Ranting of a School Music Therapist

This evening, I have to do my least favorite thing - listen to lots of talk about IEP construction. This is not because the topic isn't important. It is simply because, due to the way my facility categorizes music therapy, it is irrelevant to my position as a school based music therapist. My administrators don't think that it is "fair" for those of us who are not considered related services to do other things during that time. They think that we should sit in the presentation so things will "look good to the other faculty who do have to write IEPs." Ugh. I have tried to fight this battle over and over again and have lost each time. It is one of my biggest frustrations.

I find mandatory training in areas that I am not allowed to access to be ridiculous, and I know that some of my fellow "educational enrichment" service providers feel the same way about sitting in these trainings. I am not sure that my administrators realize how much training and continuing education I do outside of my facility to keep up my certification and that sitting in a meeting about how to access IEP software that I never use or have access to is meaningless to my role as they have defined it.

This is probably the rant of a tired, hormonal, frustrated brain, but it is also the biggest reason that I despise inservice times as an employee. At least this evening (after working with kids all day) will be bereft of "team-building exercises" (well, as far as I can tell). I find those types of exercises to be useless and completely pointless because we only do the exercises - we don't even try to build teams through what we are doing. 

Rant. Rant. Rant.

Today's episode of Whining is brought to you by the letter W and the numbers 9 and 3.

I am lucky that this is my biggest consistent frustration with my job. Of course, there are others - no job is perfect, but you find the job with the least number of frustrations or the lowest level of frustrations and put up with others. You find what you can work with and within and then just go from there.

I spent yesterday evening talking to music therapy interns about how to navigate through conflict resolution, and I found myself sharing about a colleague who bullied me in front of other people. I had to take the situation to the superintendent because the leadership at the facility at the time was not assisting me in resolving the issue and the bully just kept getting more and more inappropriate in working with me. I hit my frustration tolerance level and did what I had a right to do - report the harassment to my school district. We finally entered into mediation and came up with a plan. That colleague was fired a couple of months after I had to go to the school district for assistance. I have no idea if the colleague's termination had anything to do with my complaint, but I felt vindicated when that person had to leave. 

I also shared the one phrase guaranteed to make me flip my lid and lose all grasp of my rational mind when it is offered up as an "explanation" of why someone decides to treat me poorly...are you ready? Here it is.

Well, I am here for the kids.

The reason that I hate that particular, self-righteous, smug response to someone trying to manipulate me into doing something that they want me to do is multi-faceted. First of all, the implication is that the person who is throwing that comment out is better than I am because they are ONLY thinking of the students where it is implied that I am not concerned about my clients at all. Second, there is an implication that I do not share their values because I disagree with what is being said. Third, there is the unspoken accusation of "I am better than YOU" which comes out of these types of interactions. My typical response is to leave before I explode everywhere, ESPECIALLY with new colleagues who are feeling so altruistic and are ready to "fix" all our clients with their new viewpoints and lack of understanding of what we actually do at our facility (Hint: we don't try to "fix" people). They also are unaware of how long I have dedicated myself to the students that I serve. Believe me, if I wasn't dedicated to the kids, I would not still be at the facility. The paycheck is not the reason I stay. 

This comment has been offered up to me by new, inexperienced colleagues to defend why they felt that they had to chastise and ridicule me in front of clients and fellow staff members. Both times, I had to excuse myself before getting really angry at these newbies who assumed that they had to remind me that my job was about the kids. In both cases, these colleagues had lost their tempers and had yelled at me in front of others. I was not responsible for either of the situations that had been the triggering events, but I was the scapegoat each time. I was convenient to yell at and to be "put in place" because I happened to be there, but I do not deserve to be humiliated and embarrassed in that form of public manner. So, I stood up to them and for myself. My colleagues did not like that I pushed back and demanded that conversations of that particular type be held in private rather than in public hallways. They attempted to push blame on me for their missteps (one of them was a brand new administrator) - "Well. I didn't appreciate how you just stood there without saying anything." What? When you yelled at me for something that happened in someone else's service area in the middle of the hallway and in front of five co-workers and 17 clients that I serve? That I was being yelled at for a situation that I had no knowledge about? That it was imperative that I drop everything to "fix" something because you didn't know how to navigate relationships with that particular client? I was in shock when I got yelled at and then had to navigate my own reaction before I could even start to understand what was going on.

I need to stop this rant before it goes much further, but if you ever want to see my blood pressure rise up, just tell me that the reason that you have to act in an unprofessional manner is because you are only doing what you are doing "for the kids." Ugh. Off to the hand doctor and then a long day at work where I have to make sounds like I am listening to things that I am prohibited from accessing during my job duties. I am not looking forward to it, but I have to do it, so here I go.