Splendid in Mind and Heart

I took my daughter Rebecca to her first Suzuki workshop this weekend. We had a blast. She had two group classes with a guest teacher, hung around for several other classes to hear some of the older kids play, and participated in her first play-in. She made some new friends, ate pizza, and attended her first violin recital. I went to my first parent-training session as a parent. I grew up in the Suzuki world, and I’ve taught for a number of years, but besides practicing with my child this was my first experience on the parent side of the teacher-parent-student triangle.

The session was refreshing, full of good insights. I was thankful for the teacher’s point that what we are doing is striving to produce noble human beings through the medium of violin lessons. Love and skill are terribly important—we don’t want one without the other. But we shouldn’t lose sight of that first goal, either. It’s not a new idea; Suzuki talked about it a lot. In fact, I had already pulled out the following quote to share with you before the weekend, and now I’m sure I was on the right track:

     The mother of one of my students came one day to inquire about her son. This student had good musical sense, practiced very well, and was a superior child.

     “Sensei [Professor], will my boy amount to something?” the mother asked me, just like that.

     I answered laughingly, “No. He will not become ‘something.’
     It seems to be the tendency in modern times for parents to entertain thoughts of this kind. It is an undisguisedly cold and calculating educational attitude. When I hear things like this, I want to reply in a joking way. But the mother was alarmed and surprised by my answer.
     So I continued, “He will become a noble person through his violin playing. Isn’t that good enough? You should stop wanting your child to become a professional, a good money earner. This thought is concealed in your question and is offensive. A person with a fine and pure heart will find happiness. The only concern for parents should be to bring up their children as noble human beings. That is sufficient. If this is not their greatest hope, in the end the child may take a road contrary to their expectations. Your son plays the violin very well. We must try to make him splendid in mind and heart also.”

from Nurtured by Love: The Classic Approach to Talent Education by Shinichi Suzuki

More Things in Heaven and Earth

I often think that I want my children to be happy. But actually, I want a lot more than that for them.  I want something deeper, more complex; in the end something harder to want.

My seven year-old came downstairs last night in tears, so upset she could hardly tell me what was wrong. It finally came out that she was crying because of the death three years ago of a family friend. We had visited this dear woman several times during the time that we were living near her, and spending time with her clearly left an impression. I’m so glad my children got to know her and love her, and I’m so thankful that the relationship touched my daughter so deeply. But the experience brought sadness, too.  The sorrow my daughter felt stemmed from all sorts of things: the loss of a relationship, the awareness of the passage of time, the inevitability of death. I’m not sure happiness knows about these things. Joy does. Joy lives in the midst of them and overcomes them.  Happiness skims the surface of life.  Joy knows the deeper things and is glad to have them, even when having them brings sorrow.

One last beautiful bit from Beyond Words: Mystical Fancy in Children's Literature by James E. Higgins:

Writers like Macdonald, Hudson, Saint-Exupéry, Tolkien, Lewis, and others are men stunned by the awesome beauty of the universe, and yet they are forever in their stories trying to capture hints of this magic wonder. They are men alone, separated as they are from their fellows by their knowledge of how little they really know. They are men with strong appetites for the wonderful. They are sad men, too, knowing as they do, how difficult it is to satisfy the appetites of the heart. The sadness that pervades their books is the joyful sadness of mortal men reaching for the immortal.

And later:

The child himself undoubtedly will never be aware of the part that such stories may play in the process of his education. And yet, perhaps while reading Hamlet in later years, or upon seeing it performed, some distant echo will help him to know exactly what the Prince means when he says to his friend:

There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.

Let's Dance, or How to Host a Bacchanal

The holidays are past, and everything is new and bright with resolution. But it’s cold outside—really cold this year, in our area. Pretty soon we’ll find ourselves in the middle of a soul-crushingly long stretch of winter. I’m learning to dread the month of February. So often the kids are sick, I’m worn out, and everybody is stir-crazy. Actually, worn out doesn’t begin to describe how I feel; I’m usually just about to the point where I think I should have become a hermit.

