Here’s a reflective statement that will probably irritate—or enrage—my fellow music educators: When it comes to inappropriate behavior on the part of educators, performing arts teachers have a bad reputation. Often deservedly so.
Offhand—and I’m only one music teacher—I can think of a dozen instances of band, orchestra and choir teachers who have been accused of sexually unacceptable behaviors with students. Am I going to name them? I am not—although I have written about my own experience with a sexual predator/band director who used his power in that position in destructive, demeaning ways. For years.
Why are teachers in certain disciplines and grade levels more prone to sexually abusive behaviors? Opportunity. When you take students to camp, or on regular field trips—or when you are responsible for private lessons or after-school rehearsals—there are plenty of occasions when bad stuff can happen.
I kept thinking about this, watching the Hegseth hearings. Stuff that used to be distasteful and shameful is now, per Markwayne Mullins, a mere “mistake” up to and including criminal acts— Why did Hegseth do it? Because he could. Sound familiar?
Holly Berkley Fletcher has a great piece on the hearings in Bulwark: Mullin went on, “The only reason I am here and not in prison is because my wife loved me, too. . . I’m not perfect, but I found somebody that thought I was perfect . . . but just like our Lord and Savior forgave me, my wife’s had to forgive me more than once, too.”
Mullin’s mini-sermon was a lasagna of problematic messaging—the lauding of a woman for sticking with an abusive man, more generally giving women responsibility for men’s redemption, and calling longstanding patterns of behavior a “mistake.” Oh, and there was also the obligatory reference to Jesus—whom Hegseth also repeatedly invoked to get out of every jam free.
David Brooks, in the NY Times, had a hissy fit about all the ‘character’ questions lobbed at Hegseth, calling them “short attention span” and “soap opera” queries. He lists some undeniably concerning realities about our military and the global conditions it might be called upon to address—and hey, all of that is fine, and very relevant.
But. Character still matters in the application of expertise (which, it must be noted, Hegseth has pretty much none of, either). Being in charge of our military is the ultimate “opportunity for malfeasance” job.
As I watched the brand-new, low-information Senator from Montana—not naming him either—joke with Hegseth about how many genders there were and how many pushups he could do, I thought about how this works in my bailiwick—public school teaching.
What do we ask new teachers or principals, in hiring interviews? Questions that reveal character? Or questions strictly related to the disciplinary knowledge and pedagogical skills necessary for the job? More specifically, how did all those music teachers I’m not naming get hired?
(And yes, I do realize, that merely getting someone certified to teach is often the best many districts can do, in 2025, given teacher shortages.)
Not all that long ago, Michigan was a teacher exporting state. Recent grads, who would have preferred to teach near home, were actively recruited by other states, often in the south. Interviews and job offers were done by telephone—before Zoom, where you can at least see the person you’re talking to. A number of my former students moved out of state to begin their teaching careers after a couple of phone calls netted them a job.
I used to wonder how administrators or hiring teams felt they knew enough about a person to believe they would do a good job with the children entrusted to them, with only a phone conversation. One of my formers, on her way to South Carolina, told me that her interviewer said they were impressed with her local university’s reputation as a teacher-prep institute, and her resume’ (which, it must be noted, showed zero experience as an actual teacher).
As Fine Arts Department Chair for many years in my district, I sat on lots of hiring committees. A strong resume’ is a good reason to interview, as are references. But there are things—character things, maybe even “soap opera” things—that emerge in an interview.
The guy who’s too slick, and can’t meet your eyes. The person who makes promises when they have no idea whether they can keep them. Worst of all, the teacher who’s leaving their previous district because the principal is “dysfunctional.” Things like this emerge when you ask character-related questions. And you use your human judgment skills to observe and evaluate.
This week, we’ve had a front row seat for the most important and consequential job interviews in the nation. Every person being grilled by senators has a comprehensive, publicly available resume’. And each of them deserve to have the nation watching them squirm or deflect or repeat their pre-arranged, “anonymous smear” responses.
Who’s going to get hired? As always, the person the administrator wants. But establishing a public record of questions asked and answered—or avoided—is critical.
And no question—not a single one—is unfair or irrelevant.
Teacher in a strange land 