by Linda Silva
Foundations graduation is just a few weeks away and with it my five- and six-year-old students—many of whom I’ve had in classes since they were babies--will move on to study instruments with other teachers. It is time, I know. We’ve sung and moved and tapped and marched and now they’re ready to take on the more concentrated work of mastering an instrument. Their minds are ready to decipher notation, their bodies are ready to sit still. Their music is inside them, waiting to be expressed.
For months my mini-musicians have listened to the strains of piano and guitar music from adjacent rooms. They’ve waved to the teachers that pass through and learned their names: “Hi, teacher Ozzy! Hi, teacher Eleonora!” They’ve absorbed the lines of the staff and the notes of a scale and the beats of a measure. We take these last weeks to study names and sounds of orchestra instruments, find C’s on a piano, draw bows across strings of violins, and schedule trial lessons. When the last day comes and my students proudly clutch the certificate proclaiming the culmination of their Young Child Music Program, they are more than ready. But am I?
Every spring I wrestle with whether I should keep my little ones near by becoming their piano teacher instead of sending them off to other teachers. If I did that I could watch them grow week by week, coach their recital pieces, and help them choose what to play at school talent shows. In educational parlance this is called “looping,” when the teacher and student advance together to the next level. For me it’s called not letting go.
But eventually I remember we have many teachers very well-suited to take young students onward. Teachers who know exactly the way to finesse good technique from little fingers, how to recapture focus from wandering minds, and how to make the challenge of a new piece into an exciting adventure. Teachers who are current on pedagogy and excellent players in their own right. Teachers who turn promising Foundations graduates into proficient musicians the way I keep a class of young children captivated for an hour: with a lifetime of knowledge, a love of teaching, and gratefulness for the chance.
So once again I prepare myself to open my classroom door and watch my little students troop out for the last time and into the lesson rooms beyond. We have had our fun and built our skills. Now it’s time for them to take a seat, open their lesson books, and begin to play.