Experiences of First-Year Music Teachers in Hawai‘i During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Challenges,Adaptability,and Implications for Future Music Teaching

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic presented challenges to delivering music content through distance learning, adding to what is often already a stressful and challenging time for first-year educators. The purpose of this study was to explore the experiences of six first-year music teachers who began teaching in Hawai‘i during the COVID-19 pandemic. I interviewed participants twice during the summer after their first year of teaching and collected background information and teaching artifacts. Despite the year’s challenges, the teachers maintained their commitment to teaching. They did note that they felt underprepared for this experience by their undergraduate education and lack of prior teaching experience. Themes suggested the importance of teacher mentors and professional networks for the novice teachers, and that these teachers could have benefited from ongoing support from their preservice teacher education programs. In addition, the experiences of these teachers highlight the importance of adaptability in learning for both students and teachers.

The first year of teaching is often a stressful and challenging experience for young educators of all disciplines (McLean et al., 2020). In particular, music teachers can feel isolated and stressed when they begin their first jobs (Conway, 2015; Stringham & Snell, 2019) in which they are often a member of a small community of music teachers or in some cases the only music teacher in the building. Furthermore, novice teachers often have unrealistic expectations of how success will look in their classrooms (Conway, 2015) and have difficulty being adaptive as teachers. Music teacher education programs are tasked with preparing preservice teachers for the realities of teaching, but inservice teachers have highlighted a disconnect between their tertiary coursework and what is needed to be successful as a teacher (Ballantyne & Packer, 2004). This disconnect suggests the need for music teacher education programs to examine the experiences of novice teachers, perhaps viewing the first year of teaching as an extension of teacher education.

The restrictions and conditions during the 2020 COVID-19 outbreak increased overall stress and worries in adults, adolescents, and children (Rothe et al., 2021), and educators were no exception. As a part of the greater pandemic-induced stress, many administrators reported higher levels of teacher attrition in 2020 than in prior years, with many teachers that left the profession citing stress as one of their biggest reasons for their exit (Diliberti et al., 2021). Teachers transitioning to distance learning experienced increased workloads with new expectations, being held accountable for methods of delivery in which few had previous preparation (Kaden, 2020). During the transition to distance learning, music teachers reported challenges with “sustaining remote learning to the end of the year” and “planning appropriate instruction feasible through remote learning” (Hash, 2021, p. 389) due to the synchronous nature of traditional ensemble music instruction and the limitations of current online video conferencing software. Joseph and Lennox (2021) also reported challenges in adapting their music curriculum in their own teaching practice, as well as detriments to well-being during the initial transition to distance learning.

In particular, novice teachers reported that they felt overwhelmed again with the initial transition to distance learning after finally getting comfortable in their classrooms (Mecham et al., 2021). The COVID-19 pandemic forced educators to reinvent and reimagine their teacher identities, creating dilemmas that novice teachers in particular struggled with as their professional identities were not yet fully formed (Dvir & Schatz-Oppenheimer, 2020). Within the context of music, Hash (2021) found that novice music teachers reported lower levels of student participation during the transition to distance learning. Though online engagement in learning is hardly a music-specific problem, this highlights one of the challenges that forced young music teachers to adapt and adjust as they were developing skills as novice teachers.

Adaptability as a concept can be used “as a means of understanding young people’s capacity to deal with new, changing, and/or challenging situations” (Martin, 2010 as cited in Martin, 2012, p. 90). Martin asserted that adaptability is importantly different from concepts such as coping because while coping merely implies survival, adaptability’s end is a positive change. As adaptability is seen to lead to a “positive trajectory” for student learning and achievement (Martin, 2012), adaptability is important to some aspects of success in teaching. Furthermore, evidence suggests that teachers who exhibited higher levels of adaptability tended to have higher levels of well-being and were better able to meet the demands of their work (Collie & Martin, 2017). Conway and Hibbard (2019) suggested that adaptive expertise, which refers to the ability of teachers to be adaptable in the context of teaching, is one of the goals of preservice teacher preparation. At the outset of the pandemic, Orkibi (2021) proposed a related construct, creative adaptability, which “refers to one’s ability to respond creatively and adaptively to stressful situations” (p. 3), including cognitive, behavioral, and emotional responses. Creative adaptability highlights a specific way of responding to stressors and adapting in ways which are novel, but importantly emphasizes this adaptability for both work and personal challenges. As the pandemic increased stress both inside (Hash, 2021; Kaden, 2020) and outside (Rothe et al., 2021) of teaching, it is important to consider how teachers adapted to various forms of stress and how that affected intentions to continue teaching (Diliberti et al., 2021).

