Becoming an ideal student

I was emailing Orin O'Brien yesterday and thinking about an article she recommended to me when I was looking for a grad school teacher.  It's titled "Becoming an Ideal Student" and was written by Jeanne Baxtresser, the wonderful flutist and pedagogue.  Do read the article (I linked to it) and don't just take my word for it.  One of the items I have taken to heart as both a teacher and a student is investing in the way I prepare for lessons.  Ms. Baxtresser talks about having her students use index cards to write what they worked on, what needs attention, questions to address in the lesson, etc, and she keeps those cards filed as the semester progresses.  I don't use that system exactly, but for a long time I did use a carbon copy paper where I'd write out the main items a student needed to work on, ideas from our lessons, any music they needed to buy.  This way I could give them the sheet and still have something to refer to the next week as they were warming up, helping me to prepare better to teach that specific person.

But the times, they are a changin'.  I don't even use that system anymore.  I felt it created too much paper for both the student and me.  Like most other teachers, I now require my students to bring a notebook to each lesson, and for the younger ones I do the note taking.  My high schoolers need to take their own notes!  This year I've experimented with also using a video service where I can easily upload the lesson to a private site, and only the student who was taped can see their lesson.

How you do notes or notebooks or videos is really not the point I wanted to make (honest).  What I'm thinking about today is how I prepare myself to teach or learn.  I need to clear my mind, turn off my cell phone ringer, and give my student my full attention.  As a student, I also need to do these things, and even more, put myself in a place where I can receive comments not as criticisms, but as helpful tools to better my playing.  I'd say teachers have it easier in this scenario!  While my students are tuning, I read their notebook, get out music they are working on, and generally prepare to really listen to where they are right now in their playing.  Maybe they've had a week where there wasn't much practicing.  I find we often have great lessons on those weeks!  Perhaps because there is only growing that can occur?  I'm not sure, but often I find my students are more receptive on weeks where they are slightly underprepared.  (However, students, you know that we can't make progress like that every week.  Practicing simply HAS to happen.)

I wonder how often we really set ourselves up to be present for our students?  We all have deadlines, voicemails, text messages, emails, begging our attention away in little intervals.  In fact, I'm amazed at how much will accumulate during just a few hours of teaching, while I wasn't available to anyone but the student in front of me.

This was the biggest take-away from Ms. Baxtresser's article for me: being present with your student.  Do you have other tools you use to help frame your lessons?  I know of a percussionist who studied with a teacher who insisted on a 30 minute sitting meditation before their lessons.  While that's a great idea, I doubt I could get any of my 7 year olds to do a 2 minute sitting meditation!

Cheers to being present!
Gaelen