One huge project I took on at the end of 2022 was to post a short video on YouTube every day.

The goal was to develop, record, edit and post 50 consecutive quick tips. Tips that were simple, digestible and had changed my teaching life in some way or another. Tips that could be communicated in under 60 seconds.

I committed to the action of making these videos because I thought they needed to exist, and because I knew that the process of creating these videos would improve my thinking, my delivery, and my editing skills.

I didn’t matter who watched the videos, but I am glad that the short videos resonated with a few like minded teachers.

The last video of the series, posted today, explains my core motivation for making these Suzuki ideas public online.

And you can see the whole playlist here…

[Update in 2024: Still working on this. Anything I publish will be free.]

I’ve developed something really special for young Suzuki violin teachers.

I’m only 27 years old and still in the first 10 years of my teaching career.

• I’m putting together a real studio for the first time
• I’m trying to process all of my training
• I’m figuring out how to balance administrative work with teacher development

In other words, I’m going through the thick of it. The real stuff. The process that forges an excellent teacher. I’m not excellent yet, and that is the point.

Many of the teachers I look up to have been so awesome for so long. Do they remember what it felt like 30 years ago when they were first starting out? Is the landscape even the same? Is the process of learning how to become an excellent teacher in 2022 the same as it was in 1992?

What I’m doing is collected notes and frameworks. I’m documenting what we know does work, right now, in 2022. I’m going to bundle these ideas and publish them as a course. One on the topic of Deliberate Practice in Teaching and one on Studio Management.

I’ve already written and recorded the two courses. But they’re going in a drawer for at least a year. I’m going to pretend that I’m a student of the course and I’m practicing on myself first. In the process of doing that I’m going to study what happens, what breaks down, what works really well, and how the whole format can be improved.

I’ll assure you of this… when the courses are ready for the investment of your attention, I’m going to publish them.

From one young, inspired, ambitious teacher to another. I’m making what I wish was available. Stay tuned if this sounds like something that would bring you value.

There are three fields of study which will shape my teaching career.

Zen. Fine art. And technology.

Suzuki and Technology

We know that Shinichi Suzuki was an avid user of technology– even working closely with Sony co-founder Masaru Ibuka. You could even speculate that technology is the reason the method is sucessful.

Technology was used to bathe students in reference recordings. Technology enabled the first recordings of young Japanese children to make it to America. Technology enabled students to send their graduation recitals to Suzuki and receive written feedback from him. Suzuki’s embrace of technology is what made the method possible.

But I see a limited embrace of technology in our community today.

Sure a few people have podcasts, and a handful make videos, and some teacher training has (finally) been adapted to online training. But we could do so much more.

Today I’m going to spend a little bit of time discussing my commitment to data collection, how I do it in 2022, and how I hope to do it in the future.

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I’ve gotten a lot more practice in the past year running graduation recitals in our studio. We’ve had three since summer!

I’m going to share our process for preparing a recital.

Setting Expectations

Students at Ithaca Talent Education know graduation recitals will happen. They get invited to them. They see them on the calendar. They ask me questions about the recitals.

I include a special note on recitals in our studio handbook that I’ll share below. It is important to me that I highlight the recital as both a celebration and a learning experience.

Occasionally students and parents will think of this as an optional add on. I completely disagree. The recital is one of their few experiences of presenting a solo program and performing more than one piece at a time.

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