Watching a Suzuki master teacher give a lesson to a 5-year-old Book 1 student this afternoon, I have the feeling that experience entitles one to being less hurried, to having greater ease. She knows that she can get a student there. She's done it probably hundreds of times and even though each one is different, she can look at this little person, with imperfect little things and still see a path to the future when he is more than what he is. She is that path and that connection. She has faith in something that others can't see.
It seems to be the same with masters of any number of things. There is a confidence, a calmness, even if the task requires great speed and focus. I can understand this as a cellist and I wonder if I can help myself along by finding it in my teaching. I do believe in myself, but I have never gotten a mixed group of cellists to the next level, including four beginners. Can I do that?
The answer is yes. Perhaps not as well I will be able to do it in the future, but it will happen. Already they know how to open their cello cases and get out their bows and cellos safely. They know how to do pizzicato and the names of the strings and at least in theory, what it means to have good cello posture. When I think of just a little more than one week ago, this is huge. They are already on the path to becoming cellists.
But I think as I do this more often, I will know and trust the path in me more and more. But in the meantime, I admire the voice that I hear in these Suzuki teachers. If I'm incomplete in some of my early lessons on set-up, if I'm distracted by the classroom management gymnastics that I feel I have to be doing, I can at least remember to give them some of this voice. It is so much closer to my own than the one I've been trying to adopt. And I think I will just have to go with it, not really knowing a more authentic way.
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