Tuesday, July 14, 2009

Small children on sugar highs should come with a warning. In fact, they do: a slightly manic glint of eye; a somewhat hyperactive turn of phrase.... and a predilection for cully-cully (cuddles with mom). E's lesson this morning was not so productive as last week, but I was impressed by his ability to focus- and to stop and improve a particular skill. Once we got going it was all ok.

Humorously, mum asked me to play "Song of the Wind" (I wrote fingers in her book last week so she can begin to learn it and practise at home). I was a little surprised, thinking "Surely she must have heard it, it's THIRD on their cd!" but all was made clear...just the way she was playing it didn't sound anything like the cd :)

Sometimes I forget just how marvellously clever children are that they can imitate and decide for themselves if the way they're playing is 'correct' or appropriate to the sound they're approximating. I think as adults we forget learning is a process of successive approximations and instead expect our way of doing is correct....until someone shows us the evolutionary steps.

Tonight: back to ballet. I've been scraping the bottom of the barrel for inspiration over te past few days, and it looks like jazz classes will be participating in an MJ tribute, Frankie Wants Out is coming to the rescue for the older tap kids and there'll be a bit of Hilltop Hoods (with deletions) for the senior jazz kids. I even have some vintage Fatboy Slim to bail me out if it's all horribly wrong.

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