The Violin: Just Say No!
I have decided to stop playing the violin for the sake of my sanity. I have truly come to hate it! I quit my position with the local orchestra and also resigned from the string quartet in which I was playing. I've also informed my students that I will no longer teach privately, although I still have my position with the local public schools. The home-schooled and private school kids are screwed, but that's their problem. I feel like I've been paroled! I'm free!!
Replies (75)
ok so you're finally free from the violin...but what are you going to do now? watch movies and eat popcorn all day? although i respect your decision to give up the violin, i do regret to see someone as obviously accomplished and seemingly passionate about the violin give it up completely. i wonder what about the violin was so intolerable that you had to quit?
Enjoy your time off, we'll see you when you get back. ;-)
"The home-schooled and private school kids are screwed, but that's their problem"
You didn't even give them any time and help to line up another teacher, or plan with you how they're going to manage the transition and what they'll need to focus on when they're with someone new? That's awful. I'd be terribly upset if a teacher did that to me. I bet those public school kids aren't learning much from you either.
Wow! that is sad to hear, given that violin is/was your passion.. Well, goodluck in all your endeavour, I'm sure the time you have now is another chance to focus on the other things you love to pursue..Enjoy it!
I thought this was a much-belated April Fools joke...
Are there no violins in your school orchestra?
And you felt a desire to post this here because???? Everyone makes life decisions all the time.Yours is worded an awful lot like a self-centered 13-year-old crying, "I QUIT!!!" You think it' OK to compromise your stand and stay on in public school?? That is shameful. Sue
I can't blame you I've been playing like 16 months and think about quiting basically daily, but I think I'll just switch full time to Irish fiddle instead, it's easier and funner and goes along great with my passion for beer and Irish history.
See ya. Bu bye, thanks for playing.
The only easy day was yesterday.
I'm sorry to see a pro just up and quit.
I think it's sort of unusual that he felt it necessary to post such an immature announcement on a violinist's website.
It seems like a prank.
You're deserting all your students, and you didn't mention offering them any sort of replacement or support in the transition.
You think that it's your students' problem?
Shame on you. YOU are doing this to them.
One of my teachers did to me what you're doing.
It ruined my self-esteem, and I struggle with it to this day.
If this is really how you're dealing with it... I'm very sorry to say, good riddens.
Why are you still teaching (I'm assuming orchestra) in public school?
Enjoy your "freedom" and please reconsider taking care of your students.
Hi, Shawn:
For the people who are committed to the violin (who are most of the ones who respond on violinist.com), your decision and the way you have decided to handle it is (obviously) not viewed as anything positive.
However, you are entitled to be who you are, and you are entitled to make decisions about your career. And, there is no law that says that anyone who is really good at something is therefore required to love it.
But I would hope that you keep in mind that nothing - absolutely nothing - you ever do on your career path is ever, ever wasted. Even if you have made up your mind to make a clean break with your violin past, at some point in your future you will discover that it was an incredible advantage (even in some small way that may not be obvious at this moment) to have become a violinist and violin teacher. I would urge you not to burn your bridges.
Each one of us is on a unique and often unpredictable path in life. May yours be a happy and productive one.
Cordially, Sandy
To respond to some of the posts:
Yes, of course there are violins in the school orchestra. They will get the same instruction as before: Everyday for 50 minutes (The class schedule for strings.), along with the violas, cellos and basses.
Why will I continue to teach in the schools? Because quitting my job, losing insurance benefits, my house and going bankrupt just don't seem like a good idea. And by the way, my middle school orchestra passed the audition and was accepted to perform at the National Orchestra Festival in March.
Besides, I don't mind my job, I just don't want to play anymore and spend my afternoons teaching private students. After all, I do that all day. I'm going to find something less stressful and more enjoyable to do in my spare time.
"The home-schooled and private school kids are screwed, but that's their problem. I feel like I've been paroled! I'm free!!"
