Another e-mail newsletter I subscribe to is “Get Ready to Lead!” by Dr. Jeff Myers of Passing the Baton, an international organization founded for the purpose of “equip[ping] adults to personally mentor and coach the next generation of culture-shaping leaders.” The newsletter is both inspiring and practical, offering specific tips that teachers can apply in their teaching or in their personal lives. Here’s an excerpt from this week’s newsletter that I thought was a good reminder of the importance of constantly learning and growing. (It was followed by an excellent list of “Sixteen Simple Ways to Become a Lifelong Learner.“) The article is entitled “The Plateau Effect: Don’t Let it Happen to You!“:

As a teacher, I have a heart for learning. Unfortunately, for far too many educators, ignorance is bliss. A study done by Steven G. Rivkin, Eric A. Hanushek, and John F. Kain in 2005 showed that…

…There appear to be important gains in teaching quality in the first year of experience and smaller gains over the next few career years. However, there is little evidence that most teachers continue to improve after the first three years.

This is not new information. I recently reviewed a doctoral dissertation by Henry Joseph Hector, published in 1972. Hector reviewed 44 studies on teacher effectiveness and found that…

…Only 5 studies out of the 44 reviewed showed support for the contention that teachers continue to improve their performance with increasing age or experience throughout their careers. Thirty-nine studies found no continued growth in teaching performance as the teacher aged or gained more experience. These studies used an assortment of criteria for measuring teacher effectiveness; yet, the older or more experienced teacher performed at a lower level than the younger, less experienced teacher.

Interestingly, a teacher’s level of education has little to do with his effectiveness. Those with masters degrees are not necessarily better teachers. Rather, teacher effectiveness has to do with:

* Curiosity (”Why do you think that is?“)
* Growing (”You won’t believe what I just learned!“)
* Vulnerability (”I don’t know but I’ll find out.“)
* The pursuit of wisdom (”I promise you that I’ll keep learning as long as I’m teaching.“)

No matter your role in life, ask God to give you the courage to be curious all over again. Learn, grow and pass what you know on to others.

You can subscribe to Get Ready to Lead! on the home page of the Passing the Baton website.

In September of last year I made several sets of scale blocks. I’ve been using them periodically during lessons, but I decided to make more of a concerted effort to use them as a teaching and reinforcement tool with my students. Joey just finished learning all of his major scales, thanks to the aid and motivation of the scale chart in the front of his assignment book. Before we move on to the minor scales I told him that I want him to be able to immediately recall how many sharps or flats each key has and what they are. For example, I would say, “A Major” and he would reply, “3 sharps - F#,C#,G#.” I decided that step one toward that goal would be memorizing the order of sharps and flats. Enter: scale blocks!

After discussing how to figure out the pattern initially, Joey arranged the blocks in the correct order. I timed him and it took 25 seconds. I gave him 2 more chances to beat his time and he decreased it substantially each time, with a final time of 7 seconds. Next week at his lesson he’s going to see if he can beat that record! We repeated the same process with the flats. Part of his assignment this week is to write the complete order out on the staff in his manuscript book each day of the week in both bass and treble clef while saying their names out loud.

We both had fun and decided that using scale blocks is a great way to memorize the order of sharps and flats!

I’m going to continue trying to squeeze out my creative juices to come up with other fun ways to use the scale blocks. Does anyone else have any ideas they’d be willing to share?

Economist Gary North wrote the following in his e-mail newsletter this week. I always appreciate the bits of advice he shares at the beginning of each newsletter and have found it both practical and helpful on many occasions. You can sign up for his Tip of the Week E-mail Newsletter on the home page of his website. Since most Independent Music Teachers are small business owners, it behooves us to be business savvy.

I like a long, hot shower. In fact, I like two a day.

There is a problem with long showers. They are expensive. No, it’s not the cost of the hot water. It’s the time.

The more valuable your time, the more expensive a long shower is. The same principle applies to taking my dogs for a morning walk. It also applies to the time I spend on my treadmill. (Joke!)

Here is my solution: before I take a shower, I plan a mental topic for my shower time. I go over it as I shower. Earlier this week, I was struggling with a marketing problem. I usually think about marketing in my disciplined spare time. I got into this habit for drive time when I started my first newsletter in 1974. I had been stuck on this problem for several days. The solution came to me in the shower.

That will turn out to be a profitable shower. I am confident that the idea will work. Of course, I will test it. It won’t cost much to test. Maybe 5 minutes.

Convert spare time into profitable work. Don’t daydream. Plan. The mind is tricky. We don’t know when something useful will pop into our minds. I find that if I think carefully about something, solutions will occur to me unpredictably within a few hours.

Don’t you think we could use this same principle with those difficult situations we are facing with particular students? Perhaps coming up with a creative way to present a skill? Or devising a short game to play to reinforce a concept a student has been struggling to learn? I’m eager to give it a try this week and see what I come up with!

It is with great excitement that I announce the official launch of the Music Matters Blog Shop! As many of you know, in addition to teaching music I love to do design work. So I thought I’d have some fun creating music-themed designs and selling a line of merchandise. So far I’ve only got one design on a couple of different merchandise items, but I’m really excited about it and can hardly wait to get the shirt I just ordered (the red one)! I’d be willing to do some custom design work for anyone who wants me to create a certain item for them using their studio name, logo, etc. Just contact me and we can work out the details.

Special Offer: At the checkout, I received the option of entering the e-mail address of 5 friends to receive a $5 off coupon for Cafe Press. I will enter the e-mail addresses of the first 5 people who e-mail me and tell me that they’re interested.

Thanks to the suggestion of Mike Sansone, Business Blog Guru (who, incidentally, decided to learn to play the piano this year!), I posted a page about myself, along with a picture, for those blog readers who are curious to know a little more about me. I’m also working on some new ideas for Music Matters Blog, so if you have any ideas or suggestions of things you’d like to see here, just send them my way!