studio V
private musical studio instruction
For the Adolescent The adolescent is apocryphally misunderstood. Mostly, life for an adolescent person can simply seem repressive: they are no longer children, doo eyed and naive, yet they are still too green to be thrust upon the world without assistance and supervision. Adolescence is exploration, which has been known to lead to stupid mistakes and naivety to the responsibility of investigating new paths and ideas. But you know what? I like adolescent people. When I taught High School, in a school known for behavior problems, I never once had a behavior problem with my kids. They may not be fully adult yet, but they deserve all the respect and civility of one. I find that when my students understand that I respect them, that I honor their contributions and their perspectives, we can get past the disciplinarian relationship and get down to business. Adolescents need motivation, and this will be their surest obstacle to successful study of the piano. I try to personally engage my students, especially the adolescent, because I am giving them a gift in music that they will rarely find in their other passtimes. More than this, I care about my students, and I know that the kids I have taught in my high school classes knew how much I was looking out for them. Practice is always necessary, but motivating the adolescent student to musical achievement and betterment is not impossible. Actually, I find that my students have gone on to not only surprise me, but to suprise their parents and their instructors in how much potential they really have inside of them. |
