Rethinking Genius

I work with young children all the time.  Part of what goes into successfully teaching kids is being able to relate to them.  This doesn't mean you have to become best friends or anything.  But you should feel comfortable talking to them.  A student comfortable with their private music teacher will be more receptive to learning. I think one of my best teaching secrets when it comes to relating to young children is allowing myself to revert to my inner child.  Everyone has one deep down.   This doesn't mean behaving like a child .  Far from it.  But it does mean allowing myself to remember what was fun for me when I was young. I'm always walking through toy stores.  The main reason is to keep an eye out for any fun teaching supplies I could use in the lesson.  But it's also a great time to tap into that inner child.  When I'm walking through I let myself revert to "little kid" mentality.  What was it that made a to...

Let's talk about "the week."  The week is a very different concept from "a day."  It boils down to this: the week is planned, a day is not. The concept of a day is finite and irregular.  A day activity is something spur-the-moment.  You know vaguely that you will eat meals.  Maybe some of the meals are planned, maybe some are not.  What you ate "that day" may be different from what you ate the day before.  Maybe something came up at the last minute that made you change your mind about dinner plans. Day activities are flexible and changing. The week is your schedule.  Certain things like work or school must be planned by the week.  You work from 9-5 Monday through Friday so you plan around that.  Weekly activities are not spur-the-moment.  Weekly classes, for example, are something that you are paying for so other less important activities move around this weekly class. Weekly activities are regularly occurring and ...