“To Teach Is to Love”: How the CMA Foundation’s Mentor M.E. Program Fuels Passion for New and Veteran Teachers
By Cillea Houghton
Each year on the first day of school, Williamson County Schools music teacher and 2020 CMA Music Teacher of Excellence Lauren Baker tells her kindergarten students “this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.” It’s a sincere gesture that reflects her passion not only for teaching, but also for the students themselves. She hopes to instill this dedication in Metro Nashville Public Schools (MNPS) music teacher Derek Schatz, her mentee in the CMA Foundation’s Mentor M.E. (Music Educators) program. Launched in 2021, the program enables previous Music Teachers of Excellence to mentor a teacher early in their career, as mentees create professional and semester goals for the classroom with the support of their mentor.
As a fourth-generation Tennessee schoolteacher with 26 years of teaching to her name, Baker has spent much of her career mentoring pre-service teachers, so she enthusiastically accepted the opportunity to join the CMA Foundation’s pilot program. “I love helping people become better teachers,” Baker professes. “Once you do that, you’re lifting the whole educational field. As a music teacher, you teach every student in a building. You’re touching thousands of lives, and to me, that’s the end goal. I’m helping to reach all these other students, and hopefully impacting their lives in a positive way.”
Through the Mentor M.E. program, Baker has provided support in myriad ways, from offering advice on classroom management to connecting Schatz with resources to implement in the classroom, such as recommendations for instruments that adhere to COVID-19 protocols. “I always say, ‘You like to start with the end in mind. What are those steps for success?’” Baker says, explaining her approach to mentorship. “It makes me reflect on what I’m doing to a higher degree because I’m not only impacting him, I’m impacting all of his school, and that to me is a huge responsibility. I want to make sure that anything that I recommend or say to him, or the way I’m guiding him, is thoughtful.”
The program was created in an effort to combat statistics that show nearly one-third of teachers will leave the profession or retire early, with too few incoming teachers to replace them. Schatz was part of that phenomenon — he took a year off from teaching before accepting the job at MNPS. He admits he felt a sense of “imposter syndrome” as a beginning elementary music teacher, before he was recommended for the Mentor M.E. program by Baker’s fellow Music Teacher of Excellence Franklin Willis. On his application, Schatz noted that he lacked confidence in his classroom. But Mentor M.E. changed all that. Since joining the program, Schatz says he has noticed “big improvements” in his classroom.
“The most amazing thing that’s happened for me is having someone in my corner like Lauren, who has so many years of experience and chose to take me on and help me. It’s so amazing knowing that I have someone who cares not only about me, but cares enough about the field of music education to do that,” he says, praising Baker and the “empowering” program. “The lessons were so much fun with the kids. They were so successful, and I don’t think I would’ve done it if Lauren hadn’t been there to say, ‘I believe in you, go do this.’”
Baker is “thrilled” with Schatz’s success. She says she will continue to mentor him as he transitions to a fifth-grade music class next year, noting that one of the program’s goals is that he pay it forward as a future mentor. Through the program, both Baker and Schatz have grown as educators and also continue to foster their love for teaching. “I feel more confident walking into the building every day. I feel like I have a better understanding of what I’m capable of, and especially what the kids are capable of,” Schatz shares, describing the program’s impact. “What keeps me passionate is the kids. I want to get in front of them and experience the growth with them, and I’ve really seen that a lot in the last few months because it’s not just them growing, it’s me growing, it’s the school growing. Being part of that community — the kids, the growth, the love that happens in that building — that’s what keeps me coming back every day.”
“It’s a wonderful program. It builds that community, and I would highly recommend it for the mentors and the mentees. You learn so much when you reflect on your own teaching. It’s a great thing,” Baker says with admiration. “We want teachers to feel confident about what they’re doing. We want them to stay in the profession and we want them to be the best teacher they can be because that’s only going to help all those students.
“The most important thing in that classroom is to love those kids,” she proclaims. “To teach is to love.”
The 2020-2021 school year is the pilot for the CMA Foundation’s Mentor M.E. program. Through mentor/mentee feedback and assessments from teachers who represent excellence in the field, the CMA Foundation intends for this program to act as a model for eliminating the increasing gap that exists system-wide between incoming teachers and teachers retiring early, so that every student has access to equitable music education programming.
