Guitar Lessons Tulsa | Education in Teaching Students

This content was created for Curtis Music Academy

 

All right. For this next topic we’re going to be talking about why is my education helpful for teaching students? There’s a few ways that I see this. One is education doesn’t just mean college education. Education is experience. You know, education is something you’ve learned by virtue of experience. And so I’ve, in that case, I’ve had lots of education when it comes to guitar and being a guitar teacher, not only a guitar teacher but teaching guitar lessons Tulsa and Tulsa, you know, is a big, there’s a lot of education there, you know, so if you don’t know it, you can’t take someone there, right? If you’ve never been there, you can’t take someone else there. So you’ve got to go a lot of places, right? 

 

You’ve got to, you know, if you have a student in guitar lessons Tulsa that wants to, you know, make money playing guitar and you’ve never done that, try playing a few gigs yourself. You know? Have you ever thought of that? And if you haven’t, why not? If you haven’t played a gig, was it because you didn’t feel like you were good enough? You know, ask questions. So we’re talking, why is my education helpful for teaching students? Point one, education helps the instructor to be a better instructor, right? It helps the student to learn. 

 

So Edric my education has helped me become, helps me, you know, as an instructor, I started, you know, five, six years ago and I started teaching music, right? But I didn’t discontinue any education. I didn’t discontinue, you know, you know, playing gigs. I didn’t just continue playing for church churches. I didn’t just continue traveling, playing music and things like that. I didn’t just continue that. And so I continued my education and, it made me as an instructor then become a better instructor for now. You know, so continuing education, education never stops. Let’s just say that, you know, if you can develop a passion for learning, you’re never, never going to stop. Right? So, but it also, it helps the student in guitar lessons Tulsa to learn. 

 

Right? Your, the whole point is you’re a mentor of sorts. As an instructor in guitar lessons Tulsa, you’re teaching students so that they can go further, faster, right? They don’t have to take all the, the hits, the, they didn’t have to go through all the learning experiences you did necessarily maybe any of the hard learning experiences that you had to make, right? You can teach them or the results that you got. And by teaching them the results, they don’t actually have to go through all the work that you did. They just have to do what you, you know, they just have to take what you learned from it and run with it, right? 

 

And because of that, because of your experience, you can help someone else go further faster. And so that’s the point. The first point, second point is, you know, the best musician can be a terrible teacher, right? So the best musicians, just because you’re really good at something doesn’t mean you’re an excellent or amazing at teaching it in guitar lessons Tulsa. Right? I think a good example of this is, let’s see here. There are a lot of gifted people in the world, right? There are a lot of talented people in the world. And, I was going to say an example, but I think I just kind of, it kind of left my mind.

 

 I went blank there for a second, but let’s just use myself as an as, as a, as an example. So I was a terrible instructor starting off I, I was a good musician, but that, that’s not what made me a good teacher. I think what made me a good teacher was teaching and learning to communicate what I know, you know, communication helped me become a better teacher. T being a teacher assumes that there is communication involved. It assumes communication and it assumes another individual. So communication is really the foundation of teaching guitar lessons Tulsa. And if you don’t know how to communicate, you’re going to have a very difficult time teaching. If you can’t talk, say you were deaf or blind or blind or say you couldn’t, you were mute, you couldn’t talk at all, you didn’t have vocal chords, whatever it was, that’d be horrible and incredibly painful probably. 

 

But let’s just say you couldn’t talk, you were mute and you tried to teach guitar or teach someone how to do something with their hands in guitar lessons Tulsa. You know, it’d be very difficult because you can’t reason with them. You can’t say, Hey, don’t do that. Do this. Right. You’d have to do dramatic motions or you know, have emotion or you’d have to over-exaggerate in other areas through body language to communicate that this is what you want them to do and not that that you did before. So communication is really key when it comes to teaching. And the best musician is not always the best teacher in guitar lessons Tulsa.

 

 So it takes, what does it take to be a good teacher? It takes good communication skills, you know? Understanding the other’s perspective and what would help them may help. What makes sense? You know, when they’re, when you’re talking to someone, how do, how are they perceiving you and perceiving your words? How are they understanding the words you’re saying? Is it clear enough? Are you being too complicated? Are you going becoming, are you speaking in too much detail or are you using pretty broad. universal language? I think universal language is some of the best language. So, another aspect or another characteristic of a good teacher is being kind, you know, kindness is good in teaching guitar lessons Tulsa. 

 

Kindness, it works. Kindness is effective. And I find that some of the most amazing teachers out there are very kind, you know, they’re very, they have, you know, this grace, they have this grace for you as your going through and learning through the process. Why? Because they understand they’ve been there. They’ll have mercy on you. Why? Because they know, Hey, you know, they’re just learning, right? It’s not the end of the day. It’s not the end of the world if you don’t get this chord right, it’s not the end of the world. If you know, messed up on that scale, it’s not the end of the world if you’re playing a gig and a, you fumbled, you know, another characteristic and a key characteristic when it comes to teaching students is patience. 

 

Patience. Patience is super important because the student will feel very, very bad, bad about themselves already. If they keep messing up and they’re gonna want to speed up the process by trying to do it again, but they lack the understanding of, Hey, sometimes you, you need to slow down. You know? So developing patience with your student as they’re learning, as they’re growing, as they’re making mistakes, as they’re, you know, correcting, you’re helping them correct mistakes. It’s important to be patient because they’re not going to get there as fast as you got there maybe, but you’re trying to help them get there much faster than you did. So kindness, patience and communication, those are very, very key characteristics of being a good teacher. 

 

And then another point is celebrating, you know, encouraging the student and celebrating the successes and which it helps make the student happy, right? Creates happiness in the students. So we want to make our students happy, to make them happy. They’ve got to feel good. You know, they’ve got to feel good about what they’re doing. They’ve got to feel good about, you know, what they’re learning and how they’re sounding. And if they don’t, then they’re not going to be very happy. And so we want to create happy students, we want to create longterm students. And one way you can celebrate their success is by celebrating the little wins. You know, Hey, you nailed that scale the first time. 

 

Hey, you nailed that note the first time. Hey, when I said, can you find me one on the a string. They did it and they did it to right the first time, you know, celebrating the successes, celebrating especially the little successes. Why? Because little successes will lead to big successes and that’s what we’re trying to achieve, right? Big successes. And so the big success may be, Hey, they play a gig and they get paid 100 bucks for it. Well, first, you know, let’s, let’s, along the way, let’s celebrate the little wins. Hey, they nailed that verse. The first time they nailed the intro. They nailed the chorus. Oh my gosh, you nailed the bridge. Oh my gosh. You nailed the whole song. Oh my goodness. You landed the gig. Hey you, you landed the gig. Now we got to play the gig. And they nailed the gig. You know, at the end they received their money and they, they did it. That is success right there.