REIMAGINING WORK-LIFE BALANCE, PART II

BY MATTHEW MCCUTCHEN

This is a follow up to an article that Dr. Amy Acklin (Associate Director of Bands, University of Louisville) published in the Summer 2022 edition of this journal. The two of us, along with our tremendously patient spouses, have given four presentations on work-life balance over the past three years, culminating in a session at the 2022 Midwest Convention. Putting these presentations together was a labor of love for the four of us as it gave us the opportunity to examine the efforts we make in our own lives and find ways that we can help guide our students through this complex issue.

Overview

The Acklins and McCutchens met in 2006 when Amy and I began our doctoral studies at Florida State University. Before going to graduate school, we both taught middle and high school, and much of what we know about this subject is due to missteps that we made during those tremendously formative years. By diving further into this topic, we were not looking for ways to cut down on the number of hours our jobs require but rather to suggest ways to make the time we spend working more rewarding and productive.

What The Research Says

For our presentations Amy undertook the bulk of the role of gathering data from the research on music teacher turnover, attrition, and burnout which, in a nutshell, show that A) attrition and burnout are serious challenges the profession is facing, B) there are many things about being a band director that drive people away, but statistically speaking, the actual teaching aspects are not the problem, and C) (the silver lining) - burnout is avoidable with work-life balance strategies. For example, Shaw & Fitzpatrick found that teachers who choose to be PROACTIVE with worklife balance strategies have:

1. Purposeful structure of work demands

2. A supportive partner

3. Passion for both work and home

What We Can Learn From The Private Sector

Our next step was to look at ways that some private-sector companies are approaching the subject of worklife integration. Our intent is not to convince people to leave their teaching job to work for Google, but rather to see if any of the ways that large companies are approaching this topic might be adaptable for us. The idea is that happier workers make better workers. Also, happier workers tend to stay in their jobs, thus reducing the costliness of continuously training a new workforce.

Many companies are examining their policies, environments, schedules, and expectations. They believe their success hinges on attracting and keeping the most talented individuals in their fields. Here are a few examples of company policies and how they can practically be integrated in a teaching environment:

Reimagining Work-Life Balance, Part II, Matt McCutchen, cont.

Private Sector – Dublin Goes Dark

Google’s Dublin office asked people to drop off their devices at the front desk before going home for the night. "Googlers reported blissful, stressless evenings"

Implications for Teachers

In order to manage work-life boundaries, we must be intentional about our phones. You might not be able to leave your electronic devices at work, but you can set a personal goal for turning them off at a specific time each evening - or at least not having them on during dinners with family and friends.

Private Sector – Flexible Scheduling

Many companies are allowing and even encouraging Flexible Scheduling, meaning their employees are no longer tied to a clock, but are allowed to get their work done whenever and wherever best works for them.

Implications for Teachers

While your school hours are likely not flexible, your before and after school hours are. Do not feel guilty for not scheduling a sectional / rehearsal / meeting every day. In fact, pick one day of the week and intentionally schedule nothing, even when you want to. That’s your time.

Private Sector – Trust

Trust employees rather than micromanaging.

Implications for Teachers

Do you trust your students? Do they know that? Do you allow them to make decisions about repertoires, rehearsal schedules, or ensemble policies? Do you teach your student leaders to lead and then give them the space to do so? There is a wonderful quote that has floated through our profession for years –“Only do what only you can do”. That could change your life.

Private Sector – Encouragement

Encourage employees to grow and improve.

Implications for Teachers

Before you got into teaching it is very likely that you loved aspects of music making that now take a backseat to the responsibilities before you. What if you tried to get back to the level of curiosity you had as a student? How many concerts have you attended this year that you didn’t have to? When was the last time you listened to music solely for pleasure with no email, Facebook, TikTok, or other distraction going on? Who have you invited into your classroom to listen to your ensemble? When was the last time you practiced your instrument purely for fun?

Private Sector – Health and Wellness

Encourage employees to eat healthily and exercise. Not only does this save on health insurance, but companies believe that a healthier workforce is a happier, more productive workforce.

Implications for Teachers

Every single one of us knows we should be doing this, but day after day it gets put off. Start small, take a walk when you come home for work, or get up half an hour earlier in the morning to exercise if you know you’ll be too tired after school. Plan your meals the night before rather than stopping for fast food so often. If you do not take care of yourself, you will not be able to maintain the pace your job requires.

Private Sector – Fewer meetings!

I read that when Jeff Bezos was running Amazon he held as few meetings as possible and tried to only meet with as many people as he could feed with two pizzas.

Implications for Teachers

Do you really have to have booster meetings the first Tuesday of every month? Why? Because your predecessor did it that way? Have fewer meetings, plan them better and people will appreciate the better use of their time.

