I'll admit it. I was born into a live of relative ease. My parents were engineers, with my father working as a self-employed engineer designing everything from avionics to fire-control systems. My mother, for a major aircraft wheel and brake manufacturer. Both were heavily invested in Wall Street, and my parents very comfortably own their home, and ascribe to most of the conservative "values" being thrown around today.
I don't think I was ever actually part of the true 1% - maybe in the top 15 or 20% - but the thing is, I wasn't like my parents. I didn't think like they did. And so, I chose a different path from my parents, opting not to go the route of the "family business" - engineering. No, I was a musician. And a rather decent one, if I may be allowed some self-promotion.
My parents always told me that I should pursue what I enjoyed; that as long as I was happy, they didn't have any problems with what I chose to study in school. And so, with my parents' financial blessing as well as their personal ones, I ran off to music school to pursue my own little version of the American Dream.
Little did I know that it would turn into an American Nightmare.
I graduated in 2003 with my Bachelor's degree in music education. I was much more fortunate than most - I graduated college with essentially zero debt - but the coming years would prove to me that the choice I had made to pursue my dream would cost me any security that I might have otherwise had. And so, the little actual debt that I did have sat at the edge of my vision, like a dark, angry cloud on the horizon - and it would only get worse.
I took my teacher's certification tests and earned a certification, and went hunting for a job. To a point, I got lucky - I found a gig teaching at a small Catholic high school in 2003.
My pay as a full-time high school teacher: $23,300 (gross).
The school had little going for it in terms of its musical endeavors; enrollment had dwindled sharply since the 80s across the board, and the school had figured out that adding sport after sport brought more donations to the school. A school of over 500 students in the early 80s had dwindled to just barely above 200 by the time I made it there, and the band program, which had at one time been a point of pride for the school, had fallen by the wayside and become an object of derision and scorn from both the students and some of the teachers. I had just seven people in my band. My goal was to turn it around as best I could and try to make the kids who were involved in it be proud to be a part of it.
I was largely successful in my first year. I formed a pep band for the home football games, which provided a spark of life that had otherwise been unheard of at the ballgames. We resurrected the school's fight song. I remember an 80-something-year old alumni come up to me, after we won the ball game where we brought back the old fight song, and tell me that she hadn't heard that song since she was a child - and that it was special that we brought it back. I remember being amused at how quickly our band could react to a situation, playing bits and pieces of the fight song after good plays, to try and rouse the crowd - and seeing the visiting band try the same thing and crash and burn doing it. I remember how the first band concert went, with maybe twenty people in the audience, congratulating our kids on a job well done. I remember the concert we shared with a nearby university band, with them coming to join us and us returning the favor - and the way our kids' eyes lit up when they got to sit inside a fully-voiced band for the first time.
I was proud of our kids. We'd done something no one had expected us to - the band wasn't the same-old-same-old anymore.
And then my second year happened. Of the seven kids I had, I lost four. Three of them to scheduling conflicts, one because his mother pulled him from the school system. I tried desperately to keep the kids I could, but the school's requirements laid it bare - I couldn't have them back in my program. They were done with band for the rest of their high school careers. On top of this, the principal who had supported me, encouraged me, and helped me to accomplish some amazing things, was also ousted in that first year over petty politics.
In her place came another, who in one meeting with me admitted to my face that she'd never had a music class in her life. She approached everything from a political, passive-aggressive point of view, and felt that if I wasn't doing seat-work in all of my music classes for at least 15 minutes of every 40-minute period, I wasn't doing my job. I tried in vain to explain to her that, with the exception of my music appreciation class, the other classes I taught were skill-based classes - things you can't learn by doing a worksheet. To try to teach a kid to play an instrument using a worksheet was akin to teaching someone in shop class how to build a birdhouse by asking them to describe the birdhouse. I tried to explain this on my own, and when that failed, I asked another, more senior music teacher in the same system to back me up - and while the principal relented at that point, I feared that the damage had been done.
To be fair, I was more combative about it than most people would be. I have been labeled an unabashed idealist; I believe people mean what they say and say what they mean, and that (at least in education) people usually have their client's (in this case, the kids') best interests at heart. I had no problem calling my principal on this, and in the end, I'm sure that didn't help my case when the time came at the end of the year to make cuts to the budget.
Even with this, I managed some successes. The band program transitioned to a jazz combo, and at the end of the year, we brought in professional musicians to fill out our rhythm section. The school put on two musicals, one very successful one for the junior high, and an astoundingly successful one for the high school - which involved kids who had never been in any of the music programs at all and dug up some very, very surprising talent - and on top of it all, resurrected the Drama Club at the school and brought it into the black.