While adaptability is listed among Teachout’s (1997) reported skills and behaviors for effective music teaching, little research specifically examines inservice music teachers’ adaptability. A study on a music activity in social work suggested that adaptability was integral to the success of the music teachers and the program’s success (Kelly & Neidorf, 2021). Roseth and Blackwell (2022) found that university music teacher educators’ adaptability in the pandemic was correlated with well-being, consistent with research exploring adaptability and well-being of K-12 teachers (Collie & Martin, 2017). In addition, music teacher educators felt that the ongoing pandemic had a substantial impact on the need to adapt their courses (Roseth & Blackwell, 2022). Researchers suggested that the challenges presented by the pandemic provided opportunities for music teachers to showcase their adaptability and to find new and creative ways of adjusting the curriculum to meet students’ needs (de Bruin, 2021; Hash, 2021; Joseph & Lennox, 2021). However, research also suggests that teachers felt underprepared for the adaptations required to shift learning to alternative formats (Parkes et al., 2021) and that the changes in expectation exacerbated the stress associated with teaching (Miksza et al., 2021).

Because stress is one of the most common reasons for teachers to leave the profession (Diliberti et al., 2021), the challenges of pandemic education show the importance of addressing teacher experiences as we develop teacher education (Mecham et al., 2021). The purpose of this case study was to explore the experiences of first-year music teachers who began teaching during the COVID-19 pandemic. Specifically, the following research questions guided my inquiry:

• Research Question 1: How do these first-year music teachers describe their experiences of teaching during the COVID-19 pandemic?

• Research Question 2: How did their experiences in their first year of music teaching differ from their expectations prior to starting their first year of teaching?

• Research Question 3: What challenged or surprised these music teachers, what did they discover, and how did they adapt during their first year of teaching?

• Research Question 4: How do these first-year music teachers describe the impact of this year on their desire to continue teaching music?

Method

Because I was exploring the experiences of music teachers who began their careers during the COVID-19 pandemic, I employed a multiple case study design to develop “an in-depth analysis of a case” (Creswell & Creswell, 2017, p. 12) bounded by the specific time and activity. The multiple cases were bounded by their shared circumstances (both educational and societal) at a pivotal moment in each young teacher’s career, which may yield insights into the ways in which novice teachers adapt to challenges. Institutional review board (IRB) approval was granted on May 20, 2021.

Participants

Participants were six first-year teachers during the 2020 to 2021 school year who recently graduated from a large public university in Hawai‘i. All teachers’ student taught in the Spring of 2020 (during the transition to distance learning) or during the Fall of 2020 (during the transition from full distance learning back to hybrid teaching) and obtained a full-time music teaching job in Hawai‘i during the 2020 to 2021 school year, teaching at least one full semester prior to the study. I contacted participants by email and social media to request participation in interviews and email correspondence regarding their experiences during their first year of teaching.

To contextualize their experiences, I have provided descriptions of the teachers, their backgrounds, and the position which they obtained upon graduation using pseudonyms.

Martin

Martin is a tuba player who began playing in middle school and continued in a well-supported urban high school program. He elected to study music over other interests because of past successes in teaching middle school low brass and high-performance achievements. His first teaching position was as a high school band teacher in a school with a large number of children of military personnel in which he taught band, guitar, and ʻukulele. His school employed a full distance learning model for Semester 1 and hybrid for Semester 2.

Arthur

Arthur is a clarinet player who joined band after seeing his cousin play in the local youth symphony, noting that the performance had made him want to be a conductor. He attended a local private school before attending University where he obtained a bachelor’s degree in music and then a postbaccalaureate degree in music education. His first teaching position was as a band teacher in a middle school with a reputation of high achievement in band. His school employed a full distance learning model for Semester 1 and hybrid for Semester 2.

Jack

Jack is a trumpet player who began playing in middle school (the same school at which he later taught) and then attended a large suburban high school with a strong music program. He served in band leadership for many years which led him to select music education as a major, though he expressed doubts about teaching during student teaching. He was a mid-year sabbatical replacement in a large middle school with a reputation of high music achievement. The school was in full distance learning in January but began a hybrid schedule in February.

