Friday Feast

[Abner]

Also @Glisten, I'm concentrating my music teaching on teaching adults and children who are moderately to severely disabled, physically, intellectually and psychiatrically for 2 reasons, one is that learning as in studying something is a vital coping mechanism for human beings, and we always underestimate that ability in disabled people, the other is that music study rewards one with passion and is excellent for brain development.

Teaching people with disabilities teaches you a lot about pedagogy, and the need to be flexible while also setting realistic boundaries. 

I just had a student ring and say she's feeling very depressed to which I replied "Do what you can of the revision, it doesn't matter if you don't get it all done.  When we have the lesson on Wednesday whatever you haven't done I'll set week and the week after...and we can use the rest of the lesson to tidy up the bits you're not yet understanding.

I'm very impressed because this woman has ADHD as well as schizophrenia and anxiety disorder, and together we've been able build her a neural pathway for studying, it took a long time and patience on both our parts, but she now gets into her study and practice doing a bit in morning and a bit in the afternoon, then some in the evening is what works for her...and she's doing well.  Even if she doesn't get to do a full hour, she's done at least half an hour or 40 minutes through the day.

[Glisten]

@Abner  as a woman with ADHD dyslexia, anxiety & depression. What you are doing is wonderful 😊

My whole extended family are musicians, singers or sound engineers.

My cousin and I are the only ones who aren’t or don’t 😁

[Abner]

@Glisten , I know because I've seen people do this.  All too easily people confuse disability with inability.  Even people with learning disabilities are able to learn, all human beings have survived partly by learning.  So the barrier isn't the disability, it's the lack of interest in finding the way they learn, which is the way to develop their own neural pathways for studyiing; and everyone's neural pathways are different from everyone else's.

Part of being a good teacher is being flexible to your students' learning needs without sacrificing the quality of your services. 

However because teachers are also human beings, we're also lazy, so when we see someone with a disability we don't see an opportunity to develop our skills as teachers we just see someone who doesn't fit "the formula". 

There's a saying we used to say in the 70s "There are lots of ways to skin a cat". It means think outside the box, that student's neural pathways are theirs, not yours, our job as their teachers is to help them develop their learning skills, their methods and themselves, not our resumés.

We become better teachers by teaching people who push our boundaries and make us question why we have them.  Pedagogy, the art of teaching, is a very interesting subject and there ate people specialise in it

[Appleblossom]

Loving your discussion about pedagogy, ability, differently abled and learning.... And MUSIC! @Abner good on you. Very aligned with my thinking.

Nup. Not Friday.... absent minded critter here 

@Gibbs @Glisten @TAB @Adge and all 

[Glisten]

@Appleblossom  😂 🫶🏻