Lauren Robertson

• Position: Head choir director
• Bachelors/Degrees & from where: Music education, Baylor University
• School Activities: Sponsor of triumph music honor society 
• Years at Caney Creek: 6
• Years Teaching: 11

How would other people describe you?

I would hope people would describe me as somebody who brings joy and compassion, like so joyfully compassionate.

Was there a career you wanted to pursue OR pursued before teaching.

So I thought I wanted to go into medicine. I wanted to be a neuropsychologist, but then I took all AP science classes. I took all three big AP science classes when I was a junior, and I did well on the AP test, but I discovered that I just really didn’t enjoy spending that much time with science. I wanted to be a doctor, but I didn’t want to study science, and so I was like this isn’t going to work out for me, because I am not motivated enough to pursue this as my life. So I was kind of adrift my senior year of high school, and my high school choir teacher was like “you like to teach, you like choir; why don’t you be a choir teacher,” and I was like, you can do that? It just didn’t compute to me that you could go to school to be a choir teacher. So he kind of guided me to his alma mater, which was Baylor. So I have been in music since and haven’t looked back.

Tell us about how you got into teaching. 

I went into teaching after undergrad. So I did a lot of teaching while I was an undergraduate student. I taught voice lessons, I taught after school music classes, I taught all of that, and then I just went straight to Moorhead junior high, and then I’ve just been in the Caney Creek theater system ever since.

What do you do outside of school for fun? Why? 

I’ve been getting back into reading. I sing for a church choir, but that’s another job. I like to spend time with my friends, and I’m getting back to spending time at the gym. So I’m just kind of beep bopping along in life.

When people get to know you, what are they most surprised to learn about you? 

I’m pretty prickly at first. So people are surprised to learn that I’m pretty nice. I had a lot of kids who are like, I was afraid of you at first. I don’t mean to be prickly at first, I just am. I’m just not a very outgoing person, but once I’m invested, and once I’m into you as a person, I think I’m a pretty warm person. 

Tell us the story about what you are most proud of yourself for.

My first year at Caney Creek High School, I was the assistant director, and because she had to go have surgery on her foot, the head director at the time was out the first week of January to basically the last week of April. So that meant I was the fifth year teacher, first year high school teacher who took all five Caney Creek choirs to UIL by myself, so I taught all the music by myself. I conducted all five choirs. I sight read with all five choirs. I planned all those trips with the choirs, and they did well, better than they would have done then, if I would have left them to their own devices. So out of the five choirs, four came back with hardware. When I got back Dr. Stickler, decided that I was going to be the head director after that.

Who is someone you are thankful for and why?

I’m thankful for a couple of people. I’m thankful for Miss Hamrick, who’s probably the best possible person for somebody like me to work with. It’s just, you know, Miss Hamrick really, really kind of encouraged me to be able to trust in a way that I’d never been able to trust other people before, especially in work environment, to be able to count on somebody is really, really important, and I hadn’t realized that I didn’t have that before she was here. I’m also thankful for my friends, my high school choir teacher, who’s the reason I’m a choir teacher, so yeah there’s a lot of people to be thankful for.

What advice would you give to someone pursuing a career similar to yours?

Stay the course, because it is a hard, hard course , and find things outside of music to invest your time in. So if you let it, music as a major and as a culture, will kind of absorb your life, but you can’t let it, because that becomes your identity, so if something happens, and you know, something doesn’t go as planned, it’s really closely tied to your identity, and if something doesn’t go as planned that affects your view of yourself , but it needs to be what it is, which is  passion, but it can’t be your identity. So when I was in undergrad, I took up a minor in English, specifically in creative writing. Specifically to get out of music building.

What do you hope to be remembered for? 

I want for students to remember that they had a place, even if it was not true anywhere else in their life, where somebody was going to be kind to them for 50 minutes a day, and just be gentle with them and hear them and see them like, life they become advanced musicians, cool, you know, great, but I want them to know, when I was in high school, there was a place where somebody was going to be kind to me every time I saw them. 

What’s on your bucket list? 

I want to go to Ireland, really badly. There was a specific travel show that my mom and I would watch when my siblings would go to their dads, and that one that struck with me the most was going to Ireland, like the rolling hills, the celebrating the fluffy cows, the ocean, the coat, the rocky coastlines and things like that. It’s always been a dream of mine to go to Ireland.

How often do you think about the Roman Empire?

I’ll tell you what, I don’t think about the Roman Empire at all, never. I have things that are my Roman Empire, but it’s not the Roman Empire.

Favorites

• Food: Sushi
• Song/Artist/Music: “California” by Chapel Roan
• Movie or TV Show: “Spirited Away”