The Music of Teaching

The Music of Teaching focuses on an ephemeral attribute all teachers need but few consider: perception. This includes the ability to trust both students' natural development and the learning process itself to guide developing pianists down music's path. Using stories from her 46-year teaching career plus research from the fields of education and psychology, Barbara Kreader Skalinder explores the ways teaching has evolved from the authoritative style of the 1950s to the collaborative design better suited to the students in today's digital world. The author also examines the ways independent teachers, free from the outside constraints often imposed on public school educators, can point the way toward educational methods that keep students' individual learning styles and natural rate of progress as a primary focus and guide them toward independent learning and success.

Table of Contents:

Foreward by Peter Jutras

Introduction

Part One: Teaching Yesterday's Child

• Enter the Portals to Piano Teaching's Past
• The Black-and-White '50s
• Day-Glo Muppets and More
• "Information My Way"
• Phones, Pods, and Pads

Part Two: Teaching Today's Child

• Students in a Virtual World
• The Pressured Child
• Be a Model
•  Remember the Reality of Your Own Journey
•  Be a Wise Guide and a Reliable Witness
• Music's Many Faces
• The Twenty-First Century Studio
• Teaching to the Student and Not to the Test

Part Three: Teaching the Real Child

• Let the Student Be Your Guide
• Desire Equals Success
• One Learning Style Doesn't Fit All
• Tempo and Dynamics: Every Child Has Them
• Some Struggle Is Not Only Necessary, It Is Valuable
• Teaching Students How to Work on Their Own
• Listen Up!
• Praise for Nothing Means Nothing
• Stickers, Skittles, and M&M'S
• "I Thought It Sounded Great!"
• Plateaus and Fallow Periods
• Teaching Sideways
• Perfectly Managing Imperfection
• Failure: It's a Strength
• Another Look at Success

Part Four: Teaching Yourself

• Being Comfortable in Your Teacher Skin
• Pay Yourself a Living Wage
• Parents as Partners
• The Fertile Field of After-School Child Care
• The Rewards of Risk
• The Music of Teaching

Acknowledgments

Notes

Bibliography