Giving people choices conveys many benefits in life, and to both or all parties to the equation.
I was happy to learn there is one 2017 research study seemingly relevant to this proposition when it comes to piano lessons. It confirms the benefits of giving choices as enhancing (1) motor learning, (2) motivation, and (3) self confidence. The study was discussed in a recent podcast by psychologist-violinist Noa Kageyama.
The research study he cites, while based on young Brazilian ballet students just over age ten, made particular sense when thinking about my experiences and conclusions regarding piano lessons as a late-life adult.
Interestingly, one of the studies cited by the ballet student researchers, involves dopamine and older age. As Webmd describes, "Dopamine is a hormone and a type of neurotransmitter, or chemical messenger, made in your brain. Your nervous system uses it to send messages between nerve cells. These messages also travel between your brain and the rest of your body. This unique neurotransmitter affects your body, brain, and behavior. Dopamine plays a role in how we feel pleasure and rewards. It's a big part of our unique human ability to think and plan. It helps us focus, work towards goals, and find things interesting." (emphasis added)
Dopamine is a hormone that contributes to our sense of happiness. Sadly, it decreases with normal aging, but when administered (in the form of L-dopa), has been shown to increase memory formation in Parkinson patients and increase motor rehabilitation in stroke patients.
I note that as usual in piano lessons with all of my teachers, I am nearly always the oldest student at age 80, but age -- and the significance of happiness -- never seem to be well understood as a possible reason I may differ from students who are 20, 40, or 60 years younger than me. Frankly, this lack of knowledge and understanding I consider to be part of the ageism of society.
I've blogged before about how unhappiness has affected me in prior piano lessons, leading me to quit after nine months of sometimes helpful lessons with one teacher. I grew increasingly unhappy in not being allowed by this "top down" teacher to take five or ten minutes out of a piano lesson to try a way I thought at the time would help me to learn a particular rhythm or fingering technique (and I was right---three times as proved after lessons by myself, confirmed by a recording and my teacher's positive response!).
Recently I quit another teacher because I was increasingly unhappy, in part with being given only so many "tries" to remember a particular instruction to put my foot down on the sustain pedal before, and not on, the first chord of a particular phrase. In this teacher's case it was "three strikes and you're out" -- and that was the end of their patience and ability to speak to me in a cordial, business-like manner. Admittedly I was already peeved with the teacher who told me I "should be proud of myself - at your age - for as well as you are doing." Trust me, that was NOT a compliment!
When the student is an adult of any age, one has certain professional and life accomplishments under one's belt. Thus, allowing for experimentation within lessons in an easy give and take of ideas plus some flexibility in how the lesson hour is spent, make more sense than for a young student who might need a more structured time and approach.
Of course, no matter the student's age, it's never a simple matter when it comes to piano or instrument lessons. However, it seems particularly fraught for older students and risky for the piano teacher who wishes to retain a student in their teaching cohort for financial or other reasons. I'm not sure an older student will stick around for long if the piano teacher teaches from a "top down" or "traditional Conservatory" teaching paradigm that does not recognize that an older amateur student usually knows best in general how they learn and should be respectfully consulted on that matter, plus usually we put emphasis on enjoyment during lessons rather than solely on speed or productivity.
Noa says "...we (teachers) wouldn’t want our students to form bad habits. So is there a way to reconcile the two? To get some of the benefits of self-directed learning, but with the guidance that allows them to learn new skills the right way from the beginning?"
I think Noa is referring in general to "kids" as he says, and not to late-life adult students. He also does not answer the question he raises, but I hope in a future podcast he will. I also hope he might take care to investigate if there are important differences and meanings of happiness to students in their senior versus in their youthful years.
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