Music Teachers...why?

As I'm approaching the end of my music education degree, I become more and more interested in collaboration. Sometimes I feel music teachers and musicians become too arrogant to collaborate with other music teachers and musicians. Isn't collaboration part of being a music teacher? The best things I have ever learned came from watching and talking with others.

I think sometimes we get so caught up in ourselves that we forget the purpose---developing students into musicians.

What made you want to be a music teacher? What's the best thing you've ever learned from another music teacher? Would you tell me a little bit about your philosophy of education?

Music Teachers...why?

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I intend to be a music teacher in the future but I'm still learning piano. I want to be a music teacher because I feel motivated by my current piano teacher. He's really great, I really don't know how to put it in specific words. I've learned many things I didn't know about piano from other teachers. He was the one who made me understand that piano is not simply pressing down the keys and that your current state of mind affects the sound played on the piano. Unlike other teachers I had before (they didn't really bother much about me I guess) he really organized a lot of things for me. I'm grateful to him and I feel lucky to have him as a piano teacher as it was him who made me develop a passion for music.

I believe that music teachers who're able to develop their student's ability and motivate them to have a commitment to music have really achieved a lot.

Music Teachers...why?

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unfortunately, all music teachers are also all humans. Subject to those insidious things like ego, pride, and self-justification.

Most of us start out trying to do some good.

We get caught up in the goal, and stray from the path?

Many of my professional colleagues are also embarrassed by being caught out "talking shop", as if they weren't human enough to make mistakes over the years.

A lot of teachers think they have learned all there is to know by the time they finish their diplomas. I don't think so!

That's where the real learning starts. In singing, for instance, so much scientific verification has occurred over the past 20 years ( since I got my papers) that it would be folly to assume that I know all that there is to know.

There's that fear lurking at the back corners of one's mind as well ( do I really know what I'm talking about, and when will THEY come to catch me?)

As long as you remain open to new ideas, and new perceptions of approach to your instrument, you will be a good teacher. The minute you say, My way or the highway, is the dead end.

Congratulations on your degree. Can I come and study with you? I need some refresher courses!

Merry Christmas to all

Lynn