Hannah

Hannah is a saxophone player who began playing in middle school and attended a large suburban high school with a strong music program (the same program as Jack). She knew she wanted to teach music but began university in another major and then switched to music education in her first year. She obtained a job as a middle school band and choir teacher for a new suburban middle school opening during the 2020 to 2021 school year. The school remained in full distance learning for the entire year with “pull-ins” for student academic supports.

Linda

Linda is an oboe player who began playing in middle school (the same school at which she now teachers) and went to a large urban high school in Honolulu. She knew before attending university that she wanted to teach, but wasn’t sure what subject. Linda was a mid-year hire for a retiring middle school orchestra, piano, and choir teacher in a school with students from low socio-economic status backgrounds. Her school employed a hybrid schedule for the second semester.

Jesse

Jesse is a vocalist with background in piano and guitar. She joined choir in the 10th grade at a large suburban high school with a strong music program. She realized her desire to teach music during a meeting with her freshman advisor at university and then switched into and completed the music education program. She was hired as a choir and ʻukulele teacher in a large intermediate school in the early years of reigniting their vocal music program. Her school employed a full distance learning model for Semester 1 and a hybrid model for Semester 2.

Positionality

As my relationships with the participants affect both the way the data were collected and my analysis of that data (Holmes, 2020), I provide a brief explanation of my positionality for this study. I completed a graduate degree in music education at the same time as these teachers were completing their undergraduate degrees and, as such, I performed in ensembles and took classes with all of the participants, serving as a graduate assistant for some of their classes. Our relationships range from friends to acquaintances, but we were all familiar with each other and the institutional environment in which they were educated. My position as a graduate student allowed me the opportunity to develop closer relationships with them while being in a mentoring role, which extended to conversations during their first year of teaching when I also returned to secondary music teaching upon completion of my degree. The shared experience of beginning in a new school during the pandemic provided me common ground with the participants; however, it also required me to carefully evaluate differences between my own experiences, which were contextualized by past teaching, and those experiences unique to the teachers who were entering the profession. This was an important distinction noted by one of the participants.

Data Collection

Prior to the interviews, the first-year teachers completed an online questionnaire to gather information about their background, the instructional formats employed by their schools during the 2020 to 2021 school year, the types of activities they employed in their teaching, and their general impressions of student engagement during the year. I conducted two semistructured interviews with each participant for a total of 12 interviews, the initial interviews during the second week of summer vacation and the second interviews 2 weeks later. Each interview contained between six and eight questions about their experiences, support structures, and beliefs about teaching. The second interview included questions about their perceptions of the upcoming school year. I also asked follow-up questions based on the background questionnaire and their responses during the interviews. I designed the questions to elicit a wholistic picture of their experiences teaching during the pandemic, inspired by prior literature on adaptability and coping with stressful situations (e.g., Orkibi, 2021). For example, I asked participants, “What were your personal support structures during times of increased stress?” and “How was teaching this year different from what you had been expecting prior to the pandemic?”

I met with the participants online via Zoom, recorded the audio, and transcribed it using Otter.ai. An outside researcher familiar with the project confirmed the transcript accuracy. The first interviews ranged from 23min 24s to 57min 20s, and the second interviews ranged from 12min 2s to 46min 29s. In the first interview, I asked the first-year teachers if they would be willing to share professional or instructional materials from their first year of teaching. All six provided materials they felt were representative of their teaching and/or experience including teacher evaluation reflections, lesson plans, videos, and student handouts, which I used for data triangulation.

Data Analysis

I completed descriptive coding (Miles et al., 2014) of the interviews to identify features of the interviewees’ unique experiences. I coded the reflections and background information teachers provided for themes as well and analyzed the lesson plans provided to identify the goals and approaches employed by each teacher. An outside music teacher education specialist reviewed the materials and verified the codes (Creswell & Creswell, 2017), clarifying nuance in the interviews and codes. I then mapped out codes visually for each participant and conducted a second cycle of coding to identify patterns from interviews, both within cases and with cross-case analysis (Miles et al., 2014) from which I identified individual and cross-case themes.

