Monday Morning Check In: Connections and Community

Written by Paula E. Bird, copyright 2014

When I think about goal setting, I typically think in more traditional terms: linear progression and areas of responsibility. For example, linear progression refers to steps 1-10, and areas of responsibility refers to physical, mental, spiritual, or business, personal, and family. Lately though I have been involved in some planning of projects that I expect to spend a long period of time developing. I find that my traditional thinking is not serving me well in this process, and I have been considering new perspectives.

I came across an interesting article written about one couple's work to become completely self-sustaining and self-sufficient on their property. Aside from the details that result from that sort of project, what caught my attention was the authors' choice of words to describe how they measured progress on their goals. The authors preferred to employ the term "sphere" to describe any of several areas of projects or concerns that the authors deemed important enough to develop. In this particular example of homesteading, the authors outlined six spheres that would demand their attention over a span of many years in order to ultimately reach the authors' goal of complete self-sustainability on their homestead, which meant that the authors would no longer need to supply their needs with outside sources.

The term "sphere" caught my attention, because of the nature of the word's description. Somehow this term changed my perspective in a different way than I experience when I think in traditional, straight-line thinking. Because spheres are round and three-dimensional, my thinking has to alter in order to fit this new picture that I have in my head. Yes, sphere also refers to influence or activity, but it is the roundness of the object that I picture in my head that has changed due to this new word use.

Now that my perspective and my way of thinking has altered, I have been considering  my own life in terms of spheres. What are the spherical areas that my life might contain? As I develop this picture, various ideas come to mind, and I want to mention two that came to mind yesterday: Connections and Community.

I have long known that I have a tendency to isolate myself. I am perfectly happy spending large amounts of time alone (or at least in the company of a nonhuman), and I have to monitor this tendency and guard against allowing too much time to pass before human interaction. Yesterday I realized that this tendency may be harmful if I give in to it at all. Instead, I feel a need to not only combat the inertia of aloneness but to develop a plan to eliminate it, if at all possible.

Yesterday I was able to join in a group meeting of our local Suzuki organization, the first meeting that I have been able to attend since the group formed over a year ago. I became better acquainted with several wonderful teachers with whom I have not developed a relationship before, and I renewed my friendship with several teachers whom I have not seen or talked to in quite some time except through electronic means. Most importantly, I met with several teachers for the first time. Rather than be quick to move back into my comfort zone of isolation though, I embraced the experience and found many things to enjoy about my new activity and the new connections that I made.

I found it entertaining to listen to others talk and express their ideas. At times, something someone said would spark an idea in my own mind. Other times I would think about how I could help the group with my own knowledge. Most of the time though, I was content to listen to what others were interested in and how they expressed their concerns and ideas. I learned much about the teachers personally, and I came to understand the group dynamic better than I would have through electronic communication alone.

I realized during the meeting that although my isolationist tendencies are pleasant and serve to recharge my energy and enthusiasm, for the most part my aloneness may not be adding anything more useful to my life. I need more connection and communication.  I need to spend time with others outside of my work sphere, even if the time spent is in a work-related meeting. This is valuable time for me to spend broadening my thinking. I also need to develop a stronger community within my studio. We need more of a studio "identity" if you will, which will come about through our connections within our own local community and the larger Suzuki community. Although my studio is located in a rural area, we need to join forces together with other students and teachers and studios outside of our area so that we can share and broaden our larger Suzuki community vision.

The homesteading article talked about community as a sphere, and I believe this is an important area of concern for teachers. We need to stay connected with each other, for encouragement, motivation, and creativity. We need to develop relationships beyond ourselves and our studio in order to bind ourselves more closely to the larger purpose behind what we do: ability development and talent education. This sphere of community is not limited to direct connections between teachers, but opens up the connections to include any relationships: teacher and parent, teacher and student, parent and student, parent and parent, teacher and teacher. Further, our educational purpose can spread to include others outside our direct sphere of interest, such as extended family, school administrators, and community and business leaders. These types of connections will strengthen the likelihood that our global message that "Any child can" will mean more than merely one teacher's attempts to teach a few students. The type and number of connections are limited by our ability to imagine possibilities.

Take a few moments this week to consider your sphere of community and connection. What relationships can you broaden? How can you strengthen your bonds of connection within your studio and your community?

Let us change our world -- one child, one student at a time.

