In 2018, you were awarded the Extraordinary Piano Teacher Award from the Shandong Musicians Association in China. What areas of your teaching style do you feel contributed to earning this award?
When teaching, I always try to teach my students how to teach themselves. It is the core of my teaching philosophy. We have a saying in China that goes “授人以鱼，不如授人以渔”。 It has the same meaning as the great philosopher Maimonides’ “Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a man how to fish you feed him for a lifetime”. Not only teaching my students how to play the instrument, but help them to understand the logical and practical reasons behind that, so they can gradually pick up the approaches on how to learn or practice when I’m not with them. This is what I think is the most important.
You have a lot of background preparing your students for exams and assessments. Can you share what techniques and approaches you use that have contributed to your students’ success in their preparation?
Preparing exams can be challenging, but participating is definitely a good way for the students to grow. It could be a stage goal, and a test of the outcomes of their learning progress. Since it has a timeline, it also helps to keep the students motivated, and they’re more aware of what to do, and what to anticipate.
While preparing for the exams with my students, the first and also the most important thing is that I make a plan with my students and the parents. The plan must be realistic and should be broken down into different steps, and stick to it. Also, if they like the pieces they’re playing, chances are a lot higher for them to get more practice. So I make sure they have the preferred pieces. Motivation also comes from the process of learning. In each lesson, I make sure they’re following my instructions and suggestions while having fun playing all the pieces. When the exam date approaches, I usually have my students do mock performance, where I would be the examiner, and the students would go through all the steps of the exam. It gives them confidence and certainty when they do the actual exam.
You spent 5 years teaching in Jinan, China. Have you noticed any similarities or differences between the students and music education atmosphere in that area compared to here in the United States? How have they impacted your teaching?
In China, I would say the environment is more competitive. Parents generally compare their children with others, so it creates a situation where everybody wants to be “as good as” other people. In the States, students are more relaxed about learning the instrument. Parents here are more interest-oriented. It’s a big topic, and hard to say which one is better than the other, but as long as the students are enjoying it and learning from it, I think that’s good enough!
For me as a teacher, I would always like to talk to the student/parents about their learning goals. Getting to know the reason they are interested in having the lesson, and go from there together.
It’s always fun to hear stories from teachers about a memorable experience with a student. Is there a memory of yours that stands out in your life?
There are many stories that I can share, but one the comes to mind is of my student Kexin who didn’t really like the piano when he first started, but I kept encouraging him and playing songs while singing with him. I’d also play different pieces he was interested in from his books and let him choose his favorite - that way he knew how they sounded and he could be involved in the selection process. He gradually got more and more interested in piano music. Shortly after he became more excited to play, he even made a beautiful card for me on teacher’s day! It makes me happy and proud that I chose to be a teacher when moments like this happen!