Transcript What`s in it for my students?

Proactive or Reactive:
What Kind of a Teacher are You?
Dale Wheeler
Toronto
24 March 2007
 Dale Wheeler 2007
Terms of Reference:
• Reactive
“Reacting to events when they occur with
little to no anticipation of events.”
www.comptechdoc.org/man/
begin/mantechpro.html
• Proactive
“Controlling a situation by causing
something to happen rather than waiting
to respond to it after it happens.”
http://wordnet.princeton.edu
You are Reactive if you . . .
• bounce from crisis to crisis
• allow students to dictate the parameters
of each lesson
• are frustrated and unfulfilled
You are Proactive (well, sort of) if you . . .
• create a comprehensive studio policy
brochure
• have a lesson plan for each week of the
term
• maintain a color-coded wall calendar
• choose all of your students’ music over
the summer
• maintain a well-stocked cupboard of
pencils, stickers and other prizes
• attend national conferences (like this
one!)
People Who Are TRULY Proactive . . .
• see the big picture and understand that
it all comes down to the question of
control
They know that ultimately there are only
two things over which they have absolute
control:
• their attitudes
• their actions
Proactive people operate according to a
simple formula:
correct attitudes
+ calculated actions
= coherent results
Attitudes
• How you think about yourself, your
students, and your art will determine to a
significant degree whether you are
proactive or reactive
• How do reactive and proactive attitudes
differ? . . .
• piano lessons are just about learning to
play the piano
rather . . .
• piano lessons are about learning to
enjoy and make music and about
discovering what it is to be truly human
• teaching is about giving information
rather . . .
• teaching is about equipping students
to make intelligent, informed choices
• my self-worth is based on the success of
my students
rather . . .
• my self-worth is based on whether I
have respected the needs of the music,
my students, and myself
• it’s my job to motivate my students
rather . . .
• it’s my job to inspire my students
• my students’ success is dependent solely
on me
rather . . .
• my students’ success depends on a
myriad of factors, many of which I
cannot control
• it’s all about the festival/grade/contest
result
rather . . .
• it’s about the journey, not the
destination
• teaching advanced or talented students
means I have arrived
rather . . .
• exemplary teaching can happen
irrespective of your students’ level or
ability
• good teaching is being able to detect
errors
rather . . .
• good teaching is being able to diagnose
problems and prescribe solutions
• I need to know something about
everything
rather . . .
• I have a global strategy for each of the
critical areas of teaching that addresses
virtually every eventuality in my studio
Actions
• Building on the foundation of correct
attitudes, a proactive teacher will pursue
calculated actions
• Of prime importance is the dynamic
counterpoint between the needs of the
music, the needs of the student, and the
needs of the teacher
• Neither of the following scenarios
promotes proactive teaching . . .
Student
Teacher
Music
Teacher
Student
Music
Teacher
Student
Music
While this scenario is
apparently better . . .
This relationship is
the true goal
Teacher
Student
Music
The music must be the focal point
technique
aural skills
theory
self-identity
motivation
recitals
MUSIC
personality
personal
preferences
sight playing
repertoire
choices
competitions
Music making consists of a solar system with
five intersecting orbits
Heart
Head
MUSIC
Eyes
Ears
Hands
• A proactive teacher will have a
conceptual framework for each of these
areas
• This in turn will support a global strategy
for day to day teaching
• When a problem is encountered ask,
“Which of the 5 areas does this relate to?”
• When assigning a new piece ask, “Which
of the 5 areas does this target?”
• Be continually asking,
“Does my teaching address each of the 5
areas? If not, why not?”
• With this as a backdrop, the activities in
your studio can be driven by something
more predictable than what your students
may or may not show up with each day
1. Heart
feeling – the affective domain
“Don’t pay too much attention to the
notes. If you do, you may miss the
music.”
Charles Ives’ father
“Nothing in education is more important
than the development of the imagination,
without which life would be one horrid
grind of monotonous routine.”
Harold Bauer
• Above all else, music is about feeling and
expression
• All our best efforts will be in vain if we
forget what it is that draws a beginning
student to the instrument or the first
bloom of romance with a newly-assigned
piece
“Emotion does not make music. It can get
in the way of music sometimes. Simply
the desire for music plays the piano.”
György Sebök
"Whatever you do stays forever in people's
minds. That can be scary, and fear is the
worst adviser because love and fear don't
live easily together. . . . Love of music
should dominate. . . . The fight is not
between the instrument and the person,
but it is within the person; the performer
fights himself . . . .
To win the fight over yourself means
resistance to fear, usually very primitive
fear, but that fear can be given up. . . . One
has to accept that to be human is to be
fallible, and then do the best one can and
be captured by the music.”
György Sebök
What’s in it for my students?
• developing musical warmth and personal
connectedness
• motivation and dedication
• repertoire choices
• performance options
What’s In It For Me?
