Music Teachers and Performance

It always bothered me that during my undergraduate studies, I felt like a second class citizen as a music education major. Although I did have a double major with voice performance, it was as if I had a stamp on my forehead that said "I'm only a teacher. I'm not important." I had peformance major friends of mine say to me,"so you're giving up performance? Oh..." (As if I had given up ten million dollars.) The overall attitude among performance majors was that taking on the music ed major was a sign of failure, or worse, lack of musical ability. In addition, the faculty of the school often facilitated this attitude; for instance, at BU, music education majors only got 1/2 hour lessons during their junior and senior years, because it was evidently less important for music education majors to continue improving their instruments. What is it about choosing a "music education" degree that it is seen as a cop-out? Does this fear of feeling like a failure keep some potentially good music teachers from becoming music teachers? Further, why do the music education faculty members attempt to put a stop to this?

Now that I am a teaching "professional," some of my students are beginning to take private voice lessons. I know the parents of these students, and wonder why they did not ask my advice on whether or not or from whom their children should take lessons. Further, why didn't any of them ask if I could give their children lessons? Is it because they don't think I'm able to teach voice because I'm not a performer, first and foremost? Has this attitude of "she's just a music teacher--not a real musician" become mainstream?