Time Management: Own it and be free!

Time is finite. It is one of the most important constants in life. How we use our time and prioritize greatly affects our behaviour, choices, and quality of life. I think time management is one of the most important life skills one can learn and own; and I try to integrate it into my teachings and lessons with all my students regardless of their age.

Since young, I honestly have a very poor concept of time; if I don’t have a phone or clock with me, I lose track of all time. But what I’ve really achieved over the years is being able to manage my time at a high level and work around my weaknesses. There are usually too many excuses for not completing a task etc. I get asked quite often on how I’m able to manage so many different things at once yet still have the time to relax and chill. It takes years to build that skillset; I strongly believe that we all have much more time than we think if we prioritize.

When we create awareness and develop skillsets on time management, we achieve these in the process:

1. Prioritization
   - Learn to filter out what’s most important at any given point of time regardless of its significance.

2. Efficiency
   - Learn to make the best out of every situation within a limited time frame.

3. Respect & Ownership (This is huge)
   - Self-respect and respect for other people’s time can bring you far in your life in all aspects; personal, social, career.
   - Owning this life skill and the regulating the processes leading up to it will be beneficial for life.

Just like music, when you understand the fundamentals and structure of rhythm, pulse, groove and how it flows in the bigger picture of the music, only then can you truly be free with time. This is the same for life. I’m always thinking of ways to incorporate these life values into our music lessons. I constantly go through different charts, writings, and drawings with my students; for them to understand their own time and life better.

Music is a medium to channel those values. Kids are sponges, whether they absorb or own the knowledge is up to them. But we teachers have a duty to shine light on paths or thoughts that they might not know, so that they can make better decisions in their own lives. I think that’s the true purpose of education. Knowledge opens up endless pathways. (A topic for another day)

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We usually narrow down a student’s busiest day of the week, so that we can see exactly how much more “free time” there is despite the chaos. Students would often realize that they have a lot more time than they think when you can visually* dissect and assign priorities accordingly.

*24hour bar/pie/ cake chart varies accordingly to students’ timetable and needs

Once we establish how much time could be allocated to practicing, we further narrow down what are the problematic areas to work on during that session. You train your mind to work more efficiently when you can filter out what’s most important to work on when practicing. Mindless practicing gets you nowhere. The allocated time could be used for both physical, and/or mental practicing, and I’m a strong advocate for the latter. Mental practicing takes a lot more effort; it is harder to teach that, but it works wonders overtime if the student persists as well.

Having short attention spans aren’t an issue if you know how to work around it. Some of my students have 7-8 mins attention span or less, and I fully empathize coz I’m like that too. Don’t make students feel less of themselves just because they cannot focus. There are always underlying reasons for certain behaviours. We must figure out ways to embrace and empower that instead; bringing light to how they can manage their own practice time with certain tools (e.g. alarm) and reminders (writing down these charts and pointers). Overtime, these can slowly shift behaviours and mindset.

Learning to manage my time is probably one of the most positive life skills I’ve acquired as it has a ripple effect on other parts of my life and work that needs to be managed as well. Personally, alarms and Google Calendar have been the best tools that I use. Since I have a poor concept of time, I pre-set the alarms throughout the day according to the different tasks needed to be completed so that I really get things done within that time frame; be it admin, teaching, or miscellaneous work. This might seem intense, but it really works for me! =) The altMBA experience last year had further enhanced this prioritization and making time for chillaxation is crucial for me.

When older students like these express how they’ve benefitted from our time management lessons, it really energizes me to continue what I do daily, so thank YOU students for being the light and fuel of my teaching and learning journey.

I would highly encourage all teachers to incorporate these time management lessons into your teachings: it aligns students on what’s important to focus on for their practices, giving them the tools they need to start efficient practices and in turn, you’ll see improvements in their playing!

Happy teaching! <3

Dealing with low self esteem

I’ve come across many young students who are hesitant to even start playing on their instruments during lessons. It may seem that they are looking for all sorts of excuses to avoid playing and if we are not mindful enough, we could just easily classify them as “rascals/rebels”. However, I’ve come to realize over the years that most of them behave this way due to a similar root of the problem: A very low sense of self esteem.

This comes out in many different forms in my students, namely: 1) Extremely negative towards situations 2) Beating themselves up in every possible way 3) Easily anxious 4) Does not persist long enough to find a solution to a problem

It’s a very long journey in guiding kids with low self esteem, but I have seen some of them transformed overtime, even if they have stopped learning music. What has worked so far for them and myself is to constantly pen down their thought process and draw them out. Visualizations work wonder for kids and anyone who’s receptive to them!

