Reflections on Suzuki Teacher Training: 2021 Edition
Would you say the teachers you know are committed to lifelong learning?
One of the positive outcomes from the COVID-19 pandemic is the increased access to Suzuki teacher training! In the past I was lucky enough to get my training through single day or weekend workshop and Suzuki Institutes, but this year’s online options allowed me to take training without significantly impacting my family! It was really a gift to connect with other teachers after such a draining year.
Now that this year is winding down, I wanted to take a moment to reflect on each class I took in 2021, share my thoughts and try to distill what this year’s training did for me. I hope this helps you consider what further training you might pursue in the coming year, too!
Here’s a little outline of what I cover in this post in case you’d like to jump around to the areas especially important to you!
Online vs. In Person Suzuki Teacher Training
Violin Unit 1
Violin Unit 2
Violin Unit 3
Overall Comparison of Online vs. In Person/Institute Training
Let’s address the elephant in the room first: Does online teacher training hold up to a more traditional and in person experience?
Absolutely.
In the past I was lucky enough to take Violin Units 1 through 4 at the Pennsylvania Suzuki Institute with Martha Shackford between 2015 and 2017. Getting to do these first four courses with the same teacher trainer was invaluable because I really gained a sense of the whole curriculum and how one teacher with years of experience would pace themselves through the repertoire. I know where and why certain concepts are introduced. I learned the methods and points to highlight to make sure students wouldn’t have gaps later on.
Some other benefits of taking those courses in person include:
Developing relationships with other teachers
Being able to see students from multiple angles, all you had to do was get up and move around the room
Being able to observe the parents more easily
Being able to talk with teacher trainers or teachers between class to get more information about an activity they did in their master or performance class.
Being able to play through the Suzuki repertoire as a group
Experimenting by “teaching” other teachers through physical touch (Particularly useful for those Pre-Twinklers and book 1 students!)
But taking these classes online this year had other massive benefits like:
Seeing master teachers work with students online! This was so refreshing after a year of teaching online - It was good to see the highs and lows in other teachers’ lessons and gain new ideas.
Meeting teachers from ALL over the world
My family life wasn’t disrupted by my absence or pulled from their regular routine to make room for me to take these courses
Observations included live classes online and recorded videos of individual students over time. This gave a much more realistic view of what average progression might be in a private music studio rather than the Institute’s one week of classes.
I was teaching while in teacher training, so I was able to immediately implement the concepts in class with my own students, see how it fits in with what we had already been doing and ways to make it my own!
I’m already starting to look forward to what options are available in 2022 and I’ll be considering both in person and online options! Whatever fits best with my family and studio schedule will likely win out.
Now onto more specifics about the courses I took in 2021!
Violin Unit 1
Teacher Trainer: Sharon Miller
Institute (If Applicable): Virginia Suzuki Institute
Biggest Takeaway: The important role of the parent in lessons.
Summary:
I’m not going to lie - Starting my online teacher training with Sharon Miller felt auspicious! The introductory class for the Suzuki method is Every Child Can , which I took in person with Sharon in 2014 just before starting student teaching. I didn’t grow up as a Suzuki kid - I was lucky enough that my public school system introduced orchestral and band instruments in sixth grade and that I had some of the top music teachers in the county through elementary school and middle school (Looking at you Mrs. Barnhart and Ms. Gooding!)
All of that to say that I get very excited to see Pre-Twinklers in the younger ages because that’s so different from my own background. Sharon didn’t disappoint and had lots of videos to share with us from her teaching archives. I cannot understate how much I appreciated seeing videos of young musicians just starting out, hearing the day to day conversations with their parents and being able to watch those students progress over the span of several weeks and months. Institute observations are great and Institutes create such a unique and special experience for students, but I do think it can create an unrealistic expectation for teachers who are watching those classes. Typically the students and families who enroll are more committed, have the funds to attend institute and take time off of work… You can see how that might not match what you see in your own studio when you go home, right?