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I am pleased to announce that Sue Hunt (musicinpractice.com) has a new app in the iTune store! If you recall, I interviewed Sue about her review program ideas two years ago (article). The app is free (a paid version with premium features is in the development stage). Please check out Sue's contribution to our Suzuki community: iTunes link).

Life Happens but Let's Not Make a Habit of It

Life happens. We are rocking along, singing our song, and whoops, something comes up and we are tugged off course. Something upsets our routine, and we cannot get to our regular practice or music lesson or group class. It is just for a brief time, we tell ourselves. We just need to get through the next few days, or this week, or through the weekend, we promise. Maybe we should not go to our lesson this week because we really are not as prepared as we should be.

We go anyway. We hang down our heads and admit that we did not practice well this week. The teacher is understanding. After all, the teacher is a nice person and kind and gracious. The teacher smiles and teaches the same lesson as last week. Or so we think, except that our child is not the same child as last week. So the teacher has to take a few steps further back than the previous lesson. Why is that?

Life does happen. Life happens to me as well. I have pockets of time when life seems to skitter out of control. I have my routines and systems in place to help guide me through these full patches of activities, and I understand how easy it is to get pulled under by life's periodic undertow.

As a teacher, I respond to these parental pronouncements with kindness, understanding, and graciousness. I truly understand. But, I also make sure that I help parents pull out of the downward spiral. Here is how I do that.

First, I explain to the parent what we might see from the child during that lesson today:

• inappropriate behavior
• dawdling or reluctance to follow instructions
• hesitation to participate in any lesson activity
• frustration that pops up quickly
• new bad habits
• shorter attention span
• lack of concentration and focus or for a shorter period of time than usual
• improper posture
• memory slips

Sometimes the parents try to discipline the children for these behaviors, but I try to head that off before it happens. Is it really the child's fault that he or she did not practice adequately the week before? Can we really in good conscience correct the child's behavior for something that the adults created? I think not, but that is what many parents try to do. Instead of examining the cause of the situation, parents are quick to act as if the child can easily spring back to normal with the snap of a finger. And yet, parents are not able to do that. How can we expect a child to snap back to normal that quickly when the parent was unable to do that during the week?

Life does indeed happen. After I explain to the parent what we might see from the child during the lesson, I then discuss how easy it might be for the parent to make "life happens" a habit. Because the parent skipped practices and routine the week before, the parent has now created a big pile of inertia. It is much easier to stay stuck in the mud of nonpractice. One week turns into two weeks. Now nonpractice and the excuse that "life happens" are the new habits and routine.

Here is how I help parents to get out of the rut:

• We look at the week's calendar together and discuss when practices might occur. I discuss this openly with the parent and sometimes the child too, because I want to be sure that this issue gets addressed. I know the parent is already battling the inertia of not practicing from the previous week, so my partnering in this discussion helps give the parent the sometimes added kick-in-the-pants that the parent needs to get moving in the right direction. Believe me, if I could really offer a physical kick to the parent's rear, I would gladly do it for the sake of the child. I settle for the figurative kick by having this frank discussion about schedule and calendar.
• We plan a short practice plan for the next 2-3 days, and then a gradually longer plan for the days thereafter. Depending on the current family home situation or the child's age, the short practice might be a five or ten minute practice list. My purpose here is to offer the parent and child something easy to accomplish. This little jolt to combat the nonpractice habit may be enough to get things rolling again.
• I throw in an element of randomness to the practice plan to get the child's attention and interest. It might be a new game that involves a spinner or dice or a timer. This intrigues the child and helps to reignite the child's and parent's interest in practice.
• We might make up colored pieces of paper for various activities and then throw a dice of colors to see which activity to do first.
• We might do a 1-minute bow hold or violin hold to get back into the habit of correct posture. We use a small hourglass (a minute timer) for this or my iPhone's timer.
• I find that I must completely provide this practice plan in order for it to happen. If I just suggest the idea, the parent is likely to let this slip by. Instead, I actually make up the practice game right there at the lesson. I set up a Popsicle stick game, I provide the spinner and dice, or I make up the colored paper list of practice tasks.
• I show the parent and child some possible practice sheets that they could use for the coming week. I have downloaded several great examples from Leslie Thackeray's website: The Practice Shoppe. If the parent finds one they are interested in, I send an email link to the particular practice sheet to the parent.
• We discuss the possibility of trying the 100 Days Practice Challenge. Leslie also has a nice example of that too: 100 Days.
• I have several prizes that I offer to a student who has completed the 100 days challenge. I give a little Mozart statue, a small violin pin, and another round pin that says "Outstanding Student" along with a certificate and other little doodads. Usually once a student has seen the loot that I will award upon completion of the 100 days challenge, the student is full of interest and motivation.
• I also explain how parents can help a younger child to make it through the long 100 days period by breaking it up into smaller, more digestible segments. For example, one family promised to award their six-year old son a small fish aquarium on the 100th day, but along the way, the parents awarded the child the parts to the final prize.
• On the 30th day, the child received the empty aquarium.
• On the 50th day, the child received the gravel that would go inside. The child was then able to begin putting his aquarium together.
• On the 75th day, the child received the plastic plants and other figures that would go inside the aquarium, and the child could begin to arrange his aquarium scenario.
• On the 100th day, the child received the fish.
• I extract a solemn promise from both the parent and child that they will practice every day in the coming week. The parent and child hold up the bow hand (right hand) and promise to practice. I also note in the student's handbook that the parent and child have made this promise. That way I will be reminded of the promise at the next lesson. Sometimes parents will text me during the week to tell me that the child is being very serious about fulfilling the promise.
• I might send an email or text message to the parent the next day to follow up on whether the parent has followed through with the practice plan. It amazes me to have a discussion such as all that I have written above here, and yet when I check in with the parent and student the next day, I find that again life has happened and that no practice plan has been followed. Such a short attention span!