And so, at the end of the year, the fiscal statement was made. The school's typical donation levels had sank a little over 10%, and so some positions were going to be eliminated to make up the shortfall.
They did away with six jobs that year (out of roughly 25). Two language teachers, two part-time P.E. teachers, one science teacher...and me. Only the two part-time P.E. teachers were cut for truly fiscal reasons. One was cut because she was truly a poor teacher (and everyone knew it). The remaining three of us were convenient choices to get the axe because we fought for our kids' educational lives - and amongst the three of us, we each knew what the other had done. The language teacher had, on more than one occasion, voiced her displeasure at the overly invasive methods the principal had used to "clean up" the teachers' practices at the school. The science teacher had objected to the lack of support from the administration in any meaningful capacity, from backing teachers up when parents came calling to providing expertise when it was requested. And then there was me, who objected to being forced to undermine my own teaching with methods I had proven were not viable on more than one occasion.
And so, I was cast out of teaching, and I was disillusioned for a time. On more than one occasion I contemplated suicide. I felt like a failure - and largely, still do.
And by the measures of many, I am.
I moved to another state, getting re-certified in the process, and finding what work I could in the meantime. That was 2006, after trying unsuccessfully to find further teaching work in my previous state.
My move didn't really cost me anything as I didn't have much to move, but through a combination of bad luck and bad timing, the debt load I carried spiraled out of control. I stand here, six years later, buried under almost $21,000 of debt; nearly all of it from things breaking at the worst possible moment - be it my car, me, or something in my apartment. I have tried mightily to get myself back into teaching in the intervening years, but no one will interview me.
I have resigned myself to the fact that I will likely never see the end of the tunnel from my debt, because even though I religiously pay on it and try to pay more than the minimum as much as I can, every time I make headway, something major breaks and I fall right back into the hole again.
I am 32.
I have no health insurance.
I work simply to eat and have a barely-serviceable apartment.
My car is aging, and not gracefully, I might add.
I worry every day that I won't make enough money to pay my bills.
I have no prospects for a brighter future.
I cannot return to school, either to further my degree or to switch careers.
By Herman Cain's metric, I must "blame myself" for the woes that have befallen me.
And I do, rightly or wrongly.
I was once among the 10%. But now, I am the bottom end of the 99%.
And unless a major shift in ideology occurs in my lifetime, I will likely never rise above my current station again.
Thu Oct 20, 2011 at 1:50 AM PT: There are a few more items to mention as points of clarification, because some commenters have made valid points.
I cannot return to school on a master's track because I don't hold enough teaching experience to do so. I would need to have, at a minimum, 2 more years of experience to even consider going back to school on a master's track.
I cannot afford to take on more debt. I can only barely make my payments as it is, and there's no way on earth I could possibly spend more.
My first principal was ousted for several reasons, among them that she wasn't a hardliner on discipline like some of the teachers wanted; she tended to be more non-confrontational. She was definitely more of the "nurture" side of the "nature vs. nurture" argument. I cannot personally comment on her efficacy as a disciplinarian; this is what I was told by several teachers after she was forced to resign.
There were several teachers behind her removal, including more than a couple that I felt I could trust, and several people at the archdiocesan level who felt that she was not working as principal. Ultimately, she was given the choice of resignation or termination, and it was obvious which one she took.
Fri Oct 21, 2011 at 1:54 AM PT: A second update, with more information.
I am in Michigan.
As to why I've been told I need more experience: I checked with my alma mater first - my undergrad advisor came straight out and told me that there's no way I'd ever make it into a decent program with only two years of experience. Most schools want, at the barest minimum, 4 years, and prefer 5-10 years.
It should be noted that this is for assistantship MA tracks; given that I don't have the money to pay for my schooling, an assistantship is likely the only way I could ever afford to do it.
Music technology has been a consideration of mine, but even the local community college is too expensive for me to consider it.
As for what I do now: I work for a local transportation company to pay my bills. I play with several bands, keeping my trumpet skills up. I run a jazz big band of my own. Aside from those things, which keep me sane, I have very little to look for in terms of hope at the moment.
I have contacts I've developed in Michigan that are trying to help me out; several of the more prominent musicians and administrators I've run into have tried to give me an in to a teaching position because they've seen me work and know I can teach, but as I've said before, no one with the ability to actually hire listens.
It's been 5 years. I don't know how much longer I can wait for the earth to move.