Working with students requires you to occupy three places on the timeline.
First, you have the past – what they needed when you started working with them. When this school year started, students needed love, psychological safety, and routine.
Second, you have the present – what they need today to be ready for tomorrow. At this point in the school year, I’m looking to the immediate future of concerts and recordings, and planning my rehearsals accordingly. We have built rapport and success out of what they needed and can now focus on what they need.
Third, you have the future – what they will need when the future becomes the present. That might be the meta skills that will help them succeed in life, or specific tools for the future. When I look forward to next school year, I know that what they will need in the fall of 2022 is very different than what they needed in the fall of 2021.
Carrying these three times in your head can be exhausting, and they can be at odds with each other. I have students who would like to arrive now at what they will need next fall: but we can’t easily get there today from where we started the year based on what they needed then. We just keep balancing the three and doing our best to stay present – and in the present.