• interacting with other human beings on a
level that transcends daily superficiality
• opening my spirit in a give and take
relationship to the most powerful of art
forms
2. Head
thinking – the cognitive domain
• “If you think nothing and hear nothing
you communicate nothing.”
• “Music is indivisible. The dualism of
feeling and thinking must be resolved to a
state of unity in which one thinks with the
heart and feels with the brain.”
George Szell
• The only thing worse than having a
student not do what you tell him . . .
is having a student do what you tell him
without knowing why
What’s in it for my students?
• fostering a sense of exploration and
inquisitiveness
• maximizing the strengths and minimizing
the weaknesses of individual learning
styles
• developing a systematic approach to
practicing
• learning to read a musical map (a.k.a.
the score)
• understanding historical frames of
reference
• developing secure methods of
memorization
• dealing with performance insecurity
• incorporating functional keyboard skills–
transposition, harmonization, playing by
ear, sight playing, etc.
• promoting honest self-evaluation
What’s In It For Me?
• pursuing my quest “To Know and
Understand”
• refining my ability to analyze and
synthesize
• strengthening my problem-solving skills
3. Eyes
seeing – the visual domain
• For many students, music goes straight
from the eyes to the fingers and bypasses
the heart, head, and ears
What’s in it for my students?
• observing the beauty of the natural
world, of other art forms, etc.
• observing the physical-ness of the score
• observing the physical-ness of playing
the instrument
• emphasizing the skill of “hearing with
your eyes”
• developing competent sight playing
• securing memory
What’s In It For Me?
• being continually awed by the sheer
beauty of a musical score
• sharpening my awareness of musical
relationships and interactions
4. Ears
hearing – the aural domain
• Of all the arts, music is the only one that
exists solely in the realm of sound
• “I like the fact that ‘listen’ is an anagram
of ‘silent.’ Silence is not something that is
there before the music begins and after it
stops. It is the essence of the music itself,
the vital ingredient that makes it possible
for the music to exist at all.”
Alfred Brendel
• “Music is the space between the notes.”
Claude Debussy
• “To listen is an effort, and just to hear is
no merit. A duck hears also.”
Igor Stravinsky
What’s in it for my students?
• developing an “awareness of the
moment”
• coordinating what the eye sees with
what the ear hears
• emphasizing the skill of “seeing with your
ears”
• fostering the ability to listen deeply
• developing the functional skills of
harmonizing, playing by ear, improvising
• securing memory
What’s In It For Me?
• honing my critical listening skills
• strengthening my “seeing with the ears”
skill
• having my musical preconceptions
challenged
5. Hands
doing – the psychomotor domain
• Technique is the linking of the mind and
the body
• “More is lost through poor fingering than
can be replaced by all conceivable artistry
and good taste.”
C. P. E. Bach
What’s in it for my students?
• promoting good posture
• working from the torso out
• striving to develop a technical foundation
that is efficient and adaptable
• attending to the complete playing
mechanism: fingers, hands, wrist, arms,
shoulders, back, hips, legs, feet
• developing an awareness of the overall
choreography involved in playing
• understanding the proper balance
between relaxation and tension
• allowing the musical idea to give rise to
the technical solution
What’s In It For Me?
• exploring more deeply the intricacies of
what constitutes an effortless and effective
playing mechanism
• discovering new solutions to common
problems
Bach, No. 3 from Capriccio for a Departed Brother, BWV 992
Synthesis
1. Some musical tasks combine several
elements
Phrasing involves:
• feeling musical motion (heart)
• analyzing harmony and melody (head)
• seeing direction and shape (eyes)
• hearing balance and musical tension (ears)
• choosing appropriate gestures (hands)
Memorization involves:
• internalizing the mood (heart)
• analyzing the score (mind)
• visualizing the score (eyes)
• pre-hearing the music (ears)
• feeling the movements (hands)
2. Solving a problem or achieving a
breakthrough in one area often has
corollary effects (either immediate or
delayed) in other areas
• Loosening the wrists can remedy uneven
scales, overcome mechanical phrasing,
and relieve sore arms
3. Develop a set of maxims that you live
by and that you share with your students
• “First we get good, then we get fast.”
• “Don’t be an excited player. Rather, be an
exciting player!”
Edward Gates
• "An amateur practices until he gets it
right; a professional practices until he can't
get it wrong."
Percy C. Buck
• “Your best must be so good that second
best will do.”
• “Redeeming a fault is far more laborious
than instilling a virtue.”
“Good music teaching means helping the
child to acquire a good technique in as
short a time as possible with the least
expenditure of energy. It means training
the ear of the pupil to appreciate the exact
timing of sound, the exact quantity and
quality of each musical sound that he
makes. It means helping him to
understand the thought in music. Still
more, it means helping him to develop his
imagination and to use, develop and . . .
“. . . control that important part of his
being which is so often ignored or
forgotten – the driving force of emotion
within him. That force, developed and
controlled and acknowledged, can carry
him to great heights in music, literature
and life. Uncontrolled or undeveloped it
can spoil his life and wreck his work.”
Lilian Stephenson
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