Hello Ardith,

On Thu 2039-Feb-24 23:52, Ardith Hinton (1:153/716) wrote to Richard Webb:


RW>  INdeed, and a friend of mine went in with much the same
RW>  approach, he was a music major instead of pedagogy, but
RW>  fell into teaching.

RW>  This lady's daughter was one of his pupils and sang his
RW>  praises for getting the kids actually interested in
RW>  learning about music.


AH>           I know many others who "fell into" teaching, as your
AH> friend did, and turned out to be very good at it.  If he really
AH> enjoyed learning about music & working with kids, his enthusiasm was
AH> probably contagious....  :-) 

TOm was definitely a people person, and enthusiastic about
music.  He didn't fit with the administration real well
however, hence he went back to doing carpentry and playing
what gigs he could find.


RW>  I play three or four instruments well enough, but I'm
RW>  not suited to teaching well.  I don't have the patience
RW>  for it, and part of that patience is an impatience with
RW>  myself if I"M not getting an important concept through
RW>  to a pupil.


AH>           IMHO you have the right instincts!  Years ago I remarked
AH> to a friend that I couldn't always be sure whether a particular
AH> feeling originated from me or the person(s) I was with.  She doubted
AH> my sanity.  But shortly thereafter I found a book written for
AH> teachers which said basically what you've said.  If a student
AH> appears to be discouraged, bored, impatient etc. they may be
AH> mirroring what they believe they're seeing in *us*... and vice
AH> versa.  The onus on us as teachers is to recognize what's happening
AH> & make appropriate adjustments. 

Indeed, and I do better with that elsewhere.

LIked your example, trying to describe sensuous to your
class .

RW>  A friend of mine however says I'm a very thorough and
RW>  patient teacher, but that was in another subject, not the
RW>  music.  I"ve come to the conclusion that maybe I can teach
RW>  radio theory, or radio operating techniques, etc. but just
RW>  am not temperamentally suited to teaching music.  THat fits
RW>  too, as I'm the guy who will walk out on a bad performance,
RW>  or a musician failing to tune his instrument properly.

AH>           When we were younger, Dallas & I often heard somebody's
AH> fridge or TV whistling at a very high frequency and level of
AH> dissonance.  We'd ask "How can you stand that whistle?"... to which
AH> the reply was invariably "What whistle??" People who live and/or
AH> work in a noisy environment... including music teachers ... tend to
AH> become hard of hearing in later years.  Because you have little or
AH> no useful vision I imagine you depend a great deal on hearing to
AH> find your way around in strange places & cross roads safely as well
AH> as to earn a living.  If you get positive feedback with regard to
AH> another subject area, what I see is a thorough & patient teacher
AH> with a healthy sense of self-preservation....  :-)) 

OF course, I just can't do bad sound.  IN fact, my lady will tell you one of
my major things is "life's too short for bad sound."  IF you can't sing,
don't!  IF you can't play the
violin, please put the violin down.

Funny thing about ambient sounds, refrigerators etc.  I'm
always noticing that stuff too.  Also, thanks to too many
years in loud environments, both musically and otherwise
I've a bit of tinitis that often gives me the internal ringy dingy as well. 
Last couple days I"ve been doing the
bachelor thing, lady is hospitalized, and that means her
oxygen concentrator isn't running 24/7 in the other room.
IT's funny how just that one device not operating has
lowered the ambient noise floor around here.  Now it's down
to the refrigerator, the chest freezer, two computer fans
and a 12 volt dc 60 amp supply's cooling fans.
Even when teaching other than musical subjects I prefer to
do the one on one thing.


Regards,
           Richard
--- timEd 1.10.y2k+
 * Origin:  (1:116/901)