You don’t think you are ready to start teaching. You have learned about the revered Suzuki method, you see students playing at levels at certain ages that you didn’t know was possible, you are part of a rich Suzuki community with older teachers, younger teachers and anywhere in between. You know that your professional career will require you to teach, but you have not taken a step towards this very big, complicated, and elusive target.

You probably have been avoiding teaching because you don’t think you have the expertise to start. Not only are you a student of violin still, but you have never taken a class on pedagogy, you don’t have a curriculum sequence in your head, you have never communicated with a parent by email, and don’t have the years and years of experience that guides the great teachers in your area.

That doesn’t matter.

Today is the day you must take you first step towards teaching, because the fact is that you will never feel like an expert. Teachers always have more to learn. You don’t teach because you are a teacher, you are a teacher because you teach (bold). You only become an excellent teacher by teaching a lot, auditing yourself, and improving your skills lesson by lesson.

Think of it this way: Would you not pick up new instrument because you don’t have experience with it? No, because picking it up as an amateur is the first step to excellence.

The fact that you aren’t a beginner on your instrument anymore qualifies you to start the work of teaching. You have already carved yourself a path from beginner to proficient, and now it’s time to turn around and become the guide for a young student to follow your path. The words, systems, and planning it takes to guide that student will develop as you teach more and more. But the tragedy is in waiting. If you wait, you will never become a teacher, because in order to become an excellent teacher you must practice daily.

So start. Invest in this moment, take the leap to make yourself available to students, because today is the first day of many enriching learning experiences for you, but more importantly for your new students.