"There Truly Is Nothing I Would Rather Be Doing”: Eric Combs’ Rural School Journey
 I have been teaching in rural southern Illinois schools my entire 15 year career. My first three years were as a middle school band director in Robinson, and the past 12 have been as the middle school band director in Olney. I love teaching in Olney. It is my hometown. I decided that I wanted to be a band director when I was 11 years old while sitting in the band room in Olney. The band director had made a comment that went something like "you all will be looking for jobs around the time I retire. Maybe one of you will have my job someday." At that moment I knew it would be me. That is the same room in which I now teach.Teaching in a rural area has its positives and negatives. I love the small town, community atmosphere. People are generally warm hearted and will do anything they can to help you out. Everyone knows everyone. The community is proud of its school, and does a lot to support us. There are some very major setbacks though, mainly with equity. Our districts are nowhere near as well funded as some of the other schools in the state. Access to resources outside of the school are scarce. And socioeconomics plays a major toll. I teach band. Band in and of itself caters to the rich. You have to buy an instrument, which can cost over $1,000. The kids from families who have money to spend on private lessons generally do better, and are thus more likely to stick with it. Very affluent families can send their kids to universities for private instruction. Kids with families who opt to buy cheaper instruments generally perform at a lower level for several reasons. 1) a low quality instrument can be very difficult or impossible to play, and 2) they typically do not receive private instruction, and 3)living conditions are not conducive to practicing an instrument at home. Thus, performance in band is very much an issue of equity. Compare this to districts in the north where every kid in the top band takes private lessons from university instructors, and members of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra are paid to sit in with the band. It is hard to compete with that, and puts kids in rural Illinois at an unfortunate disadvantage. Problem number two is an issue of professional collaboration. I teach in a district that encompasses the entire county. I am the only middle school band director in Richland County. If I want to collaborate with another middle school band director, I have to travel 20 miles to the next county, where my fiancé is the middle school band director. When I go to a "department meeting," I sit in my office and talk to myself. For that reason, it is hard to find proper mentorship in rural areas. I saw all of these issues early on and decided that, instead of falling victim to them, I would try to surmount them. It has taken about ten years to fully do so, but I believe that I have accomplished that task. Step one was to write for as many grants as I could find. Eventually we were able to raise over $200,000. I used my portion of the funds to purchase enough brand new instruments that anyone who wanted to be in the program could do so for free. One year I had 70 free instruments, of the 110 that the school owns, loaned out. The school has a grant for an after school program that allows for kids to stick around until 5:30 and partake in various free activities. One of those if private band lessons. So, any kid in Richland County who wants to be in band can – with a free instrument – AND, they can also receive free private instruction outside of the school day. The next step was to differentiate the instruction. Many of my students are not allowed to practice at home, often because they are in an apartment or trailer. One girl told me her grandma wouldn't let her practice in her trailer, so she would go outside in the snow every evening to practice her flute. Others just never get the opportunity to practice outside of the school day. So, I developed a new system of individualized instruction that moves at every students' own pace, and I made a computer program to track each student's individual process. I differentiated the levels of the bands as well, allowing the kids who were learning at an accelerated rate to not be held back, and the kids who are moving more slowly (for unavoidable reasons) to move at their own pace without feeling pressure from the other group. Amazingly, our local community college, OCC, offers free tuition to any student who plays in the band. Several students have gone to college for free using this method. One this year is even going to college for free now to be a music teacher, after using a free instrument and getting free lessons in middle school. After finding funds, purchasing instruments, providing free lessons, and developing a curriculum to suit individual needs, the Olney music program gained national recognition four times as being one of the "Best Communities for Music Education" in the United States, according to the NAMM foundation. The US House of Representatives even recognized us in one of its regular sessions in 2017. Which leads to my final hurdle, that of collaboration. I realized I was on to something after several years of this, and I wanted to share it. I looked to the internet for help. I started a couple of blogs, and websites, and wrote two books and shared them, along with several videos, and soon gained over 5,000 educator followers. My site www.banddirectorsshare.com, where band directors all over the globe can share free materials, has had over 16,000 views in its first year from 41 countries. I personally have been contacted by over 650 band directors from all over the world this year about my curriculum. And through donations, there has even been enough money raised to now hire a full time director in a large orphanage in Honduras, where there were 70 instruments that had been donated but no instructor. This just goes to show that there are always ways to surmount our obstacles in education, whether they be issues of equity, or simply of distance. Creative solutions are the key. I say "with great obstacles comes the opportunity for great solutions." Hurdles are the catalyst of invention and innovation. And, I have to say that despite the hurdles of teaching in rural Illinois, I absolutely love doing it. There truly is nothing I would rather be doing than teaching beginner musicians in Olney, Illinois. |
