Creating a Laboratory for Learning: An Interview with Laura Sinclair

In this episode we are talking with Laura Sinclair about creating a laboratory for learning in our practice rooms and studios. Laura is a performer, an educator, and is passionate about making practice with our children easier by understanding how the brain and emotional regulation affect us in the practice room. You can listen through your favorite podcast platform, or through the link in this post (below).

Laura Sinclair is an active performer and Suzuki teacher in the South Florida area. She can be found on the concert stage with ensembles like the Atlantic Classical Orchestra, Boca Symphonia, Symphony of the Americas and the Kravis Center Pops Orchestra, in the pit with visiting National Broadway tours and the Miami City Ballet, and at private events with Elan Artists. A former public school strings director, Laura is the curriculum consultant and music coordinator for the Volta Foundation, providing educational training and support to their teachers and a diverse repertoire sequence. Laura firmly believes that music can be a powerful tool for breaking down barriers,building good citizens of the world.

As a self proclaimed Suzuki fanatic, Laura is registered through Book 10, in addition to many supplemental courses in Pre-Twinkle, Group Class, Suzuki in the Schools, Spiccato, Priority Teaching, and Energy work. She blends high level teaching with her interest in neuroscience and attachment parenting. She shares this with her vibrant home studio, and parents and teachers worldwide. Learn more at https://linktr.ee/lauraksinclair.

Christine’s Top Takeaways from this Episode

1.      Young children may ask, or even beg, to play an instrument but they don’t always know what the process involves when they get started.

2.      Big feelings come up during practice and that is very normal for adults and students alike. It something that we can seek to understand better and work through together.

3.When we understand how the brain and learning works it helps us to understand the behavior we’re seeing in the practice room and take it less personally.

Highlights:

–“So the last year has been Completely online as of March 13th, 2020. I am very thankful to have had a studio that continued with me 100%. Anything that I threw at them more group class, online group class. We haven’t seen each other collectively as a group, at all. And  they’ve said yes to all of it.

So I’ve really been thankful to have families who have been willing to experiment and turn the studio into a laboratory of what does work online, What doesn’t work online and how we can still create community in an online sense, which has been interesting to experiment with. I think that there have been many positive things that have come out from it.

I’ve noticed a change in parent child dynamics because we’ve spent so much time together. Both positive and negative. And I’ve also noticed a change in my approach as a teacher, because we’re not in the same room because we are exploring things online. I’ve noticed things, probably teaching points that I never would have noticed if I were in the space with the student and Probably ignored teaching points that I would never have ignored other wise. So it’s been a real to say that 2020 and 2021 is a laboratory of experimentation is probably how I would sum that up.“

–“I think that I, even to this day, I struggle, if I don’t have a system in place to make practicing happen, it’s not going to.  What I did take from my mom is an extremely organized person. So she always used to help me plan when the practicing would happen.  At one point. I remember that I would get up and do scales after my brothers had gotten on the early bus and I would do my technique in the morning and then do more When I got off the bus later in the day. If I had a lot of repertoire I was running through, I was playing it for her while she was making dinner. 

And as a high schooler, I knowing I needed to practice and not wanting to was a big struggle. So I would have moms screen my phone calls because  I didn’t have a cell phone, but friends who had finished their homework are likely to call you.I would say just don’t let me take a phone call until I’m finished with my practicing.“

=”That’s actually exactly why I started doing the research that I’m doing is because. I was noticing it both in my public school environment and in the private studio, I was just noticing, well, you know, there are so many big feelings that that are brought up by practice by learning a new skill by an interaction with a parent.

And I was curious both about the emotional triggers that happen within the parent child relationship. And then also just what’s happening In the lesson that can help learning happen. And what are the roadblocks that get in the way. And that the first piece for me was, and why I talk about Terry Durbin and his teaching and his like obsession with neuroscience as a because fundamentally finding out about the structure of the brain and exactly what’s happening.

–If you don’t really understand what a prefrontal cortex is or how it controls things for your child that can really make a child’s behavior seem completely irrational, really hard to deal with. Very easy to take personally, very easy to misinterpret. and maybe like not developmentally appropriate either. “

–“Science backs it up. You don’t need to be the perfect parent. You need to be the good enough parents. Which is something that I really like love because it gives permission for mistake, which is exactly what we want to see in our students that we want to give them lots of permission for mistakes, so that they can feel empowered to make mistakes and learn from it rather than associating shame with it.”

–“I think that if anything, 2020 and 2021 have really forced the mirror in front of all of us and made us have to really realize how much work is ahead of us. But it’s really, I think, comforting and exciting to know that as a collective. As a Suzuki Community parents in general, we’re all more interested in being able to do this and create conscious change and become more interested in the world and truly understanding why we do the things that we do. “

– “I would say my suggestion for parents and practices would be to put your own mask on first. So make sure that your biological needs are met. Assess yourself, sit for a second. Am I hungry? I use the word halt, hungry, angry, lonely, or tired. If you have addressed all of those things and then see that all of those needs also met for my child.

And maybe also assess, is there anything missing. Especially with the hungry thing, do I think that they’re not hungry or are they actually not hungry? I’m going to throw that in there because sometimes you just need a little something”

Important Links

Find links to Laura’s social media and resources here: https://linktr.ee/lauraksinclair

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