Kathryn Drake

Suzuki Violin Teacher

If You Value Review, Do It In The Lesson

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And I don’t just mean play one review piece as prep for a new piece, but center the bulk of your lesson around review.

This is magic. This is elegant. This will transform your teaching life.

Most teachers I know spend the majority of their lessons teaching students notes. This is about as absurd as a chef helping a cooking student pull out all of their ingredients from the cooler and then sending them home.

Good teachers use the lesson as an opportunity to develop a student’s playing with the notes they already know.

Good teachers will still usually do this on newly learned repertoire, but master teachers will do this on review repertoire. [Read more…]

Elegant Solutions: Million Dollar Lesson

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Another elegant solution, one that brings together many of the principles of the Suzuki method together is the concept of a “Million Dollar Lesson.”

I was introduced to the idea of the Million Dollar Lesson in my teacher training with Ed Kreitman. When asked how he handles disrespectful behavior in the lesson, he told us about the Million Dollar Lesson and described how it functions in his studio.

Kreitman knows that the value of violin lessons is not in each discreet meeting of teacher/student/parent, but in the long, uninterrupted string of lessons over many years together. One of those discrete lessons must sometimes be used, in the wholistic arc of education, to inform the way a child or parent behaves in the rest of the lessons. On this lesson day the goal is not to pack as much violin instruction into 30 minutes as possible, but to make a short but lasting impact on the student.

If a child crosses your boundaries, and it is obvious the lesson is not a productive one, lean over to the parent and say, “Oh, I think this is our Million Dollar Lesson day.” Stand up, tell the child their behavior was unacceptable, and take a bow to end the lesson.

What will happen at this point (in my experience), is that sh*t will hit the fan. [Read more…]

Elegant Solutions: You Be the Teacher

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Another elegant solution that seems to knit together disparate principles of philosophies of instruction into one is the simple phrase, “You be the teacher.”

Whenever I spring this instruction on students their eyes light. All of a sudden, the space between us is energized with potential. Sometimes students will look to the side to their parents, almost like they are seeking permission to take on the responsibility just bestowed.

Indeed, being a teacher is being responsible. Being a teacher implies taking responsibility for someone or something– so it isn’t so surprising that a child’s eyes would widen at the suggestion.

When I say, “You be the teacher,” I direct the student’s attention to either their parent, their own playing, or me. Each has its benefits. [Read more…]