Lately I’ve realized I’ve been slipping into negativity. Teaching is hard, and one of the toughest parts is navigating so many people with different values, opinions, and agendas. I feel like I’m constantly bracing for conflict—with colleagues, students, parents, admin,
Every ensemble has a mix of skill levels — and every teacher knows the challenge of helping struggling students without slowing the whole group down. Every year I get a few new students who aren’t as skilled or experienced as
As a classically-trained violinist, I didn’t learn improvisation at all until just a few years ago when I decided to teach myself. Improv opened up a whole new world of music making to me; I learned that I’m capable of
Every music teacher has been there—you’re working with one section of your ensemble fixing a tricky passage and it goes a little longer than you expected it to. While you’re trying to get this done, the rest of the students
I’ve been reading a book called The Art of Possibility lately, and in the book, they talk about the concept of giving someone an A. The idea is that you give someone an A by assuming the best about them
This year I wanted to try something different with my students. Instead of using practice records or playing tests to hold them accountable, I decided to experiment with accountability groups. While we’re only halfway through the year and still figuring
For the last few years, I’ve started to incorporate more improvisation and composition into my performing ensemble classes. Most of my efforts have been pretty clunky at best; I was learning these skills alongside my students and I didn’t really