In addition to being able to watch Sharon's recorded lessons, some of the observations for this course included the online classes through the Virginia Suzuki Institute. I’d been hoping for some new ideas on how to do group classes and individual lessons online, so taking part in the live observations didn’t disappoint! Another teacher taking part in the Institute was Betsy Fee, who I regularly saw at the PA Institute several years back, so it was nice to see how she translated her usual style into an online platform. Some of my favorite things I saw in those classes were:
This was one of the ways that group class opened up. I thought it did a good job of letting everyone get in the Zoom room, get settled and focused on the violin.
Review Game Ideas:
Group class focused on a different aspect of the music for each day. One day the students were expected to use their sight and see what playing the Suzuki repertoire looked like. Another day the students were expected to know what the printed music looked like and how it matched the sounds. A last theme was focused on what it sounded like. Picking different ways to access the same information is always a good idea, but I appreciated how having themes really structured the classes.
Through the course of the week, one of the most impactful differences in the online lessons was how the parental involvement and presence impacted the lesson. Watching the efficiency levels change between students who had parents there, taking notes and giving physical guidance to kids and the students who didn’t have someone there to help was really eye opening. Combining that with the example of parent involvement on the recorded videos of in person lessons really drove home the point: Parents are crucial. This is not the first time I’ve known this and those of you familiar with the Suzuki method probably know about the Suzuki Triangle created by the student, parent and teacher. But it was such a clear illustration of the impact they make in our lessons that it has stuck with me!
Violin Unit 2
Teacher Trainer: Oscar Soler
Institute (If Applicable): Greater Austin Suzuki Institute
Biggest Takeaway: Practice is making something easier.
Summary:
My second teacher training of the year was with Oscar Soler through the Greater Austin Suzuki Institute! Going into the class I felt both nervous because I wasn’t familiar with the teacher trainer or Institute coordinators, but also excited because I was going to be in a class with my Instagram friend Greg (@violagreg)! I don’t think I’m the only one who gets nervous on the first day of class and meeting the teacher, but that went away quickly. The group of teachers in book 2 really seemed to get along well for the most part and I really enjoyed Oscar’s perspective as a Suzuki in the Schools educator.
This is another area I don’t have much experience with since my local area doesn’t have a Suzuki in the Schools program! It was really interesting to observe some recordings of group classes in a school setting, hear about what things are different in Oscar’s program and what things are the same as a studio setting like I teach in. My degree is in music education though, where most of my practicum experience was in the schools and I received my certification to teach music k - 12. So it was really fascinating to see Suzuki reimagined into that setting I’ve become more removed from over the years. It did start to get me thinking about what a similar program might look like in my local school system, too. I can’t do everything and I don’t know that I’m the person for the job of creating a Suzuki in the Schools program for Washington County, but I think it’s always good to have experiences that can make you see new possibilities and dream a bit, so I really appreciated that.
Actual Book 2 teaching points…
Going into unit 2 with a different teacher did expose some of the differences you can find even between different Suzuki teachers and trainers. Some start vibrato in book 2, some start in book 3 or even book 1… Some teachers require ALL details to be finished in the prior book before graduating to the next.
Coming into this class, I thought of book 2 as the bow book. We become comfortable in all parts of the bow, this is the book where we experience many new bow techniques, lots of good things! Some of this was continued in our class’s points as well. One point that was very different from my other experiences was the exaggeration in the forehead touch in Two Grenadiers. While I’d observed this bowing in technique and performance group classes in the past, this was a new teaching point to me. There were several other little details like this that felt unfamiliar to me, and a little disjointed from the book 1 training I’d finished a month before and earlier.
As I mentioned above, my biggest take away from this class that I find myself repeating to my students over and over again is practice is making something easier. One of the resources we were required to get for this class was Edmund Sprunger’s “Helping Parents Practice”. Between this resource, our class discussions and Oscar sharing how he frames it with his students, I really loved how succinct and to the point this idea was.
Violin Unit 3
Teacher Trainer: David Strom
Institute (If Applicable): N/A, Hosted through Herndon Suzuki Studio
Biggest Takeaway: Have clear expectations.
