on 6/24/02 2:20 AM, Mark D. Lew at [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > As far as I'm concerned, the only thing a teacher is good for is helping > the students learn how to accomplish what they want, not to tell them that > what they want is good or bad.
Not long after I started teaching almost 30 years ago, I had a high school age drum student sign on for help in learning a very difficult snare drum solo for Kansas State Music Contest. He had never had any lessons and his skills were extremely modest. I told him that what he was wanting to do was an almost impossible task in light of the time to accomplish it. He replied that he felt he could do anything that he set his mind to; one could accomplish anything if they wanted it badly enough. All of us who teach are familiar with this self-affirmation "happy talk," and time proved what my instincts told me: "This kid has delusions of adequacy." But my liberal values vetoed my instinctive impulse to tell the kid I couldn't help him, so we muddled through about six weeks of drum lessons. When asked about his lack of practice, he said he wasn't able to practice very much because he had to work too many hours at his part-time job to pay for his brand new "kick-ass" SUV, but he was just as determined as ever to get this solo learned. Finally, when he had about a week left to go, he told me he wasn't going to take the solo to contest because "I hadn't motivated him sufficiently to learn it and that I had failed him as a teacher." (!!) I have since been a lot more direct with students about things like this. When a student's goals are clearly out of line with their abilities and time and desire to practice, I very directly communicate this to them and save us both further aggravation. Perhaps the terms "good" and "bad" are a little simplistic, but the idea behind the sentiment is spot-on. Doug _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
