It was 1997.
My piano teacher had just shown us a picture of Belle, Bonne, Sage, a rondeau about love written in the shape of a heart by 15th-century French composer, Baude Cordier. I studied the top two staves, curved to create the top of the heart, the illuminated letter B at the beginning of the first word, Belle, and the unique black-and-red notation.
This signaled the beginning of the annual studio-wide Valentine composition project.
Happy New Year!
The change in the calendar year reminds us that there are things in life that ebb and flow. There's comfort in that familiar rhythm, the cyclical nature of our seasons, our routines. What does the beginning of a New Year signify for you? What kind of season do you find yourself in these days?
I recognized recently that I am in a season of learning.
Of course, I am still actively teaching five days a week, but at the same time, I'm reflecting, jotting down stories and realizations at the end of the teaching day—things I'd like to do differently next time or things I didn't plan but observed or participated in that ended up teaching me something as well as my student.
Welcome, December: A month of parties and pageants, decorations and delight, twine-wrapped packages and twinkling lights.
In the midst of all the end-of-year festivities, I like to steal a few quiet moments for reflection:
I make a list of all the books I read this year and what I want to read next year (look for the link to that in the show notes, if you're curious),
I make an end-of-year summary for my business and send a spring calendar to my studio families,
I write a year-in-review blog post, and
I reflect on what I've learned as a teacher.
Taking time to reflect on our teaching practice is an important and necessary part of the teaching-and-learning equation. So today, I'm looking back on all the moments I documented on the podcast this year and sharing seven things I've learned as a music educator.
Researchers suggest that twenty to thirty percent of teachers in America have moderately high to high levels of burnout (source). Maybe you know the feeling:
Tired, mentally and emotionally.
Distracted and uninspired.
Going through the motions.
Trouble making decisions.
These are warning signs.
Why does this happen? Why do we get burnt out and is there anything we can do about it? Today, I'm sharing five practical things you can do when you feel stressed or burnt out plus a few of my go-to resources.
There's been a lot of talk in recent years about creative teaching strategies and being a creative teacher. But what does that really mean? What does it look like in practice?
Of course, there's a certain amount of creativity naturally embedded in the work of making music together. Music is a creative art! But what does creative teaching mean? Is it inherent or is it something we need to develop? Is it something we bring into our teaching space or is it something we co-construct with our students?
I have a new 1st-grade student this fall, a younger sibling of another student. Their temperaments and personalities could not be more different and I feel like I'm still learning how best to relate to the younger brother in lessons.
Aaron is very smart and artistic but also has a rebellious streak. Sometimes he'll come into his lesson and say he doesn't want to play the piano or he'll resist reviewing a concept or piece from the previous week and give me only a half-hearted attempt.
After one particularly challenging lesson, I made a plan to incorporate a few more fun activities the following week—movement, creativity prompts, and musical discovery. Little did I know that Aaron would bring all the creative inspiration we needed for a 30-minute lesson: a binder of Pokémon cards.
It's back-to-school season, which means cups of hot tea in the mornings, new music to learn and explore, a new teaching schedule, and a few new organizational tools and strategies to test out, per usual.
The start of a new school year is a great opportunity to reset, refocus, and try new things. I talked about this back in Ep. 006 - Four Things I'm Doing Differently in My Studio. It's interesting to look back and see how much has changed and what I've learned in two-and-a-half years!
Today, I'm sharing an inside look at three big studio projects I worked on this summer—repertoire planning, technique organization, and an aural skills video library—and how I'm implementing them into my studio this fall.
I first heard about this book from one of my grad school professors.
We were sitting around a long table one snowy January evening at our annual dinner for current and prospective doctoral students. I asked my professor about books he was reading lately and he named several including Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers and Carol Dweck's Mindset.
It's been on my list since then (let's just say it's been a few years), but I finally read it last year.
Today, I want to share my four biggest takeaways from Mindset: The New Psychology of Success to give you an idea of what it's about and how we can learn from it as musicians, teachers, and leaders.
This summer, I've been teaching buddy lessons to two rising 1st graders. One started lessons with me in January and the other just started last month. They are both using the method book, Piano Safari Friends, which I have really enjoyed teaching this year.
Both students have had 30-minute lessons with me almost weekly this summer and since I was able to schedule them back to back, I'm doing 25 minutes with one student, 10 minutes with both, and then 25 minutes with the other student.
Today, I'm sharing a behind-the-scenes look at how I organized our buddy lesson activities and sequenced them from week to week.
Do you pre-plan lessons in your studio? The truth is, I haven't always done this.
As a young teacher, I loved planning and sequencing activities for every individual lesson, but it was challenging to predict what we'd realistically get through and so much was dependent on a student's preparation and practicing during the week. Would they be ready to begin this new piece or would we need to spend another week reviewing concepts in a review piece?
Today, I'm sharing my lesson-planning workflow: the steps I take every day before teaching to plan individual lessons for my students. Plus, at the end, I'll answer a few questions I received on Instagram that are related to this topic.
