dynamic, okay, what is happening for yourself and with others because you're only a teacher, you're only just a part of an a group that's forming and storming, and so I I think the takeaway I think is to kind of have under some understanding of how you know you regulate yourself, um maybe talking with other teachers, and that's such a difficult thing to do in the classroom, isn't it? In in schools often we don't often have CPDs on you know these things. I think it it could be just a beautiful um opportunity because certainly I've found that the more young people or teachers or groups of people talk about their processes, then the richness, it changes lives.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, changes, transforms so when you were talking about the um uh window, the um uh uh window of tolerance. Tolerance, yeah. Yeah, I feel like we almost or I don't know how to stay in the window because you talked about going up or going down.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_05How do we stay in the window?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so um, for example, if you were um feeling anxious, um heartbeat racing, thoughts disintegrating, um, what you really need is is is you don't need to kind of expand anymore or go escalate, or you need to bring uh a sense of uh bringing yourself down. Um so we might want to add a bit of glue to to a bit of more direction, a bit more coming in uh to yourself. So you might have different messages that you might say to yourself, okay, this is what's happening, I notice what's happening, okay. Where's the boundary here? What do I need to do for myself? I might make to take a pause, I might just take a breath, I might even need to just be real with that and say, actually, I think we just need to take a pause here, a breath, and let's just take stop of where we are in the classroom right now.
SPEAKER_05And you you think in sharing in some instances? In sharing it, it models something rather than just this, because there's this wild expectation, isn't there, of whatever you've been through previously. You people still end up with the same, so we all have our triggers, don't we? And we're all about to lose our lose it, essentially. So you think it's actually good to say to the kids, right? We all need to chill out.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, well let's just take let's just take a break, literally put the brakes on. Yeah, put a boundary, let's just take stock, let's just notice what's happening. Um so that you are in effect regulating yourself as a teacher, but you're also modelling regulation to you to to the young people that you're working with. Yeah.
SPEAKER_05That's great, because I think I think more traditionally people would expect to see that as a you know, don't don't show them the weakness because that's seen as a weakness that but actually everyone struggles with how they're going to respond, don't they? So it's so it's great to be authentic, isn't it?
SPEAKER_01And say you know, we need to stop. And it's a different way of putting a boundary in that that feels that actually it's serving the purpose of what's going on. Yeah. It's not a weakness, it's actually quite a subtle intervention. Yeah. Therapeutic and um yeah, teaches something.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_05Fantastic, thank you. Thank you so much to our sponsor, Longy School of Music, and to Soundstorm for making this episode possible. And thank you to you for listening.