Coming in February: Triangle Month
You may have noticed a new event on the ESPS community calendar - Suzuki Triangle Month.
The Suzuki Triangle, or the relationship between student, parent, and teacher, is an important part of the Suzuki program. While we’re all familiar with the concept, it can be easy in the weekly habit of lessons and practice points to forget about nurturing the relationship and reinforcing lines of communication. We’ve adopted the concept of Triangle Month this year, to help reinforce the importance of communication in our own Suzuki community.
During Triangle Month, instead of a normal lesson, your teacher will use the time to chat about lessons, home practice, goals, or any other questions or concerns. Depending on your situation, your teacher might chat directly with you and your child, or it could be a conversation with the parent alone. Or, you might choose to have your teacher observe a practice session between you and your child, allowing your teacher to provide feedback. There will also be plenty of time for questions and answers. This session is meant to be a flexible opportunity to touch base and communicate with your teacher about your child’s musical education, and your ideas about what might be most helpful in this conversation would be welcome.
Your teacher will let you know when your triangle session will take place. In the meantime, it might be helpful to consider current successes and challenges as well as your goals for your student’s musical education. Adapted from the work of Christine Goodner (author ofBeyond the Music Lesson: Habits Of Successful Suzuki Families andPositive Practice: 5 Steps To Helping Your Child Develop A Love Of Music), these questions might be useful to help prepare for the conversation with your teacher:
What is one thing working well for you right now in practice?
What is the hardest part about practice right now?
What motivates your child?
What do you wish you knew when you first started?
What do you hope your child gains from studying music?
If you could wave a magic wand and make one thing easier/different about your child’s practice, what would it be?
What is one thing you want to take away from the Triangle Month session to work on at home?
What goals do you have for your child over the next year? Do they have any goals of their own related to music?