I sometimes think my best teaching or inspirational brainstorms stem from the fact that I get bored easily. At school I shift from one activity to another with a fast pace. In my personal life I go from one project to another often without finishing any. I like being with a variety of people, each one filling a different purpose in my life.
As most Suzuki teachers, I teach private lessons and offer group lessons for my students once a month. I look forward to having the kids and parents together. They are a family to me. But how does one keep something that is a routine fun? Or the real question is, how can I keep from being bored with the group nights?
As I have mentioned before, I have a fabulous bunch of students and families.
The kids are multi -talented, smart and creative. Knowing this, along with my thirst for variety, I thought of “alternative night”. For group this month the kids were to perform, but NOT on piano. As I thought about my students I realized almost all of them played another instrument at school in band or orchestra. So that’s what last night’s group was- an alternative recital. What a blast!
We had a viola solo, a drum solo, and sax solo. There were two duets: flute and clarinet, and then two cellos. We had a trio (father, daughter and son)- the father and daughter as a piano duet with the son accompanying on drums. We had a sister duet of a vocalist and accompanist. We also had a father/son combo with the father on piano and the son on cello. My youngest student who is six does not yet play another instrument so what he did was play alternative Suzuki pieces. He took two pieces from book I (Mary had a little lamb and Allegretto I) and made them jazzy.
The really impressive part of the night was that the kids all came up with their own ideas of what to perform and prepared the material on their own. They called each other to create duet combinations, arranged practice times and even dressed up! I don’t know who had more fun: the kids, the parents or me!
In addition to this music, one boy performed his book I recital. His sister had just started lessons with me this month and she gave her first performance during the group (her mother told me that the child was so excited that she had her party dress on in the morning so that she’d be ready; group was at 7:00 P.M.!)
After the performance we celebrated as usual with sweet treats, but the party went on for much longer than the usual group nights. Everyone was in high spirits congratulating all the performers and marveling at this special group of kids. I even received two e-mails today from parents commenting on how much fun last night was.
Well, it’s almost time to teach. What a lucky teacher I am. And I guess the kids are lucky to have a teacher with a very short attention span.
Love how your weaknesses become your strengths when you make yourself step back and use them for the development of others! What a positive approach—thanks for posting this. Alternative night,eh…hmmm, I like it.
That’s a great idea! I think we as teachers need those days to keep things fresh and fun for the students too! I know my students enjoy rehearsals when I change things up a bit from time to time!
What a great idea! Any time you can help students be creative with their music, you’ve been successful!
Sounds fun. It is very important to find happiness in what you are doing. It will simply radiate outwards to your students. I think it is not “short attention span”, I think piano teachers have a remarkable ability to handle many things at the same time.