Trustworthiness

I utilized the materials and questionnaire responses to triangulate the themes from the interviews (Creswell & Creswell, 2017) finding similar trends to those in the second cycle of coding. Once I determined the major themes in the findings, I sent a summary to the teachers to complete a member check (Williamon et al., 2021) to ensure the accuracy and authenticity of my account with regard to their personal experiences. Though these cases are undeniably unique to the pivotal educational and societal moment, the findings may resonate with individuals’ experiences, and the insights into the adaptability of these teachers provide support for existing theories of adaptability and may be transferable to future research findings (Miles et al., 2014).

Findings

Guided by my research questions, I present the findings as themes using the participants’ own words to summarize their experiences and reflections on their first year of teaching. These findings are divided into (a) the unique experiences of being a first-year music teacher during the 2020 to 2021 school year, (b) the different ways in which the first-year music teachers adapted to the unforeseen circumstances surrounding pandemic teaching conditions, and (c) the first-year music teachers’ beliefs about their future in teaching and desire to continue teaching music.

First-Year Experiences: “We’re All in the Same Storm, but We’re Not in the Same Boat”

Regarding the first and second research questions, the first-year teachers noted a large disconnect between the university education they received and the reality of teaching during the pandemic. While first-year music teachers inevitably encounter new experiences and unexpected challenges during the first year of teaching (Conway, 2015), Jack noted “we definitely weren’t trained for [teaching online] in college at all, and like, why would we be?” Jack’s comment highlights the unforeseen outcomes of moving music learning online and the focus of teacher preparation on models which are designed for in-person teaching specifically. While all teachers felt this disconnect from their prior experience throughout the pandemic, Jesse emphasized the difference that first-year teachers felt:

I don’t like how people are using the phrase, “we all feel like first year teachers” because I’m like, yeah that’s true. But then for those of us who are actual first year teachers, they kind of invalidate some of those feelings.

Jesse followed up on this idea with the metaphor, “We’re all in the same storm, but we’re not in the same boat.” This quote reflects what many of the first-year teachers expressed throughout the interviews: Their lack of prior experience was a major challenge during pandemic teaching, which was a major difference from their veteran teacher colleagues.

Regarding the second research question about differences from their expectations from preservice teacher preparation, the first-year teachers did note that while they felt unprepared for the educational environment, classroom management was easier online in many circumstances. Students were far less disruptive with talking or behavioral issues online, and teachers felt empowered with functions like mute in online meeting platforms. However, this was, as Linda noted, accompanied by a lack of engagement in the activities of online learning: “I can talk and they’re not talking but . . . I feel like the challenge is them actually listening and me knowing that [they are listening].” These sentiments were echoed by Linda’s peers who recounted challenges in engaging students beyond the chat log of their virtual classrooms and in their ability to check for student engagement and understanding during their class time.

On a personal level, many of the teachers reported feelings of lowness unmatched by any prior time in their lives. Jack confessed that due to both personal and professional challenges, this was “personally, probably the lowest I’ve ever felt, ever.” Several of the first-year teachers also described feelings of burnout by mid-year. Hannah noted that by the end of the first semester “I could slowly start to feel myself burning out,” and Martin further explained that “I lost a lot of drive this year. I feel really burnt out already.”

To cope with both professional and personal challenges, the teachers relied heavily on external supports such as mentors, peers, professional organizations, friends, and family. Many of the first-year teachers noted that teacher mentors in their building were incredibly helpful in adjusting to their new positions. Many of the teachers relied on the other music teachers in the school, and some had support from academic coaches and school-assigned mentors. By contrast, Martin explained that inside his school he felt quite isolated: “I feel like professionally, I didn’t talk to a lot of teachers. Because I just kind of sat in my room trying to figure out what the heck I’m supposed to do tomorrow.” Martin recalled that professional organizations such as the local band directors association “helped a lot,” especially since he felt unsupported in his school.

When talking about his peers from university, Jack mentioned that these connections were something he highly valued. His peers helped him to refocus on the positive aspects of the job. Jack recounted, “We [my peers and I] would cheer each other on, on the small things that went well or like the funny thing that a student said.” The other first-year teachers also mentioned connections within their music education cohort and with other non-music-teacher friends from university who helped them to see things from a different perspective.

As is quite common in their region, many of the first-year teachers continued to live with their families throughout university and their first year of teaching. The teachers described the support they felt from their families which continued through the pandemic, Arthur noting, “From day one, they’ve [my parents] always helped me.” This support extended to helping create instrument bell covers in Arthur’s case and support navigating the Department of Education in Jesse’s case, as her mother was a veteran teacher in the same school system. Jack confided, “I won’t tell her this, but it was nice to have my mom around. Because there were some nights where I just really needed to just cry,” which helped him cope with his feelings of lowness.

