'Guest'...are you a teacher? a parent?

I teach early childhood music classes. My students range in age from 3 months (or sometimes younger) to 3 years of age. They are accompanied by mom, dad, grandparent, or nanny.

Last week I finished teaching my last session for the year. I was teaching over 90 children a week. Many people have already reserved spots for the fall session.

There are many factors to creating and maintaining interest in the programme. Some of them, off the top of my head, would be:

Teacher's proficiency in both music and education
Teacher's enthusiasm
Flexibility
Goal-setting
Teaching the attending adult as well as the child
Administration support and planning
Word of mouth and community advertising

I have been doing this for over a decade. I have the best job in the whole world. My families tell me over and over that they are singing and making music at home, in the car, at the cottage, before bedtime....the spillover effect.

Very young children soak music like sponges. They love to hear the sounds of different instruments. They respond to predictable phrase lengths with predictable surprises (tickles, spins...). I have seen babies actually demonstrate the knowledge of high/low/fast/slow/up/down/quiet/loud contrasts before the age of one. Demonstrate via voice, movement, and sometimes even by how they will play a percussion instrument such a pair of sticks or a drum or a shaker.

You can't fool a young child. If they are with you they are with you. If they aren't, they aren't.

You can't fool a (registering, paying) grownup,either. If they and their child like you, they'll be back, with a friend. If they don't, they're not going to come back just because they happen to think music is a good thing for their child.

Oh, one more thought this morning...
I don't believe that music should be taught to young children primarily for what the child will get out of it in the future (math skills, or orchestra job, for example). I believe that music should be taught to young children primarily because of what it does in the present tense, because the fact that babies and young children respond to and obviously LOVE music, is a good enough reason on its own to make it a part of their lives now.

Secondarily, it can enhance early learning in other areas of their lives, present tense. For instance, my daughter was born with a language-based learning disability and music was one of the major tools in helping her learn how to communicate.

I could go on and on....I am passionate about this topic!

~b.w.