Just as I’ve begun to feel that I’ve stretched myself much too thin, a busy fall semester has come to a close just in time for a much-needed and quite longed-for Christmas vacation. What’s been keeping me so busy this fall? I am happily enrolled in the Suzuki Pedagogy Graduate Certificate program in the School of Music, which trains violinists to be violin teachers in the Suzuki Method.
This style of teaching focuses on starting young (as early as age 3), learning by ear before learning to read music (using our innate learning skills known as the “mother tongue” method), and creating a positive environment in which the parent, student, and teacher are all equally important in order for the young musician to blossom. It’s also the method by which I began studying violin with Joanne Melvin when I was 8 years old.
It’s been a great semester; I’ve met wonderfully kind and wonderfully talented new people, I’ve had the delight of learning from Joanne Bath, who is one of the first few teachers using the Suzuki Method in the United States, and it’s given me a welcome respite from the worries of the current economic climate. Classes are held twice a week so I’ve been going during my lunch break, hence the “noonlighting”. I am also now a member of the Suzuki Association of the Americas- complete with membership card!
I soon learned of an opportunity to teach violin on a volunteer basis barely a hop and a skip away from my office. A program for pre-kindergarten children at a nearby elementary school allows ECU students the opportunity to practice their teaching skills while providing free violin lessons to 3 and 4 year olds three days a week. So there went the lunch breaks for my other 3 days. But it has been worth it. I’ve learned what it’s like to work with 3 and 4 year olds, and they’ve learned a lot about violin and showed tremendous progress since they began.
Working with other ECU students, we split the class into three smaller groups so there were fewer children per teacher. I have been working with four delightful little girls. At first, I had a bit of trouble with one little girl. Often I would try to show her how to do something and she would jerk away and say, “Let me do it.” After much thought, I realized that she’s just a very independent girl and wants to do things on her own. Realizing this, I changed things up and said, “let me help you one time, and then you can do it by yourself,” or in activities where we would clap hands, and I would want to help her clap by clapping her hands, I would let her clap my hands (as long as she was doing it correctly) so she felt that she had a little more control. That minor adjustment has made a world of difference and we now work much better together; at times she will even say, “You can help me.”
We Suzuki student teachers got quite a treat one day. During the time normally scheduled for violin lessons, the children performed a nursery rhyme play for their family, schoolmates, and other teachers. It was fun watching the children dress up and act out the various nursery rhymes which they had rehearsed so thoroughly, such as Little Miss Muffett, This Little Piggy, and Hey Diddle, Diddle. Since it was an open event and people were taking photos, I took a few myself. You can see a snapshot of them performing the Itsy Bitsy Spider below. They did a great job and I was quite proud of them.
As if all of this wasn’t enough to keep me busy this semester, I decided to play with the choir at St. Mary’s for the Christmas Eve mass. The pieces we will play are all quite beautiful and it has been a wonderful exercise for getting back into the practice of reading music, given as I have played primarily by ear for the last several years.
As a side note, I learned from the Pre-K teachers that you can make aromatic Christmas ornaments from dough composed of equal parts of cinnamon and apple sauce. Simply mix it, roll it flat, and cut into shapes with cookie cutters. Be sure to cut a little hole for a string or ribbon and let the shapes dry out. They’ll stay hard for years and smell of cinnamon. I bought the materials last night and plan to try that project sometime during my break.
My vacation officially starts now, and I plan to keep busy with relaxing, visiting with family and friends, and trying out new projects like those cinnamon-apple sauce ornaments.
We wish you the Merriest of Christmases and the Happiest of New Years!
God bless us, every one!
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