Dear Future Student,

            What I believe is important as an educator is not regurgitation of information, but rather instilling a passion for the subject. If you force students to remember a load of terms as opposed to igniting that spark of passion for the subject at hand, students tend to forget what they have learned, meaning their time that was supposed to be spent learning was wasted. If you instead pass the passion on, students are more likely to go out and learn and remember more about the subject, and the time they spent learning. I want them to learn valuable skills that can transfer to other parts of life aside from music, like time management, how to handle assignments independently, and how to communicate and work in groups. I believe the purpose of music education is to instill the passion for music in students, and not to force memorization and technique alone. What is not taught enough in schools is music theory. High school music is meant to put students at a sufficient level, but the curriculum fails to bring students up to that level. I will make sure students learn theory, but not have so much theory class that the students get burnt out and end up dreading music class. While technique is an important part of music education, putting at the forefront and drilling it into students will not create a meaningful learning experience, and I’d argue it would do the exact opposite. I will teach technique by incentivizing learning how to play scales and arpeggios, and by taking class input on what pieces they would like to play (while also making sure the pieces provide enough challenge for the pieces to be interesting) to make sure students stay engaged with the pieces they are playing, and to keep the passion for music going. I will assess their playing ability based on how much they grow as a musician during the academic year, not based on Royal Conservatory skill level.