I have met some parents here and there who seem to have trouble getting back on track despite my help. These are tougher cases for me. I might have to delve a little deeper into the reasons why the parent wants the child to have lessons when the parent is not helping the child to benefit from the lessons. And on occasion, I might have to let this parent go from the studio. It breaks my heart to do that, and I do not do it lightly or often. I might spend a year or more trying to turn the situation around; parents go through stages too, but that is a different article for another day.

Starting out small with tiny steps for a few days usually gets the parent and child beyond the inertia of nonpractice, although there might be a few days of bumpy drama, as both the parent and child need to work through the inertia together; this is not easy.

My main focus at this point is that life happens, but we do not want to allow this excuse to become a habit.

Monday Morning Check In: Choosing a Focus Point

Whenever I visit a Chinese restaurant, I am entertained by the place mats that explain the animals of the Chinese Zodiac. You may recall the 12-year cycle of animals, such as the dog, the rat, the sheep, or the ox. Each zodiac animal also contains a personality description and advice concerning what other animals to marry or avoid.

I like the idea of focus that the zodiac provides. Each animal in the zodiac represents a year. However, I do not know that I want to wait 12 years for my zodiac animal to come around again. However, the idea behind the zodiac – the focus point – is what I am interested in.

Our lives are full of distractions. There are many people and items that demand our attention. Life moves at a frenetic pace, as technological advances compete for our consumer approval. We need to constantly update our electronic devices lest we fall behind in our ability to communicate with each other. As a teacher, I see this communication gap widen between parents and their children and sometimes between authority figures and students.

For example, I find there are still some parents who have phones that are woefully out of step with the times. Please do not think that I am trying to argue for more consumerism. Instead I want to put forth the idea that parents should keep up with their children when it comes to technology. Just as I advocate that parents read the same books and view the same movies that their children read and see, so I also advocate that parents stay on top of the way technology works. The reason I advocate this position is so that parents are able to parent effectively.

When the Harry Potter craze started, I read the books because I wanted to know what my students were reading. When I got to book 5, I thought that the books contained incredibly frightening material for younger children. I discovered that many of my students read the books but that their parents had not kept up their reading. Sadly, these students were left to process the disturbing subject matter on their own. In the case of those parents who do screen what their children will read or see, please be sure to be timely about this. I know of several students who had to wait a year for their mothers to decide that some reading material was acceptable. Meanwhile, all the students’ friends had read the books, explained what happened to the non-reading students (and probably lent them the books to read secretly), and then moved on.

I recall a discussion with one student about something related to his phone. He remarked, “I don’t have a smart phone. I have a dumb phone.” This student was only able to make phone calls; his text message capability was prehistoric, time-consuming to use, and functionally useless. His mother joined our discussion, and I discovered that the reason behind the technology “lag” was that the mother was uncomfortable with the new technology. Instead of trying to figure it out, this mother opted to plead ignorance and lack of technological savvy. (Happily, this student is now in college, has purchased his own up-to-date laptop, and is humming along in step with the current technological trends, which fits his chosen profession related to sound recording technology.)

