I mentioned in my first post on teaching saxophone that being a teacher carries with it an enormous amount of power. It can be easy to manipulate a student’s thinking, either intentionally or unintentionally. Therefore as saxophone & music teachers we need to be careful of the messages we send our students.
One of the most important messages that I try to send my students is that they need to find a balance.
We currently live in a society where we are bombarded by messages that we are lacking. We are being told that we should improve in all the aspects of our lives in which we are deficient. (If advertisers are to be believed, that would be in virtually every aspect of our lives!)
This focus on our deficits has its dark side. Skills and knowledge that we currently possess tend to be devalued or seen as substandard. We hold ourselves up to an ideal that we should reach, and in many cases may be unattainable.
This is not to say that we should not try to attain a higher standard, but in striving to improve, we need to continue to value the skill and knowledge that we already hold. The key is to find a balance between where we are, and where we desire to be.
In addition to teaching my young students about music and how to play the sax, I see another one of my roles as a teacher, being to help my students understand the need to find that balance, validate the skills & knowledge that they already have in order to help them find the balance, and hopefully, enable them to transfer some of that understanding to the rest of their lives.
