The heart of my purpose
“You really should be a school counselor.” These are words I have heard from numerous adults and children over the last decade. I have always had a heart for people. I long for all people to feel good about who they are at their core and to reach their fullest potential! I want to celebrate their good qualities and to lift them up at all times. I guess it shows when I interact with them in many settings.
This brings me to my teaching style. I want all my students to be excellent musicians. But more importantly, I want them to love music and to feel good about themselves. Each student has varying strengths and I highly enjoy helping them maximize their growth by focusing on those strengths. I have found myself developing strategies as I see where their capabilities lie. My second goal is to help them feel comfortable in our learning environment. I don’t really think about it. I think it just comes naturally to me to just enjoy them! I am told my students like coming to me and I think perhaps it is because they know I genuinely care about them. I take great effort to match their energies as well. If I have a student that is very shy and quiet, I speak very gently. Conversely, if I have a very expressive child, I match that with energy and enthusiasm to capture his or her interest! It’s important to me for the child to get the most out of our interaction.
Recently a parent recommended Simply Music Granger on her facebook page. Here are her words copy and pasted:
“If you are looking for music lessons, this is the teacher to check out. She is incredibly gifted at connecting with her students and making them feel loved while they learn something new and difficult. This has helped my kids want to practice between lessons. Our kids are taking guitar, ukulele, and piano from Shannon. She has been able to adjust to each of their learning styles, age, and ability levels. She will forever have a place in our family because she has helped change the direction of my children's self esteem and confidence level.”
Her words really touched me because they identified my very purpose for teaching! Much of my style was likely developed from my 20 years of homeschooling my own children. I will discuss this more in future posts, but want to mention it. I feel so happy when my students gain confidence to write a song, memorize a piece, try a more challenging piece, show interest in a new genre or just feel good about their abilities overall. I notice how they often finish playing a song and immediately look to me for my approval. They beam with beautiful smiles when they see my reactions of encouragement. It makes my heart swell for them! This is the heart of my purpose and I feel so blessed to be a part of it.