If you have been reading my blog regularly, then you know one of the hats I wear is educator. As a matter of fact, I am a high school choral music teacher. The month of May is difficult because it is NYSSMA solo festival season. I have blogged recently about NYSSMA but after last night, I feel compelled to add to my thoughts.
Last night, we had a solo competition at our own school (an in-house festival). I had 20+ students compete. It was a difficult realization for me that I am as guilty as my students of focusing more on the scores and less on the comments. I had a particularly challenging situation with a judge whom I felt was “low-balling” my kids scores. As the evening progressed and my dissatisfaction grew, I spoke to Zone Representative (NYSSMA Representative/Official) about my concerns and he spoke to the judge and needless to say the judge then took me aside. “How do you feel my score was not indicative of my comments? If you feel my comments were inaccurate then I want to know,” the judge said to me. BAM! Then it hit me, I was so focused on the score that I had not even read the comments……Less than a week ago, I blogged about how much more important the comments were and here I was complaining about scores before reading the comments….wow….talk about an eye-opening moment…. In the moments that followed (while conversing with the judge) I had two choices. I could 1.) start screaming at the judge about how unfair her scores were and that my kids deserved/earned better or 2.) I can recognize that I have not actually looked at the comments, take a step back, and realize that I need to read the comments before having another conversation with the judge. I am glad to report that I went with option 2 and I will be going over the comments today.
I had another realization this morning as I reflected on yesterday that is related. Yesterday, I coached several students on their competition pieces and it occurs to me that I was starting each coaching by discussing what score I felt each student was going to get. I followed it up with how I came to that conclusion and what I felt they could work on, but I lead with a ballpark score…and perhaps that is why I was so upset about the low-balling. I was invested in these kids getting a particular score. As Jeff Foster suggested in his book, The Deepest Acceptance, that part of our conflict comes when we become to invested in our image of the future that we cannot accept that there may be any other that may be true. I could not accept that there was as much capacity for the judge to absolutely correct from her point of view ad I was about mine. So I was in conflict and I immediately felt compelled to defend my point of view. It would have been much less stressful stop and realize that in that moment, the judge and I were both correct and that we simply had differing opinions of the same performance. I had not chosen this route…instead I chose to talk with others about what a bad judge this was and how her scores couldn’t possibly be right….
This morning, I was going through Step 2 (acknowledging….without judgment) and I had to acknowledge that I was as score driven as my kids. However, I am not going to use this moment to discuss how this makes me a bad person for not living up to my own advice. Its not about judgment…but acknowledgement. One place for me to grow is to remember that I need to look past the scores and read the comments! That is what I want to be different tomorrow (Step 3). So what am I going to DO about it (Step 4)? I am going to read those comments and share them with each student and explain how the comments need to be the focus. And I am going to log that away for next year. As the NYSSMA season rolls out for 2015, I am going to re-read these blogs before the festivals, so that I am reminded of how to use Cheerful Acceptance to help me to better experience these festivals.
What moments can you find today to help remind you how to apply Cheerful Acceptance?
Have a GREAT day!
Cheerful Acceptance 