Are you a perfectionist? Do you cringe when you read a speling mistake? (sorry, couldn’t resist) Do you spend hours doing and redoing productive tasks…because it is never quite good enough in your eyes? Do you have a hard time letting things go?….knowing when enough is enough? Being a perfectionist or living with one can…
I love the following words from Haim Ginott. I first read it when I was an undergrad in university. It was in the “Ask Ada” column of the city paper and I cut it out. I still have that worn piece of newsprint and the passage has been my own personal teaching guideline ever since….
This week at The Music Box was Hawaiian week. I spruced up the place with bright paper flowers, birds, a flashy palm tree, pineapple and coconut, We danced the hula, made paper leis and underwater scenes, dove in a pretend ocean complete with fish and seashells, played pineapple bingo and made patterns out of shells….
A few years ago as I sat in grade 9 typing class…yes it was actually a class at one point…I remember my teacher raising her eyebrows at me every time I looked at my fingers to type. Eventually she covered my hands with a piece of paper taped to the type writer so I HAD to…
If you took piano lessons from someone other than an MYC teacher or if your only music instruction occurred at elementary school, it is likely that you learned to memorize the patterns FACE and Every Good Boy Deserves Fudge. I have parents ask me frequently why I don’t use these phrases in my teaching. My answer….they…
“The child must know that he is a miracle, that since the beginning of the world there hasn’t been, and until the end of the world there will not be, another child like him.”Pablo Casals It is hard not to compare one child to another. We want to be sure that our children are…
Did you know that the average time a teacher waits for a response from students after posing a question is 1 second?????? Consider that for a moment. The teacher asks a whole classroom of students a question and waits only 1 second for a response before rephrasing a question or offering a prompt. When one…
Children do amazing things when they feel that you are behind them. Self-esteem is a delicate part of human character. It is like a balloon that can deflate with just one sharp comment. Though some people have tougher balloons of self-esteem than others, I don’t think anyone is impervious to negative or belittling comments. Children who…
One ship sails East, And another West, By the self-same winds that blow, Tis the set of the sails And not the gales, That tells the way we go. -Ella Wheeler Wilcox- I am sure every piano teacher will love that I am comparing us to a gale…but it’s not because we’re blowing hot air…
KANATA, Ontario August 25, 2009 – We often hear about how music lessons increases a child’s IQ but it also increases their EQ, emotional quotient. EQ is the measure of emotional intelligence including empathy, intuition, creativity, flexibility, resilience, coping, stress management, leadership, integrity, intrapersonal skills and interpersonal skills. So basically, EQ is the ability to…
