Hi, Richard!  Recently you wrote in a message to Ardith Hinton:   
      
   AH>  AFAIC one can't be sure who will become a professional   
   AH>  musician or a teacher or a staunch supporter of the arts   
   AH>  later on & I owe it to my students to do my best....  :-)   
      
   RW>  INdeed, and a friend of mine went in with much the same   
   RW>  approach, he was a music major instead of pedagogy, but   
   RW>  fell into teaching.   
      
                            [...]   
      
   RW>  This lady's daughter was one of his pupils and sang his   
   RW>  praises for getting the kids actually interested in   
   RW>  learning about music.   
      
      
             I know many others who "fell into" teaching, as your friend did, and   
   turned out to be very good at it.  If he really enjoyed learning about music &   
   working with kids, his enthusiasm was probably contagious....  :-)   
      
      
      
   RW>  I play three or four instruments well enough, but I'm   
   RW>  not suited to teaching well.  I don't have the patience   
   RW>  for it, and part of that patience is an impatience with   
   RW>  myself if I"M not getting an important concept through   
   RW>  to a pupil.  That impatience with myself for not being   
   RW>  able to put it across manifests itself in the pupil   
   RW>  perceiving I'm frustrated with him/her.   
      
      
             IMHO you have the right instincts!  Years ago I remarked to a friend   
   that I couldn't always be sure whether a particular feeling originated from me   
   or the person(s) I was with.  She doubted my sanity.  But shortly thereafter I   
   found a book written for teachers which said basically what you've said.  If a   
   student appears to be discouraged, bored, impatient etc. they may be mirroring   
   what they believe they're seeing in *us*... and vice versa.  The onus on us as   
   teachers is to recognize what's happening & make appropriate adjustments.   
      
             Abstract ideas are especially difficult to put into words sometimes.   
   I'm reminded of an incident which occurred when my grade 9/10 band was playing   
   a tango.  I wanted it to sound sensuous, but not being quite as wordly-wise as   
   they thought they were they couldn't understand what I meant... and the more I   
   tried to explain the more frustrated all of us felt.  So I said "Okay, pretend   
   I'm wearing a slinky black dress."  Then, in my sensible tweed suit & sensible   
   shoes, I paraded in front of the class with an exaggerated wiggle of the hips.   
   One of these kids later became a personal friend.  According to his version of   
   the story, the guy next to him exclaimed "Did you see that??  She looks like a   
   streetwalker!"  We agreed that the guy next to him was a space cadet.  Even he   
   seemed to get the message, however, when I acted it out... [chuckle].   
      
      
      
   RW>  A friend of mine however says I'm a very thorough and   
   RW>  patient teacher, but that was in another subject, not the   
   RW>  music.  I"ve come to the conclusion that maybe I can teach   
   RW>  radio theory, or radio operating techniques, etc. but just   
   RW>  am not temperamentally suited to teaching music.  THat fits   
   RW>  too, as I'm the guy who will walk out on a bad performance,   
   RW>  or a musician failing to tune his instrument properly.   
      
      
             When we were younger, Dallas & I often heard somebody's fridge or TV   
   whistling at a very high frequency and level of dissonance.  We'd ask "How can   
   you stand that whistle?"... to which the reply was invariably "What whistle??"   
   People who live and/or work in a noisy environment... including music teachers   
   ... tend to become hard of hearing in later years.  Because you have little or   
   no useful vision I imagine you depend a great deal on hearing to find your way   
   around in strange places & cross roads safely as well as to earn a living.  If   
   you get positive feedback with regard to another subject area, what I see is a   
   thorough & patient teacher with a healthy sense of self-preservation....  :-))   
      
      
      
      
   --- timEd/386 1.10.y2k+   
    * Origin: Wits' End, Vancouver CANADA (1:153/716)