Summary:
My final course of the year was spread over five weeks in September and October with Suzuki teacher, David Strom. This was the first time I’d taken a teacher training course through a private teacher and spread out over an extended period of time, versus the intense and short few days at a Suzuki Institute. The benefit of this schedule was I was able to have several weeks to try out the teaching method in lessons, report my observations and get new ideas to take back to my students over several weeks. I really feel that allowed me to work out the ideas we were discussing in class and helped me learn more deeply how to be an effective teacher.
I will say this session was the single class that pushed me as a player all year as well. My unit 1 and 2 this year did not have us play for the other teachers very much at all, and our playing was not critiqued by the teacher trainer in those instances. Playing for other musicians and teachers in this way was really uncomfortable and combined with my own performance insecurities in a truly disconcerting way. I’m still working through some of the impact this had on my own confidence as a violinist in both good and bad ways, and I wanted to be honest about that unexpected result of this class.
As we started diving into book 3, we discussed how the book develops concentration. By combining all the techniques we’ve been working on through book 1 and book 2 into longer and more substantial pieces, book 3 aims to develop the student’s endurance. Just like my transition to the unit 2 I took this year, starting book 3 with a new teacher trainer was quite the pivot. The attention to detail and specificity for each note, each bow stroke and placement really showed itself in the students’ playing as I worked through the observation hours for this class. Several of the students were performing at a high level, and as part of our observations in class we were able to see the progression of a student or two over the course of years and years of study.
This leads me to my biggest takeaway from this course: Have clear expectations. This was seen in the many details included in the teaching points for each song, but it was baked into the course itself for the studio culture. David Strom said several times how violin was the curricular activity for his students, even school was extra curricular. And you could see that his students lived and breathed this material! The devotion and dedication for regular practice, making the most of online lessons, the enthusiasm for their music studies all showed that this was their life.
Initially this led to quite the disconnect for me between what David’s studio looks like and what mine looks like. When I shared this with the class, David shared this interesting question that really has stuck with me since then: “What will give me a life worth living?” And this is a question that every teacher has to ask themselves. Do you only want to work with people who are willing to give you as much as you give them? Are you in a position where you feel content to keep trying, knowing that you’re giving them more exposure to music or musical experiences than they would otherwise have? What kind of an exchange of energy do you expect from your students? The questions could go on and on.
This wasn’t a new concept to me, but I think after a year and a half of teaching through COVID-19, this was a really timely reminder for me that it is up to each individual teacher to decide for themselves what they want to do in the world, what their skillset is best suited for and then determined the best way to accomplish that. It was inspiring to see a teacher go out there and set high expectations (when I already feel I set pretty high ones myself!), then watch people respond positively. It makes me feel like I could be so brave, too.
As I start to turn my eye to 2022, I am brainstorming the expectations I want to set moving forward. We will soon be coming up on two years of teaching in COVID and in that time, a lot has changed - For me and for everyone else. As a new mom, I did not have a good sense of what an ideal balance would be for my teaching life and home life. Several of my students have spent the last two years dealing with health scares, splitting home lives, changing schools and more. The flexibility and compassion I tried to give them and myself has really stretched those boundaries and seeing this example in my last training of the year was necessary, I believe. I have a lot of processing left to do, even two months later!
Conclusion
I have never done teacher training and regretted it, this year was no exception! When I started out with this post I thought it would be much shorter, but as I went through my notes, journal entries and Suzuki copies for each class I found myself identifying the bigger themes that I listed above as my takeaways. If you haven’t been to teacher training, it is definitely worth the investment. There are scholarships available, inquire with the Suzuki Association of Americas, check with your teaching institutions or the Institutes themselves! It will make you a better teacher, connect you with other wonderful teachers and recharge you for when you return to your students.
For any remaining question you have about Suzuki teacher training, Suzuki Institutes and more, feel free to leave it in the comments below, DM me on Instagram @shawstrings or email me! And if you attended some training this year, I’d love to hear your big takeaway from this year’s courses, too!