The past few winters, the kids and I have noticed that good, loud music really helps. And dancing. Wild, unabashed, how-am-I-going-to-explain-this-to-the-doctor-in-the-emergency-room-dancing. The kids are experts, and I’m…well, I’m relearning.

There’s lots of good music out there for wild dancing, but I really don’t think you can beat a huge orchestra. Classical music does not deserve the staid and stuffy reputation it seems to have in some circles. Here are the top five stereo-blasters at our house:

5. Mars, the Bringer of War, from “The Planets”, Gustav Holst
4. Scheherazade, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov
3. Infernal Dance of King Kashchei from “The Firebird”, Igor Stravinsky
2. Ride of the Valkyries from “Die Walküre”, Richard Wagner
1. Danse Bacchanale from “Samson & Delilah”, Camille Saint-Saens (the kids don’t know what a bacchanal is, but they’ve got the energy level down pat)

So move the furniture out of the way, clear the floor, and have at it!

The Mother Tongue Method

Shinichi Suzuki based his method of teaching violin on the revelation that Japanese children learn to speak Japanese. That’s obvious, right? But if you’ve spent time living in another country and struggled with speaking a foreign language like he did, that’s a significant thing. Suzuki lived in Germany as a young adult, and he struggled with his pronunciation. In his book, Ability Development from Age Zero (Suzuki Method International), he wrote about the German children who tried to help him pronounce “r”:

They would tell me to put my tongue down, not to touch the roof of my mouth, and with an open mouth say RRR as they did. Always instead of RRR, I ended up saying AAA.

Later, back in Japan, it struck him how well children learn to speak their mother tongue:

“Of course they do…It’s nothing to be surprised about,” is what people say to me with skeptical eyes. However, for me it was an enlightening thought. Five and six year old children speak Japanese easily. They speak the difficult dialects of their respective areas such as the Osaka, Aomori, and Kagoshima dialects without any problem. They have the talent to catch the delicate nuances of the Osaka dialect and the ability to master the nasal pronunciation of Aomori and Akita dialects. I was astounded; this ability is no small accomplishment. The children show such a high level of educational possibilities.

It’s not the only thing in teaching, but it seems like a really simple, really valuable point. Kids will pick up on what’s around them. In order to learn violin, you must have specific instruction. But if you combine that specific instruction with a whole atmosphere of music—listening to it, responding to it, dancing to it, just hearing it—you greatly amplify what you are learning.

This applies to more than just music. My three year-old does not know how to read yet. But she has learned, without anybody actually telling her, that books are pretty much essential to life. She loves her dolls and stuffed animals, but if you put her to bed without a book you’ve going to have a hard time getting her to sleep. After all, everybody else brings a book to bed—it’s as standard as a pillow in our house. That gave me a lot of hope during the year or so that she was too busy to ever sit on my lap and listen to a book. Between that and the fact that she is a third child, she hasn’t gotten nearly as much read-aloud time as her older brother and sister. But she is still growing up in a family where books are a way of life, and I can already see that counts for a lot.

Kids will pick up on what’s around them. There’s tremendous potential in that statement.  How can you put it to use?

Dreaming with your Eyes Wide Open

Okay, I’m a little late with this (I know I’ve already mentioned I have a problem with that), but Katherine Paterson, a hero of mine and many others, was named National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature at the Library of Congress on Tuesday: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/01/05/AR2010010503666.html

In honor of her, I want to share another picture book about a dreamer, but this one’s just a little different. In The Wide-Awake Princess, Miranda is accused of daydreaming by her nurse, and Paterson makes it clear Miranda is doing the opposite of daydreaming; she is “wide awake with wonder.” Miranda is a princess who was given the gift of being wide awake all her waking hours by her fairy godmother when she was a baby. The people around her are not awake at all; they are self-absorbed and inattentive to the world around them. When her parents die, three nobles take charge, telling her she is not fit to be queen. Miranda, however, is convinced she can learn to be queen, and sets out to do just that.

