Revealing the Invisible

Most of a Student’s work is invisible. She (or he) will spend 30 minutes at a weekly lesson in front of a teacher with her parent helper and perform her lesson pieces and receive instruction on how to practice for the next session. Here the student is rewarded with praise and affirmation with a supportive parent observing and approving of her work in the class and a believing teacher who is offering encouragement and making honest comments about the work that has been done.

Never underestimate
Then the student goes home and practices for six days with her Home Helper. And the cycle is repeated throughout the year. At recitals a student is offered another chance to showcase her work through her performance and this is highly motivating! Never underestimate the power of recitals to motivate practice!

How do we help the younger student see their work on a daily basis? See it with a sense of accomplishment, and find motivation in the day to day practice between events?

Some Ideas:


Start a Practice Calendar

for every day that a students practices, she rubber stamps or places a sticker on the day! This is one of the oldest forms of making the invisible visible! After a month has gone by look over all of the markers for her work and praise her!

A system of accomplishment can be set up as well that will reward with achievement medals different levels of practice, for instance after 30 days of continuous practice there is a 30 day recognition award given to the student at the recital. This is great because is rewards with recognition, persistence and consistency, not simply memorization or facility.


Coloring Sheets

Other ways to mark the practice is to create sheets of 50 and 100 marks, that represent repetitions on practices and then hanging these in the studio or the home practice space. The pages can be a fill in the dots to make pictures, or simply color in different pictures with 50 - 100 spots to fill in!

Quilting

One parent had the fantastic idea of creating a practice quilt that marks certain accomplishments in a lasting way.

And these are simply a few of the ways that we can begin to find ways of Making the Invisible work of daily practice Visible!

See you Tomorrow when we will be discussing the Creative Imagination

With Peace, Love, Hope and Joy,
Ben