With a crappy attitude like that (and I suspect it's been that way for a long time) I'm glad these particular kids won't have to be around you anymore!
After reading your response I can understand why you felt it necessary for your sanity to stop teaching privately... but why did you want to quit playing in orchestra and string quartet? Those things are what define you as a performer, and at your age you are very successful. Why give that up when you are still young and healthy enough to do it? Many people don't even want to quit until they're about to kick the bucket..
I'll have to side with the comments of some of the others here.
Extrememly unprofessional by the sounds of it.
Why quit these things? Because it's a really difficult life. Ridiculously difficult. If you teach in schools, teach privately and perform, you realize after a number of years that it's very hard to have any time to be a human being. And the one thing you're keeping, teaching in the public schools, is very demanding. It also affects many people in a positive way, if you do it well. It sounds like you do.
So here's to sanity!
sounds like a mid-life crisis
If his private students were anything like my son, I might want to quite too.
by the way, one of my son's teachers basically fired my son (short blunt version of the story).
Here is a suggestion! Rent a red Porshe convertible and take a scenic drive for a weekend in the mountains or along the coast. Then see how you feel.
Depending on how much comfort you need, my second suggestion is to go work in a soup kitchen for a week. It is easy to loose perspective. No matter how bad it is, we often forget how fortunate we are in life. There are people with absolutely nothing and this gives perspective on "problems" we have.
You sound very tired and my experience is this will cloud your thinking. Take Don't act rashly although with regard to your students it sounds like you may have already. Too late now! When tired it is easy to become self absorbed but you have to rest up and then shake it off or turn and not look back with no regrets.
My last suggestion is to write your next post and then email it to yourself first. Read it in the morning before you decide to send it. Have fun!
I can understand wanting to keep your sanity. I've only been on the observer side of it, but I can see how demanding public school teaching is. And with any life, any career, sometimes you do have to quit some very worthy activities just to keep your head above water. There are only 24 hours in a day.
I just hope that you are able to treat your private students with care and respect. It seems to me that you do owe them a professionally-handled transition. Enjoy your freedom, but if you burn bridges now, you might regret it later. You might want to come back after you've had a good break (and sanity is restored!)
"It also affects many people in a positive way, if you do it well. It sounds like you do."
Not to me it doesn't. It sounds like he doesn't care about the students he just dropped.
I work in computers but the same principals apply. I have never left a job without making sure the people after me knew exactly where to find everything they would need to continue my work. I even leave my phone number in case anyone is lost and needs to ask me a question. I care about my work and it matters to me whether I've left problems for other people.
Laurie, there are such things as tuough and difficult times.
But,
There is NO reason to drop students and make professional enemies. I've seen the consequences of a major area teacher dropping their private students, with no warning. There are LOTS of lost students (who never find their way back to the instrument), there are lots of alienated parents and colleagues......and lots of gossip and pi$$ed-off feelings towards the offending ex-teacher. Political cycles in the music biz are too intricate, too subtle, and too difficult already without creating ill-will.
If one cannot bring oneself to do something (such as this) with grace, then they should wait until they can. IMHO.
Not everyone is blessed with a private studio full of devoted and respectful students and parents...
But also, if a person is completely burned out and needs to take care of their mental and physical health, sometimes they are not in a place where they can make the elegant break from all their commitments. Would you really have someone who is on the edge and "ready to blow!" want to keep teaching you or your kids?
Perhaps not Laurie,
But I would tell the studio that I need a "vacation", and "see teachers X, Y, and Z in my absence". I would not just throw them out on the street....as it sounds like here.
No, I wouldn't want that kind of a teacher for my kids (actually if I were a parent of one of his public school students and read his post I'd start keeping a sharp eye on him)---but in my view, the attitude is the problem---"they're screwed, it's their problem". That's horrifying! I can just imagine how he handled it---"sorry, no more lessons, see ya". Not "I'm sorry, I'm going to have to stop teaching you, but I've gotten in touch with these other teachers I know for you to contact, and let's look through your work book to make a list of the things you'll need to focus on in the future..."
