Some of you might question why I put so much weight (let alone so many damn words) on the first three skills that I stack, namely listening, self-discipline, and proactive mindset.
If you’ve been my principal . . .
If you’ve watched me teach . . .
If I taught your kids . . .
If you were my student . . .
If you’ve only read these posts and wonder “Who the hell is Holmes?”
The truth is that those first three components were crucial in allowing me to accomplish everything in the classroom and allow my students so much free reign to develop their individual talents.
Self-evaluation
First things first.
As educators, we have to take stock of ourselves before we even approach our students with these first three skills.
Where have we succeeded in our personal and professional lives?
What part did self-discipline, refine listening skills, and proactivity play in achieving our successes. If we are weak in any of those areas, how have our lack of success or forward movement been a result of not emphasizing the first three skills in our lives?
Trust me. I didn’t always get it right.
These aren't easy questions to ask and sometimes the answers are even harder to admit to.
But addressing them head on is the only path forward.
Embrace Success
The more successful we are in the arena of music, the more we are demonstrating to our students how we embraced self-discipline, listening, and pro action to get us to where we are today as musicians.
This is not to diminish all the hours our students play or sing by putting the spotlight on us. It’s central, though, to create a visual and aural foundation exemplifying those three skills in a musical context so our students can have a take off perspective to invision their own musical path.
My demeanor of listening, self-discipline, and proactivity was always the key component of anything musical that I did in the classroom.
Prime the Pump: Suggest Questions
I learned early on that one of the most powerful questions I could ask any teacher or role model was “Can you show me one? Can you give me an example?” I coached my students to ask the same types of questions.
As a kid, I knew that if I could see it, hear it, mentally or physically ingest it, I'd have a much greater chance of replicating success and taking it to an even different place through my own hard work and interpretations.
“How did you compose that, Mr. Holmes?”
“How do you do that on the piano, Mr. Homes?”
“How are you able to strum that so fast on a guitar, Mr. Holmes?”
“How do you get your fingers to do that, Mr. Holmes?”
“How do I practice when I’m all by myself at home, Mr. Holmes?”
“Are you rich, Mr. Holmes? I know you are. How do I get rich?”
These are all questions I was asked by kids AFTER they were intrigued and curious by what they observed in our classroom.
And every answer I gave had an element of the first three stacking skills embedded in it.
Creating a World of Autodidacts
In other posts, I've talked about if I only had five or three or even just one class to teach, what would I teach.
I firmly believe that with the foundational three stacking skills, a groundwork will be secured where any musical skill can be fostered by the student on their own. Our purpose as a teacher is to mold individuals who thrive on what we have provided after they leave.
Observing these first three stacking skills (especially proactivity) in action with my mentors in my teen years was the reason I developed from a kid who barely got out of high school to a successful educator, composer, educator, and consultant with more than a handful of credits and awards in my back pocket.
The Closer
As educators, we need to present ourselves as musicians, not music teachers, and light a fire that no other educator ever could.
Once a child wants to play music, that desire will stay with them for the rest of their life whether they act on it or not. The fire might go down to embers but it always has the ability to roar right back.
The problem is that if our students don't have the listening skills, the self-discipline, and the proactive inclination to go back to music, the odds are slim that they will embrace the challenge.
When people hit a plateau with music or it's simply just gets too hard, it's the first three skills are the ones that will pull them through the slump.
It's these first three skills that will pave a road for success in just about anything they pursue in their lives.
If, as music educators, all we teach is music, we miss the point that music is only a part of life. It’s how music is connected within our lives by our ability to critically listen, self-modulate, and proactively preform that we are able to pull it all together.
And isn’t that what we want for our students?
If you’ve been my principal . . .
If you’ve watched me teach . . .
If I taught your kids . . .
If you were my student . . .
If you’ve only read these posts and wonder “Who the hell is Holmes?”
The truth is that those first three components were crucial in allowing me to accomplish everything in the classroom and allow my students so much free reign to develop their individual talents.
Self-evaluation
First things first.
As educators, we have to take stock of ourselves before we even approach our students with these first three skills.
Where have we succeeded in our personal and professional lives?
What part did self-discipline, refine listening skills, and proactivity play in achieving our successes. If we are weak in any of those areas, how have our lack of success or forward movement been a result of not emphasizing the first three skills in our lives?
Trust me. I didn’t always get it right.
These aren't easy questions to ask and sometimes the answers are even harder to admit to.
But addressing them head on is the only path forward.
Embrace Success
The more successful we are in the arena of music, the more we are demonstrating to our students how we embraced self-discipline, listening, and pro action to get us to where we are today as musicians.
This is not to diminish all the hours our students play or sing by putting the spotlight on us. It’s central, though, to create a visual and aural foundation exemplifying those three skills in a musical context so our students can have a take off perspective to invision their own musical path.
My demeanor of listening, self-discipline, and proactivity was always the key component of anything musical that I did in the classroom.
Prime the Pump: Suggest Questions
I learned early on that one of the most powerful questions I could ask any teacher or role model was “Can you show me one? Can you give me an example?” I coached my students to ask the same types of questions.
As a kid, I knew that if I could see it, hear it, mentally or physically ingest it, I'd have a much greater chance of replicating success and taking it to an even different place through my own hard work and interpretations.
“How did you compose that, Mr. Holmes?”
“How do you do that on the piano, Mr. Homes?”
“How are you able to strum that so fast on a guitar, Mr. Holmes?”
“How do you get your fingers to do that, Mr. Holmes?”
“How do I practice when I’m all by myself at home, Mr. Holmes?”
“Are you rich, Mr. Holmes? I know you are. How do I get rich?”
These are all questions I was asked by kids AFTER they were intrigued and curious by what they observed in our classroom.
And every answer I gave had an element of the first three stacking skills embedded in it.
Creating a World of Autodidacts
In other posts, I've talked about if I only had five or three or even just one class to teach, what would I teach.
I firmly believe that with the foundational three stacking skills, a groundwork will be secured where any musical skill can be fostered by the student on their own. Our purpose as a teacher is to mold individuals who thrive on what we have provided after they leave.
Observing these first three stacking skills (especially proactivity) in action with my mentors in my teen years was the reason I developed from a kid who barely got out of high school to a successful educator, composer, educator, and consultant with more than a handful of credits and awards in my back pocket.
The Closer
As educators, we need to present ourselves as musicians, not music teachers, and light a fire that no other educator ever could.
Once a child wants to play music, that desire will stay with them for the rest of their life whether they act on it or not. The fire might go down to embers but it always has the ability to roar right back.
The problem is that if our students don't have the listening skills, the self-discipline, and the proactive inclination to go back to music, the odds are slim that they will embrace the challenge.
When people hit a plateau with music or it's simply just gets too hard, it's the first three skills are the ones that will pull them through the slump.
It's these first three skills that will pave a road for success in just about anything they pursue in their lives.
If, as music educators, all we teach is music, we miss the point that music is only a part of life. It’s how music is connected within our lives by our ability to critically listen, self-modulate, and proactively preform that we are able to pull it all together.
And isn’t that what we want for our students?
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