I Shall!

This week I was teaching one of my young and relatively new students.  She has over some weeks now proved to be diligent in practice, which to any teacher is a delight.  Things don’t necessary always come easy or instantaneous for this particular student in a lesson but the subsequent week she always comes back to the lesson having done her homework and conquered that week’s challenges and tasks. 

To many of us the challenge of learning a new skill and actually persisting with it even when faced with adversity is just too much.  This student however has already overcome several hurdles and rewritten habitual actions with consistent application and positive reinforcement.  In actual fact she almost put me to shame this week and I love that!

She has been preparing a duet with a non-flute playing friend.  The friend plays an instrument that doesn’t need air.  Her friend suggested to her that they sustain together the last note of their duet for twice as long as necessary.  This would require my student to have some serious breath and tonal control skills for her young age and early development so I pessimistically or perhaps just realistically suggested she may not be able to sustain for quite that long.  My student then did something I will never forget…..

She thrust her right hand into the air, fist clenched, and decreed “I shall!!”.  The moment was victorious.  I was then and there, just by her instant refute of certain victory, stopped in my tracks.  Who was I to place such a limitation on her.  

I have been thinking ever since – I have a responsibility to teach well and within the scope of realism and practicality, but even then, my own reality or presumption of what is possible or not for my students should not dictate their reality. 

How much of what we can do is already done purely in the thought of possibility before any action is ever taken.  To my and my student’s sheer delight, she held the note for the length of time requested by her duet partner.