ERIC TAN BOON KIAT

REA130012
MIRROR, MIRROR ON THE WALLHOW DO I HELP MY STUDENTS TO BECOME
BETTER MUSICIANS?
This article, written by Katherine Sinsabaugh, is about her role as teacher and her
teaching method especially in todays generation and technology era. She mentioned that when
she was learning from her teacher, she used to imitate her teacher in front of the mirror on her
viola playing. Today, she does the same to her student but with the use of an i-pad. To her the
purpose of recording her students is to establish fun ways to evaluate their work during class.
Through that, she discovered some little things that helped her students improve.
The point that spoke the most to me is that she discovered that laying the basic is
important to enable students to take risks. It is important to the basic which in this case was not
the basic technique of an instrument but to instill confidents in her students by ways of
encouraging them during class. Furthermore, step-by-step means layered teaching. She suggested
teaching students little by little rather than throwing every ideas to the students enable the
students to generate more interest in learning. These are the example of points that she gave in
her article.
The rest of her points in the article are actually all positve ideas such as rewarding the
students so on so forth. The question that came to my mind ponders upon the opposite. To be
honest, we are more familiar with teachers that are harsh.Where did the method of teaching that
incorparates a lot scolding, beating and discouragement come from? Is truly a good method to
push students beyond their limits like the one in the movie Whiplash?

As a conclusion, my stand on an educator is the ability to balance between being nice and
being harsh. To me, an excellent educator must be able to analyse his or her students and the
situation to be able to carry forward any method of teaching.