He's not just leaving a job, he's leaving students, who are human beings, and he is the only one who knows their learning history for however long he's been with them, and if he doesn't help the transition, he takes all that knowledge with him when he goes, and they have to start all over again with someone else. Furthermore, they have to learn to trust someone else again, and how easy will that be to do when they've just been "screwed" by the teacher who just left them?
Maybe he did. Let's ask him, Shawn, did you find teachers for your students?
I've had a number of occasions where I've had to move out of town because of my husband's work (thus letting go of all my students) or I've had to cut back on teaching. I have always provided the students with options and very often talked to other teachers that I thought would work for them on their behalf. They haven't always gone to the teacher I suggested, but it gave them a starting point.
That's what I'd recommend in this situation.
BUT, at the same time, I do relate to complete burnout. I will say that my current parents and students are extremely respectful, but in my life I've had situations where people took perpetual advantage, in myriad ways. And that's why I have to stand on the side of someone who is drawing the line. The only way to make the studio work is to have clear boundaries, and to be kind of a hound about it. It's so easy for those boundaries to get blurred, and if you are over-busy, it's harder to keep things in check. Some boundaries include: when you teach, when you don't teach, what you charge, policies on missed lessons and being late, when you are paid, expectations for practice, expectations for participation in recitals and other events, etc.
If those boundaries get crossed too often, your boundary ends up being, "I won't teach privately!"
Shailee,
I agree entirely, based on my experience with such a teacher.
I don't recall describing how I prepared or did not prepare my private students for my stopping teaching. Someone wrote that I dropped them without warning. How do you know this? How does anyone know if I referred them to another teacher or not? And what they decide to do next IS their problem, not mine. I'm not their teacher anymore. Few of them were serious about it anyway.
Hi Shawn, I don't know you, but it makes me sad about the way you feel about playing and private teaching. I teach High School orchestra, and have 3 different orchestra classes. I also play in the Omaha Symphony. I love the variety the two different things offer me. A friend of mine who plays in the St. Louis Symphony told me years ago that he felt I was lucky, because I had the best of both worlds. Plus, I also have a few private students, and play in a quartet. I just can't imagine not doing these things. Everyday is an adventure. I hope you really thought it through before you dumped the playing and private teaching. Everyone has days when the private teaching and playing just stinks, but tomorrow will be another day. I hope that you return to it some day.
Thanks, but I have no plans to return to active performing or private teaching. It takes up too much of my time and energy and I just don't enjoy it anymore. Teaching kids five days a week during the school year is enough for me and that's where I have the most positive impact. Those kids are poor minority kids from bad neighborhoods that wouldn't have the opportunity to learn to play if not for the district's program. This is where what energy I have left needs to be focused.
So, Shawn, how did you drop your students? Did you mention other teachers for them to contact? Did you do a final review of their progress and give them advice for the future? For the ones who really cared and worked for you, did you show them any caring and sympathy for their situation?
to me burnout/mid life crisis
People like this often do the darndest things, and sometimes come to regret them.
Shawn,
You could tell your students to check back with you in a month and you could fill them in on how things are going. You could also mention that you are not anticipating changing your mind, but you might also appreciate knowing how many of them get back to you too.
Terry
When my teacher left, I had options. But I'd trusted her for years, and didn't know how to deal or what to feel. I was in middle school, I was already confused about life.
Even if a majority of your students don't seem at all dedicated, interested, or passionate, please don't do what my teacher did. I didn't show it, but I was passionate about violin and it would have helped me tremendously if my teacher had made the transition more understandable. Just food for thought, if you haven't done so already.
Hi Shawn, I understand the "takes too much time and engery, etc.", but I hope you aren't bitter about having done it. I teach in the most diverse and biggest High School in Omaha, and I deal with ALOT of minority students, so I know the obstacles that one has to face in that situation. I hope that you are able to really inspire them, help them in the up coming school year, give them your all, and love them. Good Luck!
