Alan Levine posts his metaphor of teachers as rock and roll cover bands. He points to Johnny Cash’s wonderful cover songs later in his career. Though he follows the original songs faithfully, his own soul and interpretation come through.

Particularly as more and more teachers are being asked to follow prescribed (some might say scripted though I would argue) programs, it might be helpful to think of ourselves as cover artists. Rather than thinking of ourselves as robots which won’t lead to very effective interpreters, we would be better teachers to think of ourselves as artists.