In this particular example, this student is extremely temperamental and has an extremely low sense of self esteem. His most common phrase is “I can’t do it!” When I started to draw out how his brain was working ( he named the wall of negativity “Trump wall” lol..) and broke down the reasons why he thought he couldn’t do it, he was able to see his own thought process clearer. ( He had fun penning these down as well!) Once we sorted these out, he was much more receptive to play on his violin and work through problematic passages. This of course took many months to cultivate the awareness of this mental barrier in him.

The goal is not to change the students, but to at least bring out the awareness of their own problems and to see an improvement through music. We can only do that much within a weekly lesson. The practice of mindfulness needs to build from home and the communication with parents on this is crucial as well.

It’s always a learning journey for myself as well whenever I deal with my students. Growing with them is not an easy path, but definitely a rewarding one when you start seeing more smiles and sparks in their souls <3

Matters of the mind #3

“No that’s an up bow.... No that’s a down bow... down? Down? Yes down, not up!” (Repeats this throughout the lessons)

A problem that a lot of my little ones have: Getting confused with the direction of bowings and the signs for it. After many countless futile attempts of re-phrasing my words throughout numerous lessons, I decided to attach this to the bow and this has worked out for most students after sometime! 🤗

Use a washi tape to tape any paper to the bow so that it does not leave a sticky mark on the bow.

What happens when young ones don’t remember what or where their pinky should be on the bow? You tape a cute paper sticker to it and they remember it for life 😂 It’s actually a lot (sometimes too much) of information for them to remember how the physical mechanisms work when they first start learning an instrument.

It’s important to identify the root of confusion for them and work out a solution around that; while keeping it interesting and fun for them!😄 Try it!

It’s very interesting to see how the human mind responds to different approaches in teaching. Kids are inspiring as they have some of the most creative ideas that you get to learn from as well. What matters most is to find out what works best for every child and the possibilities for solutions are endless, as long as you keep searching!

Matters of the mind #2

Building Confidence

#mattersofthemind

You know the times when we have students who constantly refuses to pick up their instrument to play or try to read their notes, and start to get really distracted and do everything else besides playing their instrument?

“Why are they being so difficult? What’s wrong with them? Why aren’t they listening to us? It’s not that hard to read a few notes, isn’t it?” - thoughts that might run through your mind as you struggle to make the lesson more productive😖

The truth is- a lot of times, WE are not listening to their struggles. Beneath those seemingly “naughty behavior”, there’s an underlying reason that I noticed in a lot of kids pertaining to note reading issues: A lack of confidence. They don’t have enough confidence to deal with a difficulty or are aware of their own behavior as a result of that. (other than the fact that they are just playful)

When you start to draw out or simplify your students’ struggles in words or drawings, things become clearer and they become more receptive overtime. I have tried this with most of my kids who are in similar situations and they have shown improvements as a result, so I would love to share them:

1. Pinpoint the root of the problem and guide the child through his/her own struggles (write/draw it out! Or get them to do it.)

2. Prompt the questions and answers if they are not not able to express themselves accurately

3. Let them know that it’s OK to have these struggles, and we can try our best to overcome it together

4. Giving them the boost in confidence in saying “I can do it!” 10 times in a row can instill the idea to be comfortable with themselves with saying that🤩 (they usually break out laughing by the 6th time, but it does wonders to the brain of a child who’s initially uncomfortable with this idea)

After a certain period of time, you will realize that they start to get better and more comfortable with the difficulty.

When we listen and read our students’ body and verbal language, we can better identify the underlying problems, which usually are mostly #mattersofthemind. We’ll need to be flexible in dealing with the different personalities of our students. No one said it’s going to be an easy process and it is very tedious, but if we hope to see some improvements in the long run for some of our students, try it!🙏🏻

#tryit #buildconfidence #violinlessons #musiceducation #kids #mattersofthemind

Matters of the mind #1

I’ll be having a series of #tryit posts that I would love to share=)

This method has worked so far in reminding my little ones to keep the violin leveled:

To point Mr Strawberry or you-name-it towards the music and not let him, or any other cute characters of their choice fall down🤣😍🤩

1. Get some cute paper sticker bookmarker, or even get them to draw their own characters if they wish!

2. Use washi tape to secure it to the scroll so it doesn’t “damage” it.

3. Monitor the results and see if they have been reminding themselves during their own practice sessions.

Gotta constantly create what works for them individually. Try it!😄

#kids #musiceducation #violinlessons #washitape #tryit