Miranda has vision. She is tuned in to the world around her, and can see things as they are. More than that, though, she can see that the way things are is all wrong, and she is able to imagine both the world made right and a way to right it. And right there is why I think Miranda actually fits into the dreamer category—vision and imagination. The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language lists three possible meanings in its definition of “dreamer”, the first two being “1. One that dreams.", and "2. a. A visionary. b. An idealist.” Dreaming is great as a pastime, but it can be so much more than that.  Imagination by itself is a good and right thing, but it is also necessary for creating, for leading, for making change. Miranda is certainly not lost in her daydreams, but I think she’s a fine example of a dreamer, and I think this book is a superb book for other dreamers.

Good Stuff

I've been reading this great little book I stumbled across at the library.  It's so full of gems I could easily quote the whole book to you.  Beyond Words: Mystical Fancy in Children's Literatureby James E. Higgins clearly takes children's literature seriously, especially books of "mystical fancy", books that take their reader beyond the physical world around him or her "in order to lay bare those realities which are imperceptible to the physical senses."  He goes on to write about George MacDonald, W. H. Hudson, Antoine de Saint-Expery, C. S. Lewis, and J. R. R. Tolkien.  It's a little book, but there's so much good stuff in it.  Here's a sample:

If the works of men like Clemens and Stevenson say anything at all to modern writers, it is that the author must write about and for the children he knows, for it is these children alone that he is able to love and respect; it is these children alone who are alive and unique, who are flesh and blood, and therefore who are able to come alive again in print.  W. H. Hudson wrote for the little boy he knew best--himself as a child.  But, since he was no ordinary boy, his book perhaps will not appeal to ordinary boys, nor should this be expected of it.  A book, especially a book for children, should be judged not by the number of readers attracted to it, but by the quality of experience enjoyed by those readers who are attracted to it, however small the number may be.

"A book, especially a book for children, should be judged not by the number of readers attracted to it, but by the quality of experience enjoyed by those readers who are attracted to it, however small the number may be."  Wow.  No doubt he's an idealist, but I agree completely.

Like the Smell of Crayons

Do you remember the first time you caught a whiff of a box of crayons or a lump of Play-Doh as an adult? For me, it brought back a flood of feelings and memories—feelings of familiarity, warmth, safety, images of the stack of coloring books on a shelf in the sunroom, the kitchen table covered with bits of Play-Doh and plastic tools for working with it and molding it, and the dreams I dreamed while I colored and drew and shaped things with my hands.

Well, I had the same experience with an opera. When I was a kid, my musician-parents made a real effort to bring my sister and me along with them to many of their jobs. We accompanied them at various times to all kinds of rehearsals, dress rehearsals and performances. It was something I enjoyed a lot, especially the operas and ballets, but it was also just a way of life. I never considered that maybe this was an unusual way to grow up.

Then as an adult one summer, I played in the pit orchestra for Engelbert Humperdink’s “Hansel and Gretel”. I hadn’t thought about or heard the opera for years, but it was one that my parents played and brought us to a number of years in a row. And it was like that first adult whiff of a box of crayons. So many emotions and images came flooding back, old and forgotten but familiar. Not only that, but I finally understood why my response to the music of Wagner, Mahler and Bruckner was, “I knew this stuff existed!” Humperdink’s music is very similar, and there’s no doubt it informed my musical tastes.

I think this is a great introduction to opera for kids. The story is familiar (but some productions can be very dark, I would caution you to preview this if you can), the music is fantastic, and the words are often sung in English instead of German. We don’t live in a big city any more, and opportunities to take my own children to things like this are limited. But with the help of Interlibrary Loan and our university library, I am working to give them a similar experience to the one I had. Maybe someday they’ll have that “box of crayons” moment themselves.

This One's Just for Me

Forgive me for going slightly off-topic.  I figure a dreamer can always use more reading material, and Medieval Bookworm is hosting a Tournament of Reading.  The idea is that between January 1st (have I mentioned I'm late for everything?) and December 31st, 2010, you take the challenge to read more medieval literature (500-1500) and try for one of three levels:

Peasant--3 medieval books of any kind

Lord--6 medieval books, at least 2 from each category

King--9 medieval books, at least 2 from each category

Categories include history, medieval literature and historical fiction. 

I've had Parzival (Penguin Classics) by Wolfram von Eschenbach sitting on my bedside table for quite a while now.  I think it's time to stop trying to slog through the introduction and dig in!

