May 2008

Laurie Niles is from Pasadena, California.

Biography

Embrace confusion

Today my seven-year-old son was fumbling over some lefthand maneuvering required by "Musette" during his piano lesson. He kept coming to a halt.

"You are confused!" his teacher, Nancy Mitchell, said jubilantly, as if delivering fantastic news. He paused from his frustrating efforts to consider this.

"When you get confused," she smiled, "that's when you really start to learn."

He turned to her, "Really?"

"Yes!" Nancy said. "The parts of your brain go BZZZZZ! and then you start really figuring it out!"

They traced the source of his confusion to two notes that just couldn't seem to follow one another. They zeroed in and drilled, just getting from A to B. And once he could do that, the entire passage fell into place. It took about five minutes.

Problem solved!

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