I have really enjoyed reading the posts to this thread, and as I would someday love to teach guitar, I will probably print this whole thread out for future reference, just to remind myself of the good and bad of all teachers.

I have never taught music, but I have been a flight instructor, with multiple hundreds of hours of instruction given. After a few lessons I hit on a phrase that seemed to help students grasp keeping us right-side-up. I told them that learning to fly was half science, half art. They had to get the science down or the art would never come. But, you never want to fly like a scientist - you want the plane to be your instrument or brush or pen or whatever. We would go out, practice the science, and then just see what the plane could do (within limits!). Now the connection between "science and art" is much more evident in music than flying, but it seems to me that if the student is made aware early on that the "art" or fun of music depends wholly on the "science" or rote aspects of it, then the enducement to practice would be easier.

I, too, am the victim of a music instructor who was in the job for the money. Now, some 30+ years later, I am going to go to a fine professional to give me what I hungered for all those years ago. While I will never probably be good enough to give advanced lessons, I hope to get good enough to introduce students to the science and art of guitar, with the hopes that they will blow right on past my skill level and move on to a professional instructor who can turn them in to lovely free-flying musicians.

Thanks, all.

Freightdawg