Professionals in all walks of life deal with challenges every day, and music teachers often seem to have more than their share. How you handle difficult issues affects you and those whose lives you touch.

Experienced educators realize the importance of an attitude of gratitude when it comes to their outlook on life. They know the ways they think, speak, and act affect those around them. As Samuel Butler said, “Words are the clothes that ideas wear.”

As the year draws to a close, take the time to think about one thing that you’re grateful for.

• Do you have a student or colleague who frequently makes coming to work a joy?
   
• Are you in good health and able to get where you’re going?
   
• Have you had the opportunity this year to make a difference in someone’s life?
   

Your professional success is greatly influenced by how you see the world. A kind act can ripple outward from you like a pebble thrown in a pond. What can you do to make the world a better place today?  Have you said “thank you” recently, perhaps in a tangible way, to someone who improves the quality of your life?

Take time to do something good for someone else, then take some time for yourself. You’ll be a better music teacher for it.

Wendy Sims said it best this year:  "I'm thankful because instead of 'having to go to work,' I 'get to go to school.'  I'm thankful that I get to teach music, music education methods, and music education research each week to students ranging from a year and a half old in my class for toddlers to the fifty-somethings in my doctoral seminar."

MENC member Wendy L. Sims is a professor of music education at the University of Missouri--Columbia.

 --Ella Wilcox, December 10, 2008, MENC: The National Association for Music Education (www.menc.org)
 

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