Last Wednesday, in what could best be described as television coming to life, 90-year-old William Shatner blasted into space. In a convergence of science fiction and science reality, the world-renowned actor slipped the surly bonds of Earth to experience in-person what he had been portraying as James T. Kirk, Captain of the Enterprise.
In a flight lasting just over ten minutes, Shatner was able to experience prolonged weightlessness as he viewed the Earth's curvature.
Upon his landing, as Shatner emerged from the capsule, he proclaimed to Jeff Bezos, "What you have given me is the most profound experience; I hope I never recover from this. I hope that I can maintain what I feel now. I don't want to lose it."
I was never a Trekkie. My lack of fandom stems both from an under-appreciation of science-fiction and because I spent most of my formative years hearing "Beam me up Scotty," every time I met someone new.
Fan of the show? No. Fan of the actor? Yes.
Strapping himself in an unpiloted, experimental, barely tested , tiny capsule, with 75,000 tons of rocket fuel beneath him took some guts. But more importantly, it took imagination and a sense of wonder. Think about it. After living a life of pretending to be something, he decided to stop acting and start living in his ninth decade on this planet.
So why am I sharing this with you? Because in a similar, but less poetic fashion, I am doing the same thing. Yes, as you are reading this e-zine, I too will be going where no man has gone before." Well, at least not where this man has gone before.
I will be substituting in my son's sixth-grade beginning band class (cue dramatic music).
While slightly less dramatic (but just as dangerous), my visit to the Jacobson Elementary School Cafetorium does have a "Shatner-esque" quality to it.
Like my pal Bill, for the past 17 years, I too have been on a stage talking about the importance of something I have never done, taught beginners. Not even during student teaching.
Yep, you read it right. I have never taught someone how to put an instrument together or place a reed on a mouthpiece. I have never had to instruct someone on proper bow placement or what a correct embouchure should look like. Let me be clear. I am NERVOUS.
I want to think that I could rely on my 15 years in the classroom or my experiences parenting my own two boys, but we both know that would be foolhardy. I'd like to believe teaching beginners is not THAT different from teaching older students, but even I'm not that dumb. Yes, despite thirty years in the profession, two children of my own, and a couple of college degrees, this is likely to be a total trainwreck.
And my acting doesn't stop there.
As someone who spent fifteen years in a high school band room, I don't actually know what it is like to teach a beginner, conduct a choir, or choose literature for a middle-school orchestra. And like William Shatner, it's time to stop acting, even if it is only for 10 minutes. What about you?
Perhaps sometime in the next couple of weeks, you can follow his lead, and spend ten minutes in someone else's space, with someone else's students, and see education from a new perspective. In short, to go where you have never gone before.
We all know that teaching involves acting. Acting like we heard, saw, or knew something we didn't. To be clear, I spent the better part of the first five years "acting" like I had all of the answers, when I was largely making it all up as I went along. But that all ends tomorrow.
Exactly seven days after William Shatner stopped acting and started living, I will attempt to do the same. Let's hope I end my experience with the same sense of euphoria as Mr. Shatner did and not wishing that someone would BEAM ME UP!
Have a great week.