Adaptability: “We Had to Find Ways to Teach the Concepts We Would Normally Teach in Different Ways”

Examining the third research question, regarding adaptability, all of the first-year teachers made adjustments to their teaching, but in distinct ways which reflected varying expressions of adaptability. The adjustments fell generally into three main categories: (a) retaining typical goals but employing traditional approaches with technology, (b) altering focus to emphasize empathy while teaching broader music concepts, and (c) teaching with a person-first approach and contextualizing music in unconventional ways.

Traditional Approaches

Martin and Arthur relied heavily on traditional techniques such as ensemble rehearsal and working from method books, which were adjusted for online mediums. They both supplied teaching artifacts which highlight their aims toward performance-based outcomes for band programs. Arthur provided a concert recording, made in-person at the end of the school year with students in masks and instrument bell covers, a typical culminating experience in music instruction with safety modifications. Similarly, the lesson plans supplied by Martin employed a traditional ensemble rehearsal structure using technology when needed, but similar to rehearsal plans which one could employ in a typical school year.

In our interviews, both Martin and Arthur reflected on their approaches to the year and how little had changed in their beliefs about the way their programs should operate. Arthur recounted how he rehearsed his students online, saying, “I tried to kind of just push through it [online lag time]. I made them play anyways. You know, so I could kind of hear.” Martin reflected that he came to expect a lower level than he had before teaching but that his beliefs about teaching and learning music remained the same: “I’d say my standards have changed. Not so much my beliefs. I feel like my beliefs are very much the same.” He recalled how the year felt defeating because he was unable to rehearse at the level he wanted (both due to the actual nature of the program he was teaching and the nature of the pandemic). Though students inquired about different music or types of activities, Martin decided to continue with isolated music theory and individual method book learning, deciding, “We’re just gonna do the thing. I’m just gonna keep doing the same thing.” This was an ongoing struggle for Martin who emphasized frustration with the disconnect between his concept of band and his perceptions of his students’ motivation.

One of the most unique things that I identified about these two teachers was that they expressed feeling the comparison with the previous director and how their teaching and performance outcomes would be seen by the students and community. While each teacher reflected on the comparison differently, both teachers reported comparing their own teaching to what had been done in their established band programs previously. Martin suggested that despite the pressure he felt to be successful, comparing himself to the previous teacher actually was somewhat positive because “since the last person there wasn’t super good, I didn’t feel a lot of stress.” By comparison, Arthur felt the weight of entering a program that was well-known for high achievement and the way the last director taught:

It was a little bit tough. I guess this is a both little bit professional and personal. Personally, it was a little bit tough both ways. Because, you know, coming in as the new guy, you get compared a lot to him. And especially like I said, since he was so “rawrr,” very strong and everything . . . and even the kids, they said, like, “wow, you’re like a teddy bear compared to [previous director].”

These concerns with comparisons to the past also extended to concerns about how they would be seen moving forward, especially with regard to enrollment numbers and public performances.

Empathy and Teaching Concepts

Jack and Linda both emphasized the need for empathy for their students’ circumstances due to the pandemic. Jack recounted his perspective as, “I understand your situation, and just do the best that you can to participate as much as you’re able to.” Both teachers expressed trying to meet the students where they were, both in current academic or musical level and in personal circumstances. Both Jack and Linda began fully online, slowly transitioned to some students in person, and tried to be understanding of the challenges of student learning in a hybrid environment where students may not be able to make music or have their cameras turned on. Linda sought feedback from her students to help her meet their needs in the most understanding way possible. Jack noted that the pandemic led him to try to build rapport with his students and to engage them in different ways by asking fun questions or starting with levity. He affirmed, “building that rapport and showing the students that you can have fun and want to just chill out for a second before you go into whatever it is you’re working on that day [is] really healthy for the students.” Linda also noted that she spent more time on “a lot of things that were more geared towards social emotional learning and connecting with the students” to support them.