Shawn, It's obvious you could give a damn for what any of us think about the situation. Fair enough.
Although, you were the one that posted this up for the planet to see. If you were/are that disgruntled, why post it. Just suck it up and keep it to your own self.
When Nancy Reagan coined the phrase "Just say no" I think she was thinking about drugs, not the violin. ;)
"Thanks, but I have no plans to return to active performing or private teaching."
Sounds like the world will now be a better place...you will be missed :-(
Your attitude stinks and the only reason a few might suggest that you simply dropped your students is due to your wording:
"The home-schooled and private school kids are screwed, but that's their problem."
It doesn't sound to me like they are "screwed" at all.
Jonathan,
I completely agree with everything you just said...
Shawn,
Were you perhaps just looking for some drama? I won't be part of it any further.
I agree with the drama thing and would suggest this thread be shut down :-)
Besides, this is a "pro-violin" site ;-)
pro-"violinist" :)
This thread won't be shut down because too many people are busy sympathizing with a bitter, burnt-out teacher who doesn't care about his former students (why should he? so few of them were serious about it anyway).
I find it very puzzling that someone with such a lousy attitude would find so much sympathy and encouragement here. I just lost the best teacher ever the other week because of a move, and he went very far out of his way to make sure I was as prepared as possible to move on without him. He gave me extra time at lessons to go further ahead in my etude book, listened to all my concerns and answered all my questions, and spent time on his own remembering rare tunes for me to record so I could learn them in the future. He surely had plenty of other things to do---family matters, packing, professional responsibilities---but he was there for me and his other students, because *THAT* is what a good teacher does.
It was still my problem because I had to find myself a new teacher (he didn't know any), but it was immensely easier because he supported me and encouraged me along the way. I can't in a million years imagine him writing something like "she's basically screwed but it's not my problem" after the fact. That's such an appalling thing to say I just don't have the words for it.
I wish I could have my teacher back...he still was teaching me 3 days before he died of cancer. So you really have no excuse to not do your job or at least do the responsible thing, and find your students another teacher.
Wow,
I'm not going to talk down to Shawn because I can understand where he's coming from. I imagine that he's burned out becasue of the situation he's in (where he's teaching, that is). I had a similar situation at my last job. I worked in a very blue collar city where the only thing people cared about was football and getting laid (and that's BOTH boys and girls...). It was a tough situation for me, as I taught 5th grade through 12th. Many of my students had talent and were respectful, but many weren't. My class sizes were small and wouldn't grow, and my classroom was crumbling to the ground (no money in the district).
I was a good teacher, I thought, because at the end of each year the kids told me how they loved me and that orchestra was their favorite class, yet, many of them couldn't play a D major scale in tune, even with all the work we've done throughout the year. The kids simply had more important things on their mind during orchestra and I was unable to keep these kids' attention.
What really made me leave was the huge increase in teen pregnancy in my schools...and I'm referring to my middle school kids...not high school! I couldn't take the environment where kids didn't give a crap about themselves or their futures. It was very sad for me to leave because I loved most of those kids (even if they were poor musicians).
Now I teach 5th graders in beginning orchestra and I don't have to worry about those awful things that bothered me so much at my last job. My 5th graders are always excited and that excitement rubs off on me and it makes teaching so much more enjoyable (again!).
Maybe, Shawn, you should consider moving to a different school district, as it seems like your current job is causing all this frustration. Certainly you can find your passion for teaching elswhere. Don't give it up!
wow man.. what you just said really shocked me.
It seems like you were really fed up with teaching kids huh?
Jeesh the guy is just venting, folks need to get off their high horse a bit. People vent online all the time, I'm sure he cares about his ex students, maybe he's just burnt out and frustrated and needs to write what must people think so he doesn't lash out at people around him? Who cares? It sounds like he's happier and his students can find a teacher who actually wants to teach them, it's a win/win.
