able for download on IMSLP or other websites) and maybe your own “top ten” list of favorite compositions for kids by grade level. A wind, piano or percussion player will need all kinds of suggestions for appropriate repertoire.
#6: Walk them through how you mark your score for bow- ings (could happen later in the experience). Make sure they know what bowing marks look like, how fingerings and harmonics are marked, and point out how publishers mark string scores for younger players, and what they leave out in advanced repertoire. Tey need to understand what they see on the page. If the can identify what the composer is calling for in the music, they can seek help teaching the skill.
#7: Give them all the tools you have to teach proper tone. Tey need to walk away understanding the relationships between bow placement, speed and weight. And vibrato lessons are encouraged!
#8: Intonation: Unless they’ve experienced the challenge our kids face with developing proper leſt hand position, they won’t be able to understand why kids play out of tune, or be able to offer the proper tools and words for correc- tion. Feeling is believing, so again, make sure they have an instrument in their hands from time to time.
#9: Technique: Tis topic fills books and takes years to master, but you can teach them a few things to watch for and why they need attention. Bent leſt wrists, flat leſt hand fingers, bow hold variations, crooked bowings, and bad pos- ture (sagging scrolls, droopy elbows, and the necktie violin) are at the top of my list. Our student teachers need to know what improper technique looks like and how this affects sound. (And I can guarantee that they will demonstrate all of these bad habits on the instruments they are borrowing from you!)
#10: When you provide feedback to your student, refer to all of the above. Make the connections between string lingo and what their ears are hearing. Explain what they hear, and then ask them to explain it back to you. Te more they verbalize to you, the more they will retain. Just observing and being told isn’t enough. Tey must DO what it is you’re teaching… just like our own pupils!
In the frenzy that is our day-to-day teaching experience, it is easy to lose focus and energy. It might be easy to overlook the adult who has been placed in the room to learn from you. Remember, they are not there as your personal assis- tant. Tey’ve come to you for experience, guidance and wis- dom. We exhaust ourselves differentiating our teaching class by class, student by student, every single day, and adding in the needs of the soon-to–be college graduate is yet another differentiation. It is important to remember your role in this
person’s development as a teacher. Tere will be days that are frustrating for both of you. Set aside a few minutes every day (and really, it’s just a few minutes) to plant one more idea, teach one more lesson, talk about one more problem, and give one more pep talk. In just one semester, those daily lessons add up to 90 days of incredible, life changing expe- riences for that person and consequently, for the students they will teach in the decades to come.
Susan Gould is in her 26th year of teaching multiple band and orchestra ensembles in the Greenville Public Schools. Susan is a graduate of Michigan State University and Western Michigan University, and was the 2012 MSBOA Orchestra Teacher of the year. She is an active adjudicator and clinician, and continues to perform in community bands and pit orches- tras. She and her husband Bob have two beautiful children, a daughter who is a freshman at Michigan State University, and a son who is completing the 8th grade.
Tank you for your support of the
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--@mmea. michigan ---@MMEAMichigan ---MIMUSICED
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