Jack and Linda both provided teaching artifacts that showed a focus on specific musical concepts which they hoped to help their students master and which could be used in both performance and nonperformance contexts. Jack found the need to teach musical concepts in brand new ways to be exciting, saying, “something that was really positive about online teaching is we had to find ways to teach the concepts we would normally teach in different was, which was cool.” Linda created several lessons which assisted students in exploring Hawaiian choral music and facilitating discourse about authenticity in musical arranging. Linda and Jack both commented that the unusual circumstances did provide some relief because they didn’t feel pressure for achievement they might have felt in a typical year. Linda noted that she felt like “since everyone is having a hard time, I shouldn’t beat myself up [for mistakes],” a sentiment that Jack also shared. Jack reflected that this year had led him to explore more about growth mindset and to incorporate this into his personal teaching philosophy, “having a mindset of this is where I’m at, what are the things that I can do to just take the students the next step . . . is more important to me than meeting a benchmark necessarily.” Linda, when discussing a unit she did on practicing, also noted, “I hope I can train them a little better, so that they will be able to practice efficiently.” This emphasis on growth and helping students to achieve based on their current ability was present throughout both of their interviews.

Person First Teaching and Teaching Adaptations

Similar to Jack and Linda, Jesse and Hannah emphasized empathy and understanding in their teaching, but expressed this with a commitment to what the participants called person-first teaching. Jesse noted that her experiences, “strengthened my philosophy that our leaners are people first and students second.” Jesse recounted that she placed students’ well-being above the musical content she was teaching, saying “So I didn’t teach them dotted 16th notes, but in my class today, they felt safe and they laughed. And that’s good enough for me today.” Hannah was guided by her school’s mission to know love, give love, and accept love; she affirmed its importance in her teaching, noting that by the end of the year she felt that “as long as the students learned like five things, then that was the biggest outcome for me . . . and as long as they felt like they were loved. I felt like that was also the biggest component to this year.” In a sense, both teachers expressed that when they felt the need to make a choice between teaching content and supporting well-being, they chose the latter. Jesse also noted the importance of this foundation:

I think the beauty of prioritizing relationships is that once you do that, classroom management, and all that other stuff is under control, because when they know that you care about them, then they want to be invested in the class and they want to learn.

Jesse’s teaching artifacts reflected her emphasis on seeing students as people. She developed a variety of activities which included instructions that both explained the necessary steps for learning and aimed to reduce stress. For instance, on a musical heritage project’s PowerPoint, she included information about the time she would provide in class to complete the work, but also included, “Breathe, friends. This should be fun.” Both in how she addressed the students and in how she designed the project to meet students with helpful support, Jesse demonstrated how she viewed the students as people. Hannah designed her course content to give students more autonomy and control over their learning. She explored creative approaches to teaching concepts but allowed for student choice and using mediums with which the students were already familiar: “So they will do TikTok songs and stuff like that and [it] allow[s] them to feel like what they’re doing now can be used educationally or gives them even more power to their own education.”

In planning for teaching, both Hannah and Jesse adapted their content and approaches to teaching based on circumstances and student success. As a new teacher building a program in its infancy, Jesse struggled to assess students’ prior knowledge, but once she understood her students’ prior experiences, she redesigned her instruction to help them develop necessary skills:

I was trying to start a choir online. And that was difficult. So once I identified that that was the challenge (it was they had no context of [group singing]), I was able to kind of adjust and be like, “okay, let’s rethink this.”

She explained, “I kind of transitioned back to just doing more like music with a singing emphasis” because she found that teaching group singing online was not effective and that her students’ needs were better met through this approach.

Like Jack, Hannah said she found the need to do things in new and creative ways actually excited her, but led her to diverge from traditional models more than Jack, even noting that she had started to feel that the “traditional music teaching setting does not work anymore.” Despite feeling overwhelmed at times, she said, “I’m driven by pressure. The pressure of knowing that I can’t do things in a traditional sense excited me.” Hannah found the fixed mindset of some peers to be quite frustrating and she eventually avoided those peers because she found the need to adapt personally energizing. She recalled, “towards the end of it, I think I started steering away from those people who were just constantly seeing it as a negative thing.” Hannah and Jesse both valued experiences that came out of the need to adapt; Jesse summed this up, reflecting, “it personally taught me flexibility in a way that I don’t think I would have learned otherwise.”

