Rethinking Genius

Just like any other job, certain aspects of teaching become routine.  I generally  know when I want to introduce two-octave scales.  Nuances of course may change and evolve with time and more training.  But I am almost never reinventing my entire approach with each student.  This allows me the flexibility to be creative in lessons when necessary but also able to stay on track with progress somewhere in the back of my mind. What I didn't  realize was that with these routines I started to inadvertently assume things.  I taught the parents of my older students how to tune.  Therefore I did not need to reteach tuning to those parents when I started a younger sibling.  But... this unintentionally led to me assuming that all parents knew how to tune.  Or--let me rephrase--I assumed that if they were uncomfortable with tuning they would have asked for guidance. Wrong. If there is one thing this pandemic has made clear: never assume.  A student is progressing through repertoire does not ne