I understand that technology can cause a bit of fear and uncertainty, but I do not believe that ignorance and lack of technological savvy are really good excuses for not keeping up. I have seen two-year-old students use my iPhone. They knew exactly how to turn it on and work the buttons. (One of these same students actually called me one day on his mother’s new iPhone. This mother had more trouble using her phone than her little two-year old.) These same youngsters had mothers who still had not figured out how to use their phone. Do these mothers want their children to be able to use a smart phone in kindergarten when these mothers will not be able to do so? Think of the dangers lurking behind the Internet gateway, while these mothers will be clueless about how to protect their children. Why not just figure it out? If a two-year old can do it, then a grown-up will be able to learn how.

My favorite example of the technology gap can be heard at the university level. I frequently hear faculty complain that students do not keep up with their email. I am amused, because I have found that students have long passed by the email form of communication. Sure, they can still do it, but email is not the preferred method of communication. If I want to send an important message to my university students, I will send an email, because that is the preferred method of communication at the university level. However, if I want an instant response, I send a text message, and to cement the deal, I also send a message via Facebook. My students respond to the text messages first and foremost. I very seldom receive email responses, and occasionally, Facebook rules the day, but still the exception rather than the rule.

I started this article about the Chinese Zodiac and the idea of a year of focus, and I wound up with a discussion about the communication gap caused by parents who refuse to keep up with the current technology and trends. I know where I digressed and why, but let me get back to my original point. I know I had one somewhere. Oh yes, the many distractions that compete for our attention (and so many of these distractions are caused by technology and electronic devices). You wonder how I will relate this to the Chinese Zodiac?

I think we can take a page from the Chinese Zodiac and create our own focus points. Rather than devote one year per focus point, we can create our own calendar. Maybe we can devote a month or a semester or a season to each focus point, or maybe a week. I know that I use many different time frames for my focus points, and my points vary depending on the circumstances in which I need to use them.

For example, I typically begin the fall semester with an overall focus for my studio. This year, my focus is to help my parents and students to find a way to record and track their practice efforts. I went back to a handbook format that I had used for many years to keep my parents and students on task with practice and listening assignments. I have put this handbook back into play for the past two weeks, and already I have seen a big improvement in the organization that parents and students have put into their home practice sessions.

I may have a different focus for my university semester. For the fall, I may have one focus related to getting my students going for the university “year” and for the freshmen students especially. I may also have a focus for each of my various university roles: teacher, performer, scholar, and collaborator. Some of these roles and focus points may overlap. For the spring semester, I may have a different focus point related to student recital performances and opportunities to practice performing before others.

For the symphony or my performance opportunities as a professional musician, I may have additional focus points. For the past few years, my focus point has been “consistency,” where I strive to be consistent from one rehearsal to the next, and I practice so that I have the capability to maintain consistency. For my home, I may have focus points related to the upkeep of my home, my dachshunds, or the ranch animals (alpacas and donkeys).

I recommend that you select a focus point for the next month. Choose one word to represent this focus (or an animal, as found in the Chinese Zodiac), and put this word prominently on your calendar or somewhere that you will see it and contemplate it frequently. If you can, devote a morning page or two to discuss the meaning of this focus point to you:

• What does this focus point represent to you?
• How will it improve you or your life?
• How will it encourage your growth of character or personal development?
• What can you do to make this focus point happen?
• How will you decide whether you have succeeded at meeting your focus?
• How will you measure your success?

As many of you know, I am a big proponent of setting goals. I like having the “finish line” set before me. I like having a picture of an ultimate destination to aim for. I like climbing up mountains or running distance races. I like these things because they stretch me. These things demand more from me, and I grow stronger as a person of character, discipline, and knowledge because I strive to accomplish them. I think of focus points as those incremental stretches of road in between the larger goals. Some focus points involve more effort because they are those nasty road patches between miles 10 and 13 when the going is sluggish. Other focus points are those first few miles of uphill struggle to get started on a new project.

Please leave me a comment about your focus point this next month. I am interested in hearing what things other people are working around in their lives. If you have an animal to represent your focus point, then I want to hear what you have chosen and why!

Have a happy week!

P.S.: All this talk about keeping current with technology has a purpose. I recently discovered that I am unable to upgrade to the latest software update for my electronic device. It is time for me to purchase a newer, more up-to-date computer. As much as I love my current laptop (MacBook), I recognize that I need to move on to the next level for many reasons. I will move on to the next level in the next few months and hand down my current laptop to my dear husband, who would be happy to lag behind technology another year or two.

