New Year’s Day and the first few weeks of January are always great times to check in, reflect, and set new goals. I’ve found that I grew more from the teachers who set clear goals for me than the ones who played things more by ear, and I strive each year to be a better teacher for my students! So, in addition to more personalized goals for each individual student, here are three goals I would like to see all of my students reach this year. 

1. Practice and Listen More Often.

When you teach 3-12 year olds, it can be hard to find a good practice/listening and life balance. Even harder when you personally have struggled with debilitating burnout in the past. I’ll be the first to admit that I’ve gotten a bit lax with my practice requirements and I haven’t always been persistent in having my students listen to their music each week. I struggle a lot with seeing where the line is between encouraging a love of music by keeping lessons fun and doing a disservice to my students by not encouraging them to meet their full potential. I also think that telling each student to practice every day is not realistic, and it’s kind of a cop-out. Wouldn’t it be nice if we could practice every day, work out every day, work on our jobs and our side hustles every day (or go to school!), and never experience an ounce of stress, burnout, or injury! 

Practicing every day will surely help you improve faster than the students who don’t. I’m sure Ray Chen, Hillary Hahn, and other famous violinists do, in fact, practice nearly every day. I had many college professors who insisted we practice every day. But, I’ll let you in on a secret: I’ve never met an adult musician who has spent their life practicing each and every day at the expense of sleep, rest, and sometimes their health, who is also consistently happy, has appropriate social skills, and doesn’t hold an unhealthy resentment towards those who don’t fit their idea of what it means to “work hard”. So, even though I realize I’m in the minority when I say this, I don’t think my students should practice every day. Instead, what I tell them is that they should practice most days. I think you should take a look at a student’s work load and work together towards practice goals that make sense for each individual student. 

That said, my strong feelings against the side hustle and burnout culture have made it very hard for me to understand where I need to draw a line. I think it’s possible to acknowledge and encourage my students not to overdo it and also set firm boundaries on how much they should be practicing and listening to their music. This is also an expectation that needs to be stated clearly with the parents. Kids are just that: kids. They need reminders. It’s my job to make sure the parent knows what is expected of both them and their children. My goal for them is to establish a workable practice and listening routine so that my students are practicing more.  

2. Explore New Music.

I love the Suzuki books. They’re set up in a way that makes sense to me and I believe that as you continue through each book, the skills you learn from each song build on each other. But they’re not diverse. I think most, if not all, of these songs were not even written in the same century that our students are growing up in. Classical music is great, but it’s far from the only thing out there and it would be silly to think that all of my students go home and blast Tchaik 5 or the New World Symphony. I want them to listen to music that is being made today, whether that is from contemporary violinists, jazz musicians, or pop artists. Being able to listen to music and not do anything else, just listen and enjoy it, is totally underrated and personally, I think it’s healing and a very healthy thing for us all to do. My goal is to help them eventually take self-guided explorations with new music without me encouraging it. But for now I can send home some fun assignments! 😉

3. Have More Confidence

This is something I ALWAYS have on my list of goals for my students. Life has a way of getting you down, and social media can make it easy to compare ourselves to others who seemingly have it together more than we do. If my students only do one thing in 2022, I hope that they become more comfortable with their instrument, are proud of themselves for doing so, and in turn, have the confidence to keep playing.

Happy New Year! What are your goals for 2022?