Klarinet Archive - Posting 000019.txt from 2002/06

From: "Jay Webler" <webler1@-----.com>
Subj: Re: [kl] Teaching the 'students' of today
Date: Sat, 1 Jun 2002 09:52:25 -0400

----- Original Message -----
From: "Tony Pay" <Tony@-----.uk>
Subject: [kl] Teaching the 'students' of today

> On Sat, 1 Jun 2002 07:53:53 -0400, webler1@-----.com said:
>
> > > > The most amazing statement that I have often heard in a lesson is,
> > > > "What difference does it make?", when trying correct an inherent
> > > > problem. Apparently they assume that I'm giving out information
> > > > just to fill up time, or I am not intelligent enough to give
> > > > valuable information.
> >
>
> In my view, you should simply not teach 'students' who don't want to be
> in your lessons, as a matter of principle. It's not as if the world is
> in need of clarinet players, after all.

Very true. This is why I suggest that the parents use their hard earned
money for
a good dinner. I have found that over the last three years I have been able
to establish
a base of students who do want to learn. As I said before, it causes for
slower growth,
but in the long term it is much more satisfying.

> Teaching may not suit some people, anyway. I stopped having lessons as
> soon as possible, myself; and a few years ago my youngest son asked for
> a guitar for his birthday -- on the condition that he didn't have to
> have a teacher. (He'd been there, you see.)

If someone wants to learn I still suggest that they have a teacher. I have
found
in my own experience that I am not as honest with myself as a teacher is. I
can
often delude myself into thinking I'm doing really well, and a good teacher
oftens
brings me to a more realistic view of myself. They keep from delusions of
grandeur
that I am very prone. I would call that one of my many besetting sins.

> Someone said that it wasn't a good idea to teach pigs to sing, because
> it was useless -- and it annoyed them. This makes a joke out of another
> aspect of the matter that it's worth taking seriously.
>
> What's the *real* meaning, for example, of the more famous injunction
> 'not to cast pearls before swine'?
>

Often when we are excited about something we think that everyone else should
be.
Because of this, we tend not to be very discriminating when giving out
valuable information.

Compaired to what the Lord was referring to in the above injuction, what I
have to
teach can just be called really helpful information, because it only serves
our temporal
needs and desires; whereas the above injunction is concerned about far more
weighty issues.

Sometimes, through patience and persistance, you may get past the intitual
"oinking" only to find out they were just acting
like a pig, waiting for someone to discover they were really a sheep. The
secret is learning
to distinquish between the two. Once the mask is removed, real learning can
take place.

Jay Webler

Jay's Clarinet and Percussion

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