Monday Morning Check In: Freedom From Limits

I made an interesting discovery this week. As I have written in the past, I complete “morning pages” daily on a fairly consistent basis. I habitually wake up on the early side of the day and spend about 20 to 30 minutes thinking and writing about whatever is on my mind.

This past week I have struggled with “skittered thoughts.” This is my description for those times when I cannot seem to calm my mind down, when my mind seems to be in the active “monkey mind” as the yoga instructors refer to it. My thoughts alight on one thought only to bounce off a few seconds later and head off in another direction. Very disconcerting.

I accomplish very little on mornings like this. My goal is to complete three full hand-written pages in my composition book (4 if the book is wide-ruled), about 25 minutes’ worth of writing. On “skittered thoughts” mornings, I flit from one idea to another, jump up a minute later to make a note about something, cross the room to complete a small task, and then return to my writing. All of my actions seem relevant at the moment I do them because I cannot calm my mind down to a speed that allows me to grasp the core of an idea to wrestle it onto the page. Instead, I reach to catch the tail end of each thought, and my skin starts to crawl with unexplained physical energy. I am agitated and exasperated because I cannot seem to sit still for more than a few seconds at a time.

Less coffee, you suggest. I wondered about that myself, but I have not altered my caffeine intake in years. I always drink the same size cup of caffeine every day. If I add to my load, I do it later in the morning.

I also thought that the problem stemmed from my having something I needed to really digest on the written page. I worked hard to dig into the words and see what the pen turned up. Nope. Nothing changed.

Then I remembered an old saying, referred to as “Parkinson’s Law.” This expression was published by Cyril Northcote Parkinson in an essay in “The Economist” on November 19, 1955: “Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.” See the full article at: http://www.economist.com/node/14116121. This expression means that if I allow myself 10 minutes to dust my living room, then amazingly enough, it actually takes 10 minutes! The flylady.net folks use this phenomenon to their advantage by suggesting that house cleaning activities be timed so that they last only as long as the time you allow to complete them.

What could it hurt to try it? I grabbed my iPhone and asked Siri to set the timer for 23 minutes, which she gladly did for me. I asked Siri to play the "Beethoven for Book Lovers" playlist to put me in the writing mood. Then I started writing as fast as I could, because I knew that 23 minutes was about 3-5 minutes too short for how long I would need to write three pages of long-hand writing. Surprisingly, I ended my third page of writing at the sound of the timer going off. I happily report that at no time during those 23 minutes did my mind skitter around my thoughts. I wrote with a purpose and fierce determination to finish before the timer sounded.

I did not stop with that one day’s writing experiment. I continued the rest of the week by repeating the timed writing exercise, and I completed each day’s writing assignment with no return of the skittering thoughts problem.

I went to the grocery store the next day. I had a bank deposit ready to put in the bank, but I had not yet put the checks into my account. Usually I make my deposits as checks become available, and then I grocery shop as I need. I use a grocery list and do not usually succumb to impulse purchases. I do not limit myself much when I shop for groceries; I usually have enough to buy what I need or desire.

Because I had not yet deposited my checks into the bank and was using a debit card, I did not have the funds in the bank to cover shopping in my customary manner. I had to pull some cash from an emergency stash before heading off to the store.

How could I limit my purchases so that I would come in under the amount that I had in my wallet? I grabbed a grocery cart, whipped out my iPhone, and used the calculator function to record the price of each item as I put it in my cart. I kept a running tally of my proposed purchases as I swept through each grocery aisle. At some point I came dangerously close to a total that exceeded the amount of cash in my purse. I surveyed my cart and decided to switch a few items for smaller sizes, and in one case I decided to buy one package rather than two.

I was amazed that I had managed to arrive at a final cart total that fit within the budgeted amount of money I had put in my wallet. As I thought about the entire shopping experience, I realized that I had spent about $20-30 less than I might have spent if I had shopped in my customary way. I had still bought everything I needed, but I had made some choices along the way that altered my final total in a positive way. By saving money on my shopping trip, I had given myself the freedom to make additional purchases in the future, whether groceries or some other category (clothes or books),

What did these “limiting” experiences teach me? I learned that by limiting the amount of time or money I would spend on an activity, I gained more focus on my activity. I concentrated on what I was doing in order to succeed within the limits I had set for myself.

I made choices. I could not buy everything. I could not write about every thought that entered my mind. I prioritized and selected what I purchased or wrote.

