M. Ted,

I read your last post quite a bit ago and have been thinking about it. I decided you are right. And you are also wrong. I think from the teacher's view you are right. I think from a learner's view you are wrong. I am going to comment from the learner's view. I offer my thoughts in the assumption that as someone so committed to teaching, you not only want students to be the best students they can be-- you also want to be the best teacher you can be.

First, I think you have not allowed sufficiently for the differences in how adults and children learn. Adults tend not to learn in a scope-and-sequence pattern, but to fill in gaps in existing knowledge gained throughout their lives.

Second, I think you have not allowed for different learning styles. There are huge differences in how people learn, by sense and structure, and this is partly genetic and partly due to environment (like most everything else). I am sure there are different teaching styles too... but the burden of adjusting style would be on one's teacher, I would think. I would hope a really fine teacher, of any subject, would ferret out how the student learns best, and support that. I would hope the teacher's grasp of the subject were deep and broad and detailed enough that s/he could move around within it to help a variety of students with a variety of styles to move forward as quickly as possible.

Third, I think you have not allowed for the continuous learning process in which people are engaged as adults, whether they mean to be or not. And I think when they DO mean to be, it is a powerful thing to reckon with. Because of this, an enormous amount of theory (in any subject) can be and often is absorbed right along with the practice or other approaches to the material the person is using.

As an example of this latter factor, I can offer my own experience which is that just about any theory with which I have been presented in music, well taught though it was, made no sense to me whatever as presented. This has been true all my life as far as I can remember, and with anyone who has ever tried to "learn me" something. It is only now, through time, my own approach, and the gracious mentoring of people here and there, in small but potent doses, that I can see the theory taking shape in my mind. And now that it is, of course, I can use it deliberately, seek out more of it, and link it up with other known things for best use.

But last and I think most importantly, you have not allowed for what some people call Learning Distress (and more specifically Music Distress)-- these are terms that refer to specific patterns of emotional injury done to people, usually as children, and the lifelong blocks to learning that result unless a healing of those injuries occurs. Once that healing is underway, I think you would be amazed at how fast and flexibly people learn, and how self-directed, energetic, and effective their learning is.

I am not going to start with the assumption that GB has "Learning Distress." But I can tell you that what he describes is the same thing described by people with distress about every kind of learning on which I have ever counseled people. And I can tell you that however well-meant your words are, they can add more injury if there has already been injury.

Human beings, operating in a natural, unhurt way, do not avoid opportunities to learn from good teachers-- they actively seek and engage people who can teach them how to do what they are interested in doing. To treat someone who wants to learn otherwise is like treating a dog with rabies as though it is silly not to want water.

Good teaching is like water, and people thirst for it. Sometimes there are just things in the way, and I find it extremely fine when I see anyone trying to get around those things and learn anyway, because healing of these injuries is not easy and the people who know how to bring it about are few and far between. Music is an especially powerful need and I suppose it can draw us past our worst fears, limitations, and attitudes.

I think that however GB has found he learns best is up to him to evaluate.

Respectfully,

Susan