God Bless America. It's a free country. I just hope your former students don't read your message.
Good for you Shawn.
Dear fellow musicians:
Give Shawn a break. Sounds to me as though he is just venting.
I spend half my time playing fiddle and the other half playing violin. My fiddle friends tend to be far less judgmental.
I'm cursed. I just can't win. As you read this, keep in mind that the announcement that I posted here yesterday I told my private students over a week ago.
I went to a local pub this afternoon for a few medicinal drinks. When I arrived home, sitting on my porch is one of my "former" private students. She is a third grader (picture the prettiest little black girl imaginable.). She is sitting there holding her little violin on my swing. I ask her what she is doing here and that I told her last week that the lessons were over. She told me, "I disagree." Is that hilarious? So what could I do? I told her to come on in and we would have a lesson.
There goes retirement. Someone please shoot me.
Things have changed. What used to be "venting" between colleagues, is now memorialized on the internet FOREVER. I am not just speaking of Shawn's post, but of internet posting in general. More and more, job applicants or students applying to a prestigious university, are being asked to explain comments, or even worse, photos, that were taken and posted for all to see and read. The fact is, these thing don't go away and you never know when they may come back to haunt you. By typing a few key words into a search engine, Shawn's former students (and current or potential employer) may have a very clear picture of his thoughts and opinions. If Shawn is comfortable with these ramifications, then it is his business what he posts. We should all remember, however, the permanency of the items we post on this or any other internet site, and the ease in which they may be accessed by everyone.
There's an easy solution for that on V.com, just post a lot of good stuff and make your profile page into something very cool. Old comments get smaller and smaller that way.
I think it's completely legitimate for a teacher to get burned out, and I think it's the teachers who give and give and give who get burned out more than the ones who don't care.
Shawn,
I will not address the teacher/student part, it seems to be well covered.
I will address the personal part. It sounds like you are not going to take any of my earlier suggestions, here is another one.
Get a dog. A big, droopy one. Spend your freedom playing to the dog. He will sit there with rapt attention, loving everything you play.
Find some way to get back to what drove you to the insanity of trying to rub horsehair covered with pitch across wires and make something that sounds good. Find your passion again!
Without it, life is grey. With it, the fire is always stoked.
The dog howls when I play...and the neighbors call the police.
"As you read this, keep in mind that the announcement that I posted here yesterday I told my private students over a week ago."
"I ask her what she is doing here and that I told her last week that the lessons were over."
So...you made this 'announcement' to your students at their lessons a week ago that you were done and they were not to come back the following week?
"Someone please shoot me."
Someone should put a boot up your arse for being a jerk.
>After all, I do that all day. I'm going to find something less stressful and more enjoyable to do in my spare time. <
Boy, reading through all this, I would have expected that Shawn was going through an Oracle implementation, and not teaching violin! I've been on the verge of throwing in the towel for awhile as a Software Engineer. However, I know that the stresses of the day will soon pass and things will go back to "normal" at some point, be it weeks or months. The important bit is NOT to be burning bridges in the throws of a minor meltdown.
"We should all remember, however, the permanency of the items we post on this or any other internet site, and the ease in which they may be accessed by everyone."
I personally like the idea of being immortalized on the internet. It's even better than bathroom stalls.
Emily,
Hate to break it to you, but bathroom stalls can get new paint or sanded down... Bummer, isn't it? =P
Pixels, however, don't disappear! Hooray immortal pixels!
Wow, burnout.
Sympathies.
Let this be a cautionary tale to anyone out there who is not being honest with his/her real feelings about their work over a long period. Marriages end this way, too. One spouse, all dazed, doesn't know what hit them b/c the other spouse gave no apparent sign of discontent. Meanwhile, it was building, building, fermenting, bubbling over, perhaps even subliminally, inside the departing spouse for years.
