Ithaca Talent Education, the Suzuki school I teach with, hosts “Jumpstart Twinkle” every year. This is an easy way for families to dip their toes in to the Suzuki experience.

Our Jumpstart class is held the week before Labor Day in the mornings. We did three consecutive days, meeting from 9-10:30 each morning. There were about 14 participants in total, though families weren’t required to attend all three days. 

I co-led the class this year and want to share a few ideas about what makes this experience so valuable.

1. Get started right away

I love that interested families can jump head first right into this program. Without any prior knowledge we guide the whole class of students through musical, full body, and engaging activities. The parents are involved but don’t need to have any know-how to be able to participate with us. Students are given a lot of responsibility right away. 

2. Easy lift

We tried to make Jumpstart as easy as possible.

Because the time is scheduled and consecutive, all practice partners need to do is drive to the school and come inside. We did not require families to come to all three days, so they simply came when they could. This is during summer so there is often more flexibility for families. And the teachers facilitated everything. We set the ground rules, made the lesson plans, and provided the materials.

Unlike getting started with lessons where the routine of home practice is completely dependent on parents, Jumpstart allows parents to get involved with very minimal effort.

3. Affordability

The program was less than $75. Even better, the fee for the class went toward the first tuition payment if the family did decide to start our program.

4. Grounding for the community

Because Jumpstart is a group class, parents get to see and know each other right away. The classes had a soft start and we would host snacks afterward. Practice partners would chat with each other during these times. Now they will recognize each other in group classes, recitals, and transitions between lessons.

5. There is a clear off-ramp

I believe this is probably the most important benefit of the Jumpstart program. If a family realizes this is not for them they have a very clear, socially acceptable way to say “Thanks, but no thanks.”

Before we ever start students we are asking for serious enrollments and commitments from families. In most cases that works well, in some it can lead to disaster. There are surely families who don’t even consider starting because they don’t feel like they can simply try-out the fit of the school.

The built in ‘off-ramp’ allows those who don’t want to participate to exit, but also those who are hesitant to enter the pathway with safety and reassurance.

Jacob Collier.

David Zilber.

Joshua Waizkin.

Van Neistat.

Ido Portal.

The ones who tinker with the raw ingredients. The ones who are thought of as visionaries because they simply go to the source materials.

This is a simple idea I want to write a few notes on.

I’ve given communication with the students and parents in my studio a lot of thought. Our industry has the luxury of only needing to email every once in a while. In order to preserve my sanity and serve the best interests of the parents in my studio I’ve tried to limit emails as much as possible.

My families already get some information directly from ITE, but I need to communicate specifics like lesson meetups, studio gatherings, and announcements at the beginning and end of semesters.

To limit emails I would put as much information in the email as possible, but then I found parents were having trouble finding particular links and info.

A big insight was when I started labeling every outgoing message to the studio as #StudioNews.

Any time they want to look at notes from me about the studio they simply search that subject heading. It has worked really well so far and continue to do for some time.

I might experiment with changing the subject every year so there aren’t too many emails per search.

I’ve had the extreme fortune of working with the same violin studio, with the same Suzuki school (Ithaca Talent Education), and the same students and parents since 2019.

Four years in and I’m starting to benefit from the careful, deliberate decisions we made in 2019. Processes, decisions, and standards are becoming second nature. I can’t overstate the potency of developing consistent routines at the daily, monthly, and yearly scale.

I’ve noticed that…

• parents now anticipate my processes
• I can complete my work in a quarter of the time
• I generate more ideas because I have more brain-space and the future isn’t fuzzy (we can plan for February because we know what will happen in February)
• students are more comfortable because communication between parent and teacher is strong
• students thrive because I can reverse plan from recitals, graduations, concerts, and auditions months in advance

There is no need to reinvent the wheel every year.

The following is my general process for launching the new school year in Fall.

*One caveat!* I’ll be the first to admit that I am in the luxurious position of working for an established school. ITE has two, wonderful administrative staff, as well as a book keeper and accountant, who manage many of the financial sides of the business. The office also does the work of scheduling and securing the group class times and locations. That takes a lot of work off of my plate! But let’s talk through the processes I’ve put in place so that the rest of the shallow, administrative work takes as little time as possible.

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I used the summer of 2022 to determine our studio core values. These are core to my life, to our school, and to the students and parents in our studio.

Wisdom, Integrity, and Transparency.

I hope that manifestations of these values are already evident, but they will continue to be represented in the work we do this semester. I plan to lean into these values with my full being. They are, literally, our core.

I can use these values to stay on course– to make sure I am staying true to our studio culture. I can use these values to re-center, to re-evaluate, and to reconcile.

It is just as important for me to acknowledge what is not on this list. Excellence, competitiveness, adherence, speed, profit, and an infinity of other objectives. Other studios will have other values, some noble and some vain, but our studio has these particular values.

Wisdom, Integrity, and Transparency.