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 My Week at CampJune 23, 2007 at 1:20 PM This week, I am attending Suzuki training at the Atlanta Suzuki institute. As a matter of review, and in the hopes that this would be helpful to someone, I thought I would blog as I go. My school is paying for the training, but I am footing the bill for the hotel. The drawback is that this institute is not being offered by a college, so I cannot also receive college credit. Yesterday, I took the Every Child Can course. It's a broad introduction to the Suzuki approach to teaching and it is the first class required when seeking Suzuki training. There were 11 students in my class. 3 were former Suzuki students, 5 had young children themselves, one was a non-musician parent of a Suzuki student, one had never taught before, some were returning to teaching, and some were making their Suzuki teacher-ness more official. I was the only one who teaches at a Suzuki program in the public schools. Our trainer was Carrie Reuning-Hummel. She was one of the first Suzuki students in the U.S. Here are some notes about the areas we discussed:Language Acquisition- belief that this will happen as a matter of course; repetition; imitation; reinforcement; sound to source; community of learning Talent vs. Ability/Gifts vs. Talents-look for "readiness" in the child; parent needs to understand why they themsleves love something Listening-listen until you can't forget; gives a structure so the student can hear what is wrong and refine; use passive & active; "sing" in head (may have to teach that) Vision vs. Expectation-Vision is the big picture & expectation is more of the moment; think out all the steps you must use to successfully learn a piece; work out "preview" spots in fututre pices so problems are worked out ahead of time. Established Repertoire-teacher is freed from deciding what piece to do next (at the early levels); Each piece leads to the next; group class is about refining what you already know; teacher must model & educate parents & students about non-competition/not worrying about who is on what piece. Reason for Review-keep all pieces ready to play; teacher must model this by reviweing in clas; old pieces can be used to address a new technical problem; if short on practice time-listen and review. Reading-addressed issue of starting it too late; good time is mid-book 1 on non-Suzuki materials; time is right if postural foundation is set and is beginning to read words; must not hear the reading material first. Our trainer dealt with problem herself, as she did not read notes until age 12. Tonalization-for deep analysis of sound; develop resonance; to settle mind for learning Characteristics of a Suzuki Teacher-include aiming for excellence and communicating well with children of all ages Life Learned Skills-learn how to self-teach by breaking a problem into its smallest parts; develop a spirit of community outreach Recommended Reading:Punished by Rewards, What it Means to be Educated &Unconditional Parenting-all by Alfie Kohn; Teaching from the Balance Point by Ed Kreitman; A Soprano on Her Head. Miscellaneous teaching tidbits: for review-jar 1: cards with the name of each review pice; jar 2-cards with ways to play each piece for repetition-let the child decide how many times something should be repeated and analyze the result; roll dice to determine the number of repetitions. for parent training: Today, I have the first five hours of book 1 training. We have been told that we will spend 14 hours on what to do before Twinkle. This entry has been archived and is no longer accepting comments. |
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SearchAbout PatriciaPatricia Baser is from Macon, Georgia. Biography
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