My Teaching Priorities
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Testimonial
I'm eternally grateful for the knowledge and tutelage that you have shared with my daughter! I can personally attest to the positive impact you have had as a mentor, role model, and trusted advisor. As you well know the successful mentor/mentee relationship often has unexpected and unforeseen benefits that only truly be appreciated with the benefit of hindsight. While the piano lessons might have ended, the life lessons are only just beginning in earnest. Thank you, Mindy, for taking the time to teach Abigail more than just piano. Thank you for showing her what it means to be a forthright God fearing woman during this incredibly difficult time in life. Thank you for doing what you do.
- Paul Atwell
As a wife, mother, grandmother, former home educating parent, past and present music student, church musician, biblical counselor, I view the learning experience from multiple perspectives, forming my passion.
What am I passionate about for my students?
to have lifelong joy in creating music
to be independent learners
to not be anxious about new challenges
to use their music training in glorifying God
Although I may have the title “teacher,” I am actually a facilitator or coach.
For all practical purposes your child will be with me for a less than 1% of her entire week. At home she will be responsible for essentially teaching herself.
I seek to provide all the necessary tools, but it is the student’s responsibility to use those tools. All good coaches operate from the sidelines; they do not enter the game.
Learning is work, yet with the best approach, the work can be approached in a way to bring about great satisfaction, pride, and joy. Success breeds success!
What does your child need?
a learning environment in which each student can achieve his or her greatest potential, both as a student and as a person.
a teacher able to identify the learning challenges which each student faces.
a teacher who understands what tools and approach to use when addressing those challenges and who is able to design the appropriate learning plan, i.e. blueprint
communication of highest character to create not only the best learning environment academically, but also socially and emotionally.
each student viewed as an individual and needing to be understood as such. (A student who just experienced a loss of a pet, bullying at school that day, or a sense of confusion from a family crisis needs a whole different teaching approach.)
understand and apply principles for clearing resistance to the path of learning (addressing frustration)
an environment of built-in successes which help to create more successes!
a touch of playfulness to keep the laughter coming!
Key Priorities
Patience
I love the words of influential teacher Mildred Portney Chase. She encouraged adult students that when learning new material, “Show yourself the same kind of patience that you would to a good friend who could not move through the material as fast as you would wish.”
Being a lifelong learner myself, I understand the challenges of being stretched when learning new skills and content. Here recently I have returned to vocal training, finding myself continually challenged by the sounds which are coming out of me!
After reading a January 2021 article in a January Wall Street Journal regarding brain stimulation for lifelong benefits, I decided to take on the challenge of learning how to juggle! So, for over three months, I heroically practiced the foundational skills for juggling a minimum of three times a day, almost seven days a week. At the same time I started to learn to play the ukulele. What do you think happened? I picked up the ukulele in a matter of two weeks and made only minimal progress with the juggling?
Lessons learned? It’s the journey, not the destination. And, I think that I made a wonderful effort, yet juggling will not be my gig. I worked hard. I tried hard to focus on each movement! Picking up juggling beanbags helped me improve my squatting ability! I know how hard it is to really work at something and not reach the goal!
Most importantly, I remember being a young elementary student on the violin. I remember being the junior high and high school student having so many dreams for how I would play the piano. The college student whose professor sparked further dreams. The adult student. And I can show that same compassion to your child.
Accommodating to Learning Styles
Each student is a different person with differing levels of physical maturity, various life experiences, abilities of interpreting information through differing sensory channels, coordination. Consequently, I aim to get to know each student, using multiple styles of communicating the content, so that the student grows. The students who play so easily by ear need to be gently guided and nudged into effective reading and score analysis skills. The quick readers need the same level of gentle coaxing accompanied by skillful guidance into confidently following their ear. All students need a measure of lighthearted fun.
Balanced Approach
Students need a measure of fun and serious learning. Humor is effective at preparing the brain to learn. Yet, students here are not simply entertained but also engage in the content using different learning modes. We are not “brains on a stick!” Learning happens through movement and not simply through someone talking at them. We engage the ear, the eye, the hands.
Sensitivity to the student’s needs
How does one swallow an elephant? One bite at a time! Every new principle seems absolutely monumental. Consequently, a teacher needs to understand the concepts so well as to be able to break them down into their composite parts. The teacher needs to understand how to explain/demonstrate but yet be sensitive to the student to identify when too much information is too much for that moment. I aim to keep the parents informed as to how their child is progressing, as well as coach parents as to how to help their child succeed.
I also share with my students and parents how I, too, am a lifelong learner. How I seek to continually improve my methods, resources, skills, and understanding while being a student myself!
Aware of the child’s emotional needs
Whether the student has just had a pet die, has a parent who is being deployed, was bullied at school that day--whatever the emotional climate, I seek to adjust the lesson time appropriately according to the need of the moment. If coming to the lesson that day is too much completely, I could do a Marco Polo lesson. If the student still wants to attend, the lesson time could be spent in playing duets of the student’s favorite songs or playing games (which are simply theory activities, the musical “vegetables”)
How is the child experiencing the world psychologically, emotionally, cognitively, and spiritually?
Provide the student a full toolbox of musical tools to equip the student to be a lifelong learner.
In order for a student to be a lifelong learner, he must have a solid grasp of foundational music principles: maintaining a steady beat, reading rhythm notation, copying aural patterns of both rhythms and pitch, use the “inner ear” to hear the music in the head, follow solid principles of successful sight reading, understand how to improvise on a melody.
Have Questions?
“I will sing praises to the Lord for He has been good to me....”
“...My cup overflows.”