When I started teaching I was crazy. No, not crazy as in insane, crazy as uninformed. I thought I was there just to pass on some data. Now, I know I already covered that topic, but bare with me for another sentence or two.
I was crazy because, for example, I crammed everything I knew about Latin beats (about 2,000 hours worth of practice) on one page. One! The second page was just reading. The first one explained everything. Now, the second reason why I was crazy was that I was thinking (not expecting, there’s a difference), I was thinking that someone normally built would be able to do that in about two months.
Like I said: crazy.
During the lessons, I was busy shoving as much knowledge as possible inside the head that came to my studio.
Then came time, then came age, then came experience.
And with that, came a bunch of gifts: patience, observation, understanding, a sense of humor, compassion. Not that I didn’t possess any of those attribute in the first place. I don’t think I would have decided to become a teacher without those. But I slowly understood that I wasn’t the center of the lesson, the student was and is. Meaning this: they drive their learning process much more than me. I have to trust their way of doing things.
So?
So, I am now doing things at different speed. For instance, some students get the rudiments really quickly. We go through pages of them in no time. But they struggle with a steady sense of time. Very well. No need to assume that their gift extends in all directions. We shall go through rudiments with a metronome. When I can compromise, I always do. And it has two effects: I am happy and, more importantly, the student is happy. 