Planning for the Future: “It Still Feels Like I’m Starting From Ground Zero”

Despite the feelings of extreme lowness, challenges with adjusting and adapting teaching, and anxieties regarding moving into the second year, all the teachers reaffirmed their past beliefs about teaching as a profession. Also adding to my understanding of the final research question regarding intentions to continue teaching, all of the first-year teachers have continued through their second and third years. For some, there was a sense that the pandemic was temporary and that teachers would be able to employ the traditional techniques which they learned in university moving forward if they so choose. Thinking about how this year affected his future, Martin recalled thinking, “it’s a dumb year, just let it go already,” and that he was already thinking of plans for traditional concerts. Jesse also expressed how she was looking forward to getting to make music in-person with students, noting that the format caused her some concerns: “Did I question teaching? Yes. 100%. Did I question teaching music? Never.” For many of the first-year teachers, the effects of the pandemic reinvigorated their passion for teaching. Hannah affirmed, “I discovered that there’s no occupation right now that I want to be in, other than teaching music,” and Arthur asserted, “Yeah, I still fully 100,000% want to continue.” This adamant desire to continue teaching was echoed by nearly all the first-year teachers.

Unlike his peers, Jack had come into his first teaching position with reservations regarding the profession; while he noted that the pandemic certainly exacerbated his worries about teaching, his specific reservations predated pandemic-related stressors. At the time of the interviews, Jack expressed that he wanted to take some time away from teaching to discern whether teaching was a vocation he wanted to pursue. Jack intentionally turned down multiple teaching positions and an offer to teach in a summer-long music camp during the 2021 summer and had planned to take time off in the next year, but was offered a position late in the summer and has since continued teaching alongside his peers in a middle school band program.

All the first-year teachers expressed that they anticipated their upcoming second year of teaching would feel just like the first year of teaching. Hannah stated, “it still feels like I’m starting from ground zero,” and Arthur commented that “as a new teacher as well, I feel like in some ways, the true test for me, at least, will come when a normal year happens.” There were several concerns about lack of experience from student teaching as all of the first-year teachers had done all or part of their student teaching in a fully distanced learning environment, echoing similar reports about feeling unprepared for teaching from other students who student taught during the pandemic (VanLone et al., 2022). Many of them felt concerned that they had never sequenced a concert cycle from start to finish; Jesse noted, “The fact that we didn’t get to finish student teaching. That was also traumatic . . . So we had never, and to this day, I have not actualized starting with the group, preparing music, and having a concert.” Along with concerns for these new expectations were concerns about classroom management; Linda commented,

I think classroom management is something that I wanted to learn a lot during student teaching. But through student teaching, it was all online for me for my secondary . . . So we didn’t really get the in-person students causing disruptions or trying to handle that.

Despite their anxieties, and the shared sentiment that the second year would feel like a restart because of how different it would be, the teachers did reflect that they felt the benefit of having at least some experience moving into the second year. Hannah noted that the different schedule from distance learning had given her the space to learn “to be more reflective . . . I feel like I had a lot of time last year to be more reflective” which she hoped to carry into her second year. Arthur reiterated several times that “You can’t beat experience. Nothing can beat experience.” Jesse also commented that she felt she could plan better because she had a general idea of what to expect with students now, saying, “you at least know what’s gonna happen.”

Discussion

All the first-year teachers found the conditions teaching in the COVID-19 pandemic to be quite different from their prior expectations and university teacher preparation. While this is often true when teachers compare their experiences with inservice teaching and the preservice coursework completed in tertiary education (e.g., Ballantyne & Packer, 2004), teachers noted the disconnect specifically with regard to pandemic conditions. Despite intense feelings of lowness and burnout which many teachers felt during this year (Mecham et al., 2021), these teachers largely viewed the conditions to be temporary and expressed that their overall intentions to continue teaching had not been altered by the pandemic. The teachers found comfort in friends and family who supported them through both personal and professional challenges. They also noted the importance of their peer connections and mentorship through schools and professional organizations; the importance of mentoring echoes past research suggesting the importance of positive mentoring in novice teachers’ success (Schmidt, 2008). As the first-year teachers reflected on their experiences, I noted two main approaches to managing online and hybrid teaching: adapting to unexpected circumstances and surviving until things returned to normal.

