Calendars, Goals and the BIG Secret About Our Violin Teaching

In this video installment of the Teach with Passion series, you will learn how to teach goal setting and organization to your violin students by using a calendar and working backward.

​Not a teacher? Not a problem, this is still great content to help you streamline your goals and clarify your focus. You will find it especially useful if you are preparing for a performance.

Plus, I also share what I think is the big secret about the work we do as violin teachers:

We are not just teaching the VIOLIN.
​
We are not just teaching MUSIC.

---

We are teaching our students LIFE. That is the “BIG secret” alluded to in the title and more specifically that by teaching our students to have success with their violin skills and musical expression we are sharing with them a template for how to have success in other areas of their life as well. One way we can do this is to set goals and use a calendar to create a plan for how to turn these goals into a reality.

Goals are like GPS coordinates for your dreams.

All of my advanced and older students get a hard copy of a 9 month calendar at the beginning of the school year and we sit down together and write in all of the performances, dress rehearsals, group classes and auditions. Then, we work backwards from this structure to plan in our musical goals in order to best prepare for them and have success.


For my younger or less advanced students, I give them a 3 month calendar in the months preceding our solo recital and do a shorter version of the planning mentioned above.


Print out FREE PDF calendars HERE.


In short, we are using music and the violin to teach our young students how to make their dreams come true and we need to offer them concrete tools in this process. Hardcopies of calendars that are organized by the teacher and student together help both parties clarify goals and create a structure for achieving success in these desired outcomes.