We have all heard the saying “Rome wasn’t built in a day”, and it shouldn’t surprise you that this concept also applies to learning. When I first started teaching full time I expected more progress on a week to week basis from my students. I knew that there wouldn’t be progress every week, but I still think there was a part of me, regardless how unrealistic it was, that thought students would improve a little every week.
I have spoken many times on how I feel about forcing kids to practice. If a kid is not practicing at home then to me that can mean one of two things. A) maybe drumming is not for them, or b) I am not assigning the right things for this student. I also have known for a long time that every students learning objectives are different. What may be monthly goal for one student could be a weekly goal for another, or maybe even a year end goal.
But there is one thing new that I have learned in the past few years, the patience pays off. There is a fine line between making sure a student puts in the hours needed on a fundamental or mechanic while also mixing things up to keep it interesting. I have been running CRASH and teaching full time now for almost 6 years, and some of my current students have been with me for all of that. I have seen them grow from a child to a teen! And even though they miss weeks of practice or we take breaks from certain concepts, I have finally seen that it does in fact pay off in the end. Something I have always said that I can now officially say works, is that our first learning objective should be wanting to come back to lessons and continue making music. The rest will follow at the students own pace.
-Hilary