Adaptability differs from coping with challenges in that coping prioritizes survival, whereas adaptability indicates adjustments which yield positive results (Martin, 2012). Thus, while all of these teachers coped with and survived the challenges of teaching during the pandemic, not all were adaptable in ways that benefited their personal life or teaching practices. Martin and Arthur both focused on adjusting their traditional expectations to be delivered in an online format, but did not fundamentally change their teaching behaviors to meet the challenges presented. Perhaps, this is connected to the comparisons they consistently made to the previous band teachers in their schools who ran what might be considered traditional performance programs. By contrast, Jack and Linda both adapted their delivery and selection of content to focus on those skills best taught online with empathy for students’ situations; demonstrating even larger changes, Hannah and Jesse adapted their teaching approaches substantially and shifted the focus of their classrooms to meet the person-level needs of their students.

Those that showed the most apparent adaptive expertise in their teaching also expressed or demonstrated aspects of a growth mindset which is linked to engagement and motivation in teaching (Nalipay et al., 2021). Jack specifically mentioned how he liked that he was forced to think of new ways to teach content and expressed a newfound belief in the importance of having a growth mindset for both himself and his students. Similarly, Hannah referenced excitement about having to adapt her teaching and appreciation for the time to reflect on her teaching. The connection between overall adaptability and a growth mindset suggests cognitive creative adaptability (Orkibi, 2021) in some of the teachers, which led to positive teaching outcomes. Teachers who demonstrated adaptive expertise through the pandemic expressed specific changes they made to their teaching while teachers who continued with traditional techniques referenced concerns about how they were viewed and compared with past teachers based on typical criteria.

Implications for Novice Teachers and Teacher Education

The first-year teachers’ experiences highlight the importance of personal and professional networks and connections during the first year of teaching. Several of the teachers emphasized the importance of help they received from their in-school teacher mentors, which Schmidt (2008) also indicated was an important contribution to success in novice music teaching. By contrast to his peers with strong mentors, Martin felt disconnected from his school and did not have a strong teacher mentor, which he associated with his feelings of burnout and not knowing what to do. This underscores the importance of having strong mentors who are able to provide consistent support for young teachers. While there are time constraints, perhaps universities could provide postgraduation mentorship for novice teachers as a part of faculty teaching loads, leveraging the relationships forged with students in preservice preparation. Participants also referenced the benefits of informal music teacher mentors and professional organizations to support their continued professional development. The support they felt from their graduation cohort helped them to contextualize their experience and find things to keep them motivated, highlighting how peer-mentoring and peer networks can support novice teachers (Draves, 2012). Moreover, fostering strong relationships with students seems to have helped these early career teachers maintain a positive disposition toward teaching in a highly stressful period in their careers.

The experiences of these first-year teachers remind us of the importance of teacher–student relationships and fostering a positive learning climate within music classrooms. Similar to other teachers during the COVID-19 pandemic (de Bruin, 2021), these teachers largely found that rapport developed with their students was an important factor in maintaining classroom management and engagement. This skill is an important part of effective teaching and should be specifically addressed in teacher education to help preservice teachers understand how to develop and maintain appropriate relationships with students.

Adaptability is an important aide for adjusting pedagogy based on student needs (Loughland & Alonzo, 2018) and helps yield positive learning outcomes for students (Collie & Martin, 2017), as evidenced by the reported experiences from these first-year teachers. Granziera and colleagues (2019) suggested that the capacity for adaptability can and should be fostered in preservice teacher education. To that end, music teacher preparation programs might explore opportunities for microteaching or scenario-based learning (Granziera et al., 2019), varied types of field placements, and extended experiences with the same students. Extended field experiences can feel more authentic to preservice teachers because they can try different approaches with the same students (Blackwell et al., 2022), which allows them develop their adaptive expertise in a setting which more closely matches inservice teaching. The experiences of these first-year teachers, particularly the experiences of the teachers who felt the direct comparison with prior teachers, indicate a need to develop adaptive expertise in future music teachers within their preservice music teacher education programs. In particular, helping preservice teachers to develop a positive mindset with regard to how they are viewed, rather than making comparisons to other educators, may provide space for students to explore personal style and develop adaptability, thereby helping them to become engaged and capable music teachers.

Supplemental Material

sj-docx-1-jmt-10.1177_10570837231178891 – Supplemental material for Experiences of First-Year Music Teachers in Hawai‘i During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Challenges, Adaptability, and Implications for Future Music Teaching

Supplemental material, sj-docx-1-jmt-10.1177_10570837231178891 for Experiences of First-Year Music Teachers in Hawai‘i During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Challenges, Adaptability, and Implications for Future Music Teaching by Nicholas Matherne in Journal of Music Teacher Education