How do you measure your success as a teacher?
Maybe it’s in a polished performance. Maybe it’s in mastery of music theory concepts. It could be in tone development, musicality, musical sophistication. These are all things you can assess, at some level or another, as part of your teaching.
But there are ways you are succeeding as a teacher that you might not learn for years – if you ever do.
Not long ago I had lunch with a former student – a solid 15+ years after she graduated high school. She said, “I remember the day you handed me Joni Mitchell’s Blue and said, ‘You have to listen to this.'”
This is a teaching moment in which I succeeded, but for which there was no assessment that could have proven the success. Sometimes the most important teaching moments are unmeasurable. We just have to know what we’re doing, do our best, and then trust that the teaching is doing its job.