Figuring It Out on the Job

The skills you don’t have right now are not a character flaw. A study on music teacher competency found that 77.5% of teachers acquired the hardest skills of their job primarily through on-the-job experience — not coursework, not student teaching, not methods class.

That’s not a knock on music school. It’s just how this kind of knowledge works. Some things only make sense once you’re inside a school, standing in front of a parent who is unhappy about something you didn’t know was coming.

Your methods professors weren’t holding out on you. Some things don’t stick until you have to do them. You can talk about booster communication in a seminar. It means nothing until you’re sitting across from a board member who’s been running that organization for 14 years and has opinions about everything, including your concert selections.

So, the question isn’t whether you have gaps. You do. Everyone does. The question is whether you’re building a habit of finding them.

The Part That’s on You

I mentored a new teacher who was sharp. Good ear. Solid fundamentals. Kids responded to her.

Three weeks in, the rookie educator missed something — a booster meeting conflict that had been on the calendar since August. Parents were irritated. The head director had to smooth it over.

After the meeting, the director pulled the teacher aside. No lecture. Just this: “You’re going to miss things you didn’t know to look for. That’s expected. What we need is to come up with a process so that it doesn’t happen again.”

The teacher’s first instinct? No one told them. Which was true. But the director’s point was simpler: “Now you know. What are you going to do about it?”

Schools have rules. There’s a student handbook, a teacher contract and possibly nothing else – so treat these as sort of a manual. These manuals cover what you can and can’t wear to school, and how much more you’ll get paid teaching jazz band than the assistant floral arranging coach makes. As many rules as these manuals cover, there’s an equal amount of “rules” that are unwritten. Assumed. The expectation — fair or not — is that you’ll figure it out. Not because you should already know. But because “figuring it out” is part of the job.

I’ve heard some version of “no one taught me that” from nearly every new teacher I’ve mentored. Sometimes it’s followed by curiosity and a drive to learn more. Sometimes it’s followed by a shrug and absolving themselves of responsibility.

The ones who were curious became better faster. Not because they were smarter, but because they stopped waiting for someone to figure it out for them and started asking questions.

How to Find Out What You Don’t Know

The most useful tool is a question that gets someone to tell you what you didn’t know to ask. Try these, adjusted for your context:

Ask a veteran director in your district: “What do you wish someone had told you in year one that nobody mentioned?”

Ask your principal — early, before something goes wrong: “What are the non-negotiables here that aren’t in the handbook?”

Ask the outgoing director’s colleagues, or whoever knows the program’s history: “What’s one thing about this program that would surprise someone coming in from outside?”

Ask some students — but give it a few weeks first: Wait until you’ve seen the group who shows up early, who stays late, who’s invested in the program. Then ask: “What’s something about how things work here that I probably don’t know yet?”

If it starts sliding into gossip or a complaint session, shut it down. You’re looking for information, not a grievance list. Students know the unwritten rules cold. They know what’s important to school culture.

Things Most New Directors Don’t Know Until They’re In It

None of this is a knock on your undergrad courses. These are just things that only make sense once you’re inside a school.

Booster communication has a political current. Every booster board has history that you don’t know about. In your first two weeks, ask one long-tenured member to coffee. Listen more than you talk. You’ll learn more in that hour than in a semester of methods class.

Your schedule affects other teachers. When you need the gym for a full-band rehearsal, someone’s PE class has to be moved. When your concert falls on a Tuesday, and you have a dress rehearsal during the day, the English department loses prep days before testing. Before you request anything, find out who it affects and give them a heads-up. That one habit builds more goodwill than you’d expect.

Email to admin leaves a trail. In a good way. Document requests, schedule changes and commitments in writing. A verbal yes from a principal can become “I don’t remember agreeing to that” six months later.

The front office staff knows everything. Some of them have been there longer than any administrator in the building. Treat them well because it’s the right thing to do. The professional benefits are a side bonus.

Recruiting is never just about music. The strongest recruiters in this profession build relationships long before a kid picks up an instrument. That means showing up to the 5th-grade spring concert even when you weren’t asked. It means knowing the middle school counselor by name. It means saying hi to kids in the lunchroom. A 30-second conversation in a hallway with a parent whose kid hasn’t committed yet matters more than any flyer you’ll ever hand out. All this compounds.

When you apply for a job, you can email the principal directly. Not instead of the application — in addition to it. A brief, professional note expressing genuine interest. Most candidates don’t do this. It takes four minutes and it gets noticed.

If You’re the Strongest Person in the Room, Find Another Room

Growth requires stress. If every performance you give ends with compliments, that feels good for a while. But if you keep gravitating toward rooms where you’re already the strongest, you’ll get comfortable and stop growing.

Go to the festival where your band gets outplayed by a program twice your size. Sit in on a rehearsal with a director whose students are doing things yours aren’t. Attend a clinic where the presenter is working at a level above where you are.

Go into these opportunities with questions. How does this director handle a section that’s not listening? What does their warm-up tell me about their priorities? What are they not doing that I assumed was necessary? Tourists observe. Researchers come in with questions.

It will feel uncomfortable. Maybe even horrifying. When a clinician really digs in and peels back the onion, it will surface everything you need to work on. Do what the rest of us do — feel bad about it, have some Ben and Jerry’s while you search jobs outside of education, and then wake up the next day and say, “We’re going to take their feedback, get better and try it again.”

That’s the point.

You already know this is true for your students — nobody improves by staying inside their comfort zone. The same applies to you. Professional development conferences, regional director meetings, informal conversations with veteran directors — these are the places where an offhand comment makes you realize that you’ve been doing it wrong for two years.

That’s not a failure on you. That’s how this works.

The Ignorance Is Temporary. The Responsibility Isn’t.

Nobody expects you to know everything in year one. In fact, if you walk in pretending you do, you’ll quickly get tested on this and earn a reputation for not being able to meet your spoken expectations.

What they do expect — what your students, your parents and your program deserve — is that when you find a gap, you work to close it.

That teacher who missed the booster meeting went on to become a strong director. She started keeping a running list of questions. She asked the front office every week: Is there anything coming up that I should know about?

Small habit. Big difference.