Rewards

Yesterday as I went to teach my two students from a same household, the girls came running down the stairs to greet me. I was surprised by their enthusiasm, and then I found out that they were all prepared to present me with a Christmas present. The gift is in white tissue paper containing in a red gift bag that says "Noel" in gold font, and there's a little tag that hangs from the side which they have signed their names on, addressed to me. This has made me so very jolly.
To top that, the younger of the two has finished learning the entire book of Christmas songs which we've only started a month ago. I've only taught her at the most 4 pieces in the book, but she went the extra mile and learned all the rest on her own. (It amazes me how much knowledge kids can learn and absorb, if they're willing. Repeat, IF they're willing). So to have fun, I played my teacher's duets with her, piece by piece, and we finished the whole book in a breeze.

As I came back home afterward, I taught another student from my home studio. Recently, she had developed the habit of stopping and repeating the music over and over again. First of all, I can tell that she didn't really practice during the week, so when she comes to me she'd feel more nervous and therefore tends to make more mistakes. As a result, she pauses a lot, repeats a lot, and if you're listening to her play at this point, you would feel very agitated. To help with the situation, I told her to mark in the things she kept on messing up on with a pencil, and she had to do it herself in order to reinforce her memory. Then I put in my teacher's duet to make sure that she could hear the rhythms correctly. After several practices, she was almost good, but there were still some spots she had to stop and repeat. At this point, I knew she could play the piece through without stopping, but she just needed some more help. So I whipped out my iPhone, and by using the voice memo application, I told her that we were going to record this piece, and that there was to be no mistakes and it had to sound perfect. She was so excited about this, she agreed to try it at once. The first try, she messed up a little bit, and the second try, she fixed the mistake from the first try, but messed up on another spot. I stopped the device. I asked her to focus on the music and not the iPhone. She nodded, took a deep breath and gave another try. She did it! No mistakes, no repeats, just perfect! I was so proud of her. She was so proud of herself.
At the end of our lesson, we sent the recording to her dad via email. Her dad replied back saying, "Thank you, this is Super!"

Instances like these are so rewarding and reaffirming to my investment of time and energy on these little ones. I absolutely love what I do!