Suzuki Method | Christine Goodner: The Suzuki Triangle Blog, Author, Speaker, Podcaster

Motivation: The Importance of Feeling Capable

This Post is third in a series on keeping students inspired and motivated. You can read the first two posts here: Overview, Why Students Need Help Seeing Progress.

“I can’t do this!” “It’s too hard!” “I’ll never get it!”

Comments like these (or trying to avoid practicing a specific practice task) are strong indications that a student does not feel they are capable of something we are asking them to do.

Some students may not even be able to verbalize these thoughts and simply act out or seem to lose interest in studying their instrument.

To keep our students motivated it’s important to to address these feelings. Feeling capable and seeing that it is possible to accomplish something plays a huge role in staying motivated.

I’d like to suggest 4 ways to help students feel capable & would love to hear what you think works the best for your children or students.

3 Ways to Keep Students Motivated & Inspired

“Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire.”

-William Butler Yeats

Happy New Year! I love the feeling of a fresh start that the new year brings. I am coming back from a couple weeks off feeling refreshed and with a renewed commitment to help keep my students motivated and inspired this year.

As a teacher I feel strongly that my job goes beyond teaching the mechanics of playing the violin or viola. If all my students get from me is some technical knowledge about their instrument then I don’t think I’ve really done my job.

One of my first jobs as a teacher is to instill a love of music in my students, once that has been established it is much easier to expect them to work hard. Working hard at something we love is a totally different feeling than working hard on something someone else loves. How do we get this to happen?

Why Short-Term Commitments to Music Don’t Work

why-short-term-comittments-to-music-dont-work I get many calls for prospective violin & viola students from parents requesting more information. I always explain my program and direct them to my website for more information.

A phrase I hear some parents use when they describe why they want to start lessons is: my child seems interested in music (or the violin) and we want to try it out to see if they will like it.

As a parent I completely understand that this is the approach we take for many things we sign our children up for. We often sign them up for many different types of activities in order to expose them to a wide variety of things and to see what they enjoy.

A word of caution though.

How Repetition Develops Mastery

We all know the definition people throw around about insanity . . . doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. I think this is how many adults feel in general about repeating something over and over again – no matter what the results. It can be a little crazy making.

It’s important to remember as parents (and communicate well as teachers) that not only does repetition feel totally different to young students and play an important role in the way they learn, but often they actually enjoy it. Can you think of that book or song that your child wanted (or currently wants) to hear over and over again?

When my own children were young they had a few favorite books that came out every night to be read & I dare not skip a page or two in the interest of time – they always noticed.

Repetition was something they craved – and it wasn’t only books. Certain Raffi songs and movies were requested over and over again as well. The repetition might have made my skin crawl at times, but they ate it up and it was exactly what they needed.

Repetition = Mastery

In fact, research shows that repetition plays a huge role in learning language, vocabulary, physical tasks and music.

Developing Ownership in Practice

Ownership in Practice

I am in the midst of expanding my parent education materials, for the new families in my studio, this year and the second week of materials will focus on what I think are the most important things to keep in mind about practice.

I narrowed it down to 7 items (I am sure there are more but these will get people started on the right foot in my experience).

They Include:

Comparisons

comparisons

It’s so easy to make comparisons between our children and other students in the studio, at workshops, and institutes.

We see other children that can seem like they have endless concentration, know all their pieces easily, or don’t struggle in any way.

What we may not know is that the book 3 student we see easily playing everything in front of us, may have spent the first two years of lessons rolling around on the floor and having all sorts of attention issues. In fact, it took endless patience and a lot of work from both the teacher and parent to keep things going at all.

Or that Book 4 student you see who is always polite and well prepared for recitals . . . what we cannot see is that for a few years the student and his mother fought in practice . . . everyday.

They were miserable and wondered if they should quit because the whole thing was so stressful. (This is a true story – one that has a great ending because when this came out the parent and teacher were able to talk about how to practice differently and the parent put in a huge amount of work changing the dynamic during practice . . . things are so much better now!)

This Post is third in a series on keeping students inspired and motivated. You can read the first two posts here: Overview, Why Students Need Help Seeing Progress.

They Include:

The truth is that we can often compare OUR worst moments with the best moments of other students and feel discouraged.