There is a value in setting limits. Freedom is lovely, but I notice that when I have a free day (which is exceedingly rare in my life), I do not get very much done. I end my free day wondering where the time went. What I learned this week is that by setting limits to how I spend my time, my money, and my attention, I actually create more time for myself to do something more or at least to do nothing if I so desire.

I once learned of a study about children playing in backyards. In one backyard, the children were told where the boundaries of the backyard were, but there were no visible markers of the boundaries. In the other backyard, the children had a fence that clearly set off the limits of the backyard; the children were very aware where the backyard ended because the fence stood there.

In the unfenced backyard, the children played throughout the entire yard area, but they tended to stop short several feet from the "boundary." In the fenced backyard, the children played in every inch of the yard, including the last few feet within the fence. The conclusion was that when the children were aware of the physical boundaries, they played more freely within the perceived physical limits. When the children were unsure where the actual boundaries stood, they curtailed their spatial play area. They did not feel free to use all the space available to them.

The lesson to be gleaned here? Setting a clearly defined limit allows more freedom. In other words, we gain freedom from limits.

I have given you two examples of how setting a limit might offer more freedom in return. Imagine how many more ways we could use this trick to free us from the thoughts and things we use to limit ourselves.

What a paradox! By setting limits we free ourselves from our limits.

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This is Monday Morning. Have you done your weekly homework? Have you reviewed and completed the checklists from last week? Here is the typical weekly list checklist. Look it over and make an effort to get things in order.

Weekly Checklist

o Have you scheduled all your necessary appointments or lessons for the week on your calendar?

o Is there anything you want to accomplish this week that needs to be broken down into manageable steps over several calendar days?

o What major projects or goals are you working on this week?

o What materials do you need to gather to complete a particular project this week?

o What steps can you take this week to move yourself forward on your goals?

o What can you do today to make some forward progress on your goals?

o What phone calls do you want to make this week? Do you need to schedule time to make those calls?

o What emails do you want to make this week? Do you need to schedule time to write those emails?

o Are you waiting to hear back from someone? Have you scheduled the day when you will follow up with that person?

o What errands do you want to do this week?

o Have you scheduled time to do those errands?

o What materials do you need to gather together to complete those errands?

o Have you sent out your tuition bills for the month?

o Have you done your record keeping from the previous week (or month)?

o Have you scheduled your practice time for the week? Maybe I should move this item further up the list, because I think it is an important daily item.

  I added something new to my checklist. My father sends me a beautiful day planner calendar from the Smithsonian Institute every Christmas. Since I use my iPhone for my calendar and just about everything else in my life, including teaching, I have not found much use for the planner.

This week I tried scheduling my daily activities for each day. I started out the week by "inking" in all the activities, appointments, and lessons I had. Then each day I would visit the day planner and schedule what I would do every hour of the day in general. This is something different than the activity log I completed in the past. I found that I could use the day planner for this same purpose, and I like that I can see the entire week at a glance. So I will be adding a new entry in my weekly checklist: have you planned out your activities for the week? 

Quick Practice Tip: Get a Really Smart Phone!

Last night I got a text message from my high school senior student asking me for some practice tips for the ricochet bowing. I searched my iPhone for the "Voice Memos" app, hit record, and made an audio recording of a ricochet bowing exercise for my student. I gave the recording a filename and then emailed it to my student. I sent a reply text to alert my student that the recording was on its way.

My students (and their technologically savvy parents) love this! Absolutely love this! My high school senior laughingly refers to it as "having a portable Paula." We have resorted to calling these little snippet recordings "Porta-Paula's." I thank Steve Jobs and Apple for my iPhone. I get a lot of use from it in my teaching arena.

For example, I frequently make short videos of practice exercises for my students and forward them via email to the students and their parent. I have one little boy whose mother does the home practicing but whose father is the person available to bring the boy to lessons. I frequently record practice tips, exercises, and instructions or make short practice videos, and then I email everything to mom. Since she is a Suzuki-trained music educator, I know that these little videos and voice recordings will be all that she needs to stay in touch with what her child and I are doing.

For other students, I make up short practice recordings of songs or areas of songs that we are working on. The students enjoy these recordings. I often use them during lessons as well.  The recordings allow me to have my hands free to work with the student to make adjustments where needed. Not only do the parents have a built-in practice routine that they can follow at home, it also gives me a practice assistant during lessons.

I use many apps on my iPhone for my teaching. I am curious what other apps teachers use in their teaching. This will be a future post for sure!

Happy practicing!