My Inspiration

When I started my career teaching middle school in rural Georgia, I was the typical young band director who spent every possible moment working, and when I wasn’t working I was thinking or talking about the job. A few years in, I recognized (or more likely, my wife told me) that this wasn’t sustainable in the long run, so I started looking for ways to adjust. When I went to Virginia Commonwealth University for my master’s degree it made a big impression on me to watch

Terry Austin finish his classes then immediately leave for the day to make dinner for his family. A year or two into my stint of teaching high school in Virginia, I attended a session at VMEA in which Frederick Fennell, his wife Betty, and Ray and Molly Cramer talked about how they had been able to balance their professional and personal lives for so long. I specifically remember Mr. Cramer talking about circling weekends on the calendar that would be set aside for family events, no matter what professional opportunities might pop up and hearing him talk about finishing marching rehearsals at Indiana University, going home for dinner and family time, and then going back to the office to work all night once the kids had gone to sleep. Watching these giants in the field talk about the necessity of turning down opportunities, setting dates aside specifically for family time, and having hobbies and interests beyond work was tremendously important to me as a young director. I walked out thinking “I may never be able to conduct like Ray Cramer, but if he thinks taking a daily walk with his wife is important, that, at least, is something I can do”.

That day I started looking for ways to spend more time at home and was pleasantly surprised to find that many of those decision in turn helped me become a better teacher.

Get Out Of The Office

1. Schedule fewer after-school rehearsals. It was amazing how much better my band got once I stopped doing their practicing for them.

2. Pick music that you can teach during your class time. Everybody – including me – got better when I picked the correct literature.

3. Respect your family’s time. When it is time to go home, go home. I don’t know how many times I either stayed late for unnecessary reasons, or walked out of my room on time, only to get caught up in a conversation in the parking lot for 45 minutes. Both were extremely disrespectful of my wife who was waiting for me to be home when I said I would (this was pre-cell phones.)

4. Value your spouse’s/partner’s/ children’s jobs and activities as much as you want them to value yours. Ask about their day, then listen to their reply. Go to as many elementary school flag football practices as you can.

5. Invite your family into your work, and your work into your family. It is tremendously important that your students see how important your home life and family is to you. When I left my high school teaching job, the thing the parents mentioned the most was how much they appreciated their students getting to see a strong marriage.

I had no idea that’s what we were doing but have never forgotten that that’s what they saw.

Other Thoughts

As I mentioned earlier, I was happy to let Amy do most of the research for our presentation but starting to feeling a bit guilty about it last summer, I ordered a handful of work-life balance books and set out to see if their advice lined up with our experiences. Two spoke to me, and from them I picked up several helpful tidbits, including:

Lead With Balance by Donnie

Hutchinson.

“Leading a balanced life is important for your students too – not just you.”

“Parkinson’s Law – ‘Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.’ ” (Give people 8 hours to complete a task, they’ll do it in 8. Give them 10, they’ll do It in 10).

“More hours worked does not mean more output. More output means more output.”

“Preach often, and when necessary, use words.” (popularly attributed to St. Francis of Assisi).

Off Balance – Matthew Kelly

“The term work-life balance diminished our ability to make the case that work can be a richly rewarding part of a person’s life.”

“You do not have two lives – one

Reimagining Work-Life Balance, Part II, Matt McCutchen, cont.

personal and one professional – you have one life with personal and professional aspects.”

“People don’t really want balance, they want satisfaction. This requires a strategy, daily attention, selfawareness, and discipline.”

“Excellence requires sacrifice.”

Conclusion

There is no one-size-fits-all approach to finding balance between your personal and professional life. Instead, this is an ebb and flow that you must constantly monitor and adjust. One of the lies that the worklife balance conversations propagated is the idea that working long, hard hours is bad. The truth is that working really hard at different times of our lives is very good for us. Therefore, the goal is to find what works for you, your family, and your students; it doesn’t matter if that is not what works for others. If your life seems consistently out of balance, it is up to you to take a hard look at your priorities and make some life-changing decisions. It isn’t always easy - but can be tremendously rewarding.

References

Fitzpatrick, K.R. (2013).

Motherhood and the high school band director: A case study. Bulletin of the Council for Research in Music Education, 196, 7-23.

Hancock, C. B. (2009).

National estimates of retention, migration, and attrition: A multiyear comparison of music and nonmusic teacher. Journal of Research in Music Education, 57(2), 92-107.

Hutchinson, D. (2016)

Lead with balance: How to master work-life balance in an imbalanced culture. Advantage Publishing

Kelly, M. (2015)

Off balance: Getting beyond the work-life balance myth to personal and professional satisfaction.

Beacon Publishing

Shaw, R.D. (2014).

The work-life balance of competitive marching band teachers: A multiple case study. Bulletin of the Council for Research in Music Education, 200, 63-80.