Teaching Toward the Future
One thing that I’ve realized that I do frequently with my students that keeps my enthusiasm for teaching fresh is visualize them in the future. I imagine that Landon is no longer a 9-year old boy with hard-to-control fingers, but a mature 19-year old who sits at his family’s piano accompanying hymns while his family sings along. And 7-year old Holly is more than just a precocious little sight-reader flying through her books; in my mind she is a 17-year old graduate, playing a beautiful rendition of Chopin at her graduation. And so on.
When I view my students in this light, it makes me care more about the sound that they create. It makes me want to put in the extra time and energy to make sure that they can do more than translate notes on a page to sound; I want them to hear the beauty in what they are playing. It makes me willing to work week after week on the same technique until they master it, knowing that it will serve them well whatever their musical future may hold. It makes me excited to see them not only saying the “right” answers, but actually grasping the concepts that I am teaching, for then they can transfer them to all learning.
Every piece along the way contributes to the whole, but it is in stepping back and looking at the whole that I find the energy and motivation to focus relentlessly on the pieces.
Hi Natalie,
I really enjoyed this post, and I think it is a great strategy for moving beyond the page with students. In fact, after I read this yesterday, I tried this technique with one of my students, a little guy with lots of enthusiasm but a very short attention span. I felt like a much better teacher than usual
Thanks for the great advice!
Rachel
Natalie:
Well written and well said. Though not a teacher myself, I had the opportunity during my career as a tuner-tech to observe several students develop from fumblers with minimal attention spans to mature, skilled pianists. I have been given the chance to mentor a few of the more advanced ones who wanted to learn improvisation (my pianistic background is in southern gospel,country, and swing), but I want to take this opportunity to applaud you and your colleagues who have over the years given them the solid foundation needed to pick up the skills I can show them. Keep up the good work!
David Miller