Over the decades, in my meetings with other singing teachers, I have been told to my face, twice, “I have a gift from God to teach.” What, exactly, is to be made of a statement like that?
Should I imply that others have that gift or is it unique to the two (unrelated) men who said this? Should I imply that somehow this makes them better than other teachers? (They both think they are the absolute best singing teachers who have ever lived). Should the world give them more credit because they are divinely appointed and are unafraid to say so to anyone who will listen?
In my world, many teachers are in possession of a “gift from God” to teach. They possess a desire to serve, honestly, by putting the welfare of the student and the music over and above any idea of their own personal aggrandizement. I don’t think God is interested in measuring out who gets what in terms of gifts. If you seek to serve, you serve, and you do it with an open mind and heart, to the best of your ability. That’s the gift. Period.
I can never understand why it is that people don’t see through the hubris of characters of this type, the ones in the suits with egos the size of California. Is it so that the average person is never suspect of such grandiosity? In the cases of these particular teachers, who are quick to drop famous names to impress you, do they really believe that such behavior indicates how great they are or does it just point out how shallow their own sense of self really is?
Truly dedicated teachers don’t shout from the housetops about how divinely guided they are because they are too busy meeting the needs of their students, no matter how “lowly”, to care. They aren’t interested in letting you know about their fancy clientele, even if they have one, because they don’t need to capitalize on their famous clients’ reputations to build their own. Still, like Anthony Weiner, they don’t get it in relationship to how that reads to others, because there isn’t much room for others in their consciousness in the first place. How else could they even utter such words directly to another teacher without so much as a blink of an eye?
“I am Oz, the great and powerful.” (Who is that man behind the curtain?) You, too, can try to impress the world with your smoke and mirrors and perhaps be successful because you talk fancy and sell your remedies in a nice bottle with a pretty label. But don’t count on it. Some of us have never bought your particular brand of Un-Kool Aid.
You probably DON’T think since song (blog) is about you, but I surely wish you did!