Shawn - sorry you couldn't have taken a 1 year hiatus three or four years ago. But what's done is done. FWIW, I have quit something under less dramatic but similar circumstances and I can well agree with the feeling of "getting out on parole," of feeling positively light-headed with relief of getting the burden off the shoulders. Only sorry it had to come to that.
Don't think you're going to find anyone who's going to shoot you and/or hand you a gun to shoot yourself over taking in the little girl there for her lesson. A cute little story, that. Sometimes that's how it all goes. Life has a funny way of balancing out the variables once you quit trying so hard.
Wise grandmother say to all: take breaks, dammit. When you need them, whether the timing and/or circumstances are convenient or not.
Teres, wisdom indeed.
Shawn, do you live alone? You need to talk things out with peers more, before you make a move. That little girl turned you around with two words.
Good for her. Good for you. You are, perhaps, not entirely the man you presented in your first hasty and ill considered post.
That sort of thing, if you must write it down, should be confined to paper journals, reevaluated later when sober, then burned.
All the best, C
Don't spread yourself too thin Shawn, or else your going through the same cycle again. Go ahead and get that break you really want, and do something fun other than playing the violin and teaching privately. The school will start again, here goes the same routine. Find that space to nurture your passion for violin and then, share it again to others.
Now, I'm not saying just drop your students, I'm sure you didn't do that although it made waves, but before everyone react to this post, let me just say that I was too, a victim of a teacher that I wouldn't say was burnt out. She didn't showed up to the lesson at her own studio in her own house. Now, we, her students was lost in the dark. But, I wouldn't want either to be in the lesson with a teacher that just there physically but deep inside, all she cares was just what to cook for dinner.
So, let's give Shawn a break he really and truly deserve.
Goodluck!
I agree, give Shawn a break. We sometimes say(write) things in the heat of the moment we truly don't mean.
Look after yourself, look after your "neighbour". treat each other with respect.
If you'll pardon me:
The real question isn't why such an ill-considered heat-of-the-moment rant was submitted, the question is why such an ill-considered heat-of-the-moment rant was published. Just saying.
I leave it up to members to consider what they publish under their own names on this site. That includes you, Mara. If people violate the rules, that's another thing.
That's my kind of editor!
I should mention that Friday nights with Captain Morgan sure helps me forget the stress of the week!
Laurie--a valid reason. I was merely curious.
Oh noes, I see that Shawn has recently moved to azavdgshhaix, California...sounds humid.
That's nothing, look what his name now comes up as.
Wowzers, what creative parents!
Quoth Bill Cosby:
"Hey you!!!.......... uhhh Robert............Uhhhhhhhh Rutabaga!!!..........Uhhh what IS your name BOY?????????-and don't you lie to me, I know where you live!"
lol
I can't speak for classroom teaching, but summertime can be frustrating for private violin teachers. Some students go off to a myriad of summer camps and vacations, so the opportunities to practice and improve are few and far between. Some parents view summertime as a block of time to not practice at all! Yikes!
Not my students, naturally...
Also, it is very important to schedule personal vacation time, just as Grandmother Terez stated. (Grandmother? Aren't you a little young for that?)
I hope Shawn finds some peace and happiness.
Say, where did Shawn go?
Wow!!!!! What an interesting thread, personally, when I taught violin in a few schools here and there (about 12 hours a week), the last thing that I wanted to do was do more teaching in the evening or practice. Thats why I quit and started teaching guitar. I find that relearning it has helped my violin-playing, I dont get bored of violin, and I dont go insane! I can sympathise with the situation though. Enjoy your free time, sounds like you need a good rest.
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July 21, 2008 at 05:46 AM · Everyone needs to do something; do you have any plan on how you are going to spend all that free time?
Here are some light-hearted suggestions
Take up the Viola
Learn to play the triangle
Build Oragami musical instruments
Maybe some other users can add their suggestions?