Here's how I got excited about Parzival, by the way (hey--I'm not as off-topic as I thought!):

This was a read-aloud with the kids for history a while back.  I'm not sure who enjoyed it most--I'm a big fan of Katherine Paterson.

So I signed up--because clearly I don't have enough to do, right?  I'm trying for Lord level--I'll try to keep you posted from time to time.  If you want to join me you can sign up here.

This is Not a Post about Resolutions

I have to confess: I am a mom who stopped reading parenting books quite a long time ago. Not that wonderful advice can’t be found inside the pages of this or that book, but I found myself getting tied up in knots trying to always do the Right, Perfect, Best thing. It turns out I’m not the greatest parent when I’m obsessing over trying to be The Greatest Parent. So the last thing I want to do on a blog is to appear to be declaring, “Look at us! We are the perfect, beautiful family and we have it all figured out! Be like us and you will be HAPPY. Be like us and all your problems will be SOLVED!”

I’m learning as I go. I’m learning to look closely at who we are as a family and as individuals and respond to that more than I respond to that nagging little voice that says, “So-and-so has been taking ballet lessons since she was four. Your kids should be doing that. Sports are important. Your kids should spend more time doing that. You need to be doing more blank, blank, and blank.” I’ve been working on playing more to my children’s strengths and interests. Academics are still very important, but once we’re done with math, for example, I want my kids to be able to really focus in on their areas of interest, because chances are they were made to be something other than mathematicians.

So we color more, now. We sing our math facts. We take breaks and dance. We process information by writing and drawing.

All our time spent with The Nutcracker Ballet before Christmas had an interesting effect. Our kids know the music really well. They know the story. They know that an artist in pretty much any discipline can take an idea and make it their own, that a person can use the same story to say different things. They are familiar with what ballet looks like in comparison with other forms of dance. They also have beautiful music and images running through their heads. (I know because bits of music and dance break through to the surface at odd moments—at the dinner table, at bedtime, at an antique store much too close to breakable glass objects.) This is the kind of education I love.

So my goal here is not to say, “You must read this book! You must be more artsy! Be like us and all your problems will be SOLVED!” I don’t want to offer any resolutions for you to make this year. I just want to say, “Did you know this stuff is out there?” Because we’re pretty excited about it.

Something Old, Something New...

My husband and I had a great gig on Christmas Eve. We were hired to play two church services as part of an ensemble that included string quintet, flute, oboe, two trumpets, timpani, organ and choir. We played traditional carols, a few newer carols by John Rutter, and a Haydn mass. The services were traditional and beautiful, and they really captured the sanctity of the evening. And they got me thinking about tradition and relevance.

“Silent Night” was new once. So was “Away in a Manger”. There were times when most things we consider traditional were new and modern—the latest thing. They struck a chord with people and were used over and over, into a time when they were no longer part of the vernacular. Do they lose relevance once they are not in the same language as our day-to-day communication? Does difference automatically mean irrelevance?

It seems to me that traditions can be used either to draw people in or to alienate them. How do you make sure it’s one but not the other? Sometimes the jolt of a something unfamiliar invites people to see differently, more deeply, from a different angle. And sometimes when we strive for relevance we end up flattening things, losing the heights and depths of a piece of art in the name of accessibility. Then again, traditions can get stale and lose their effectiveness. We may forget the meaning behind them, or find them so foreign we don’t know where to begin to understand them. Sometimes artists shed new light on something by increasing accessibility. When Dante took a serious subject and wrote it in his common language of Italian instead of Latin he was doing a groundbreaking thing.

“Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue.” A tradition in itself—but why do you think a bride is often encouraged to include each of these on her wedding day? Should we throw out the old for the new, or vice versa? Why should we limit art to one or the other when the importance is the truth at the core? Some mediums will work, others won’t, at any given moment. At another time it may take a different medium—a different language, a different color, a different tune, a different setting, to best communicate what an artist is trying to say. Personally, I get frustrated with some of the arguments about relevance—I think it is a side issue. What we want is to awaken, to shed light, to invite a person to travel deeper into truth. And I don’t think labels like “traditional”, or “progressive”, or whatever, necessarily guarantee or deny that goal.