{"id":1827,"date":"2014-07-02T17:23:36","date_gmt":"2014-07-03T00:23:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/boykonpiano.com\/?p=1827"},"modified":"2018-03-03T17:24:44","modified_gmt":"2018-03-04T01:24:44","slug":"a-beginner-doesnt-needa-good-teacher","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/boykonpiano.com\/archives\/1827","title":{"rendered":"A Beginner Doesn\u2019t Need\u2026a Good Teacher"},"content":{"rendered":"

In ninth-grade English one day, we were going around the room reading aloud, and I suddenly realized that, with just two exceptions, every good reader in the class had gone to the elementary school I\u2019d attended. More than that, we\u2019d all had the same first-grade teacher. I was impressed that the difference she made was still obvious eight years later!<\/p>\n

There was something else unusual about her, as I learned when she wrestled one day with the \u201copaque projector.\u201d This device let her project a page of a book for the whole class to see; but I noticed it needed three hands to operate: one hand to pull down the spring-loaded tray that held the book up against the optics; and two hands to work the book into the right position in the tray.<\/p>\n

I volunteered that a strap could be made to hang down from the tray-handle, with a wooden pedal at the floor; and thus she could use her foot to pull down the tray. The unusual part of this story was her response, which was to ask the custodian to make this device, which he promptly did; and then to use it and thank me for inventing it. We can all imagine\u2014or rather, we don\u2019t need to imagine\u2014what a typical adult response might have been: some version of \u201cGet lost, kid.\u201d But she, by contrast, contributed something wonderful to my education. I\u2019m still grateful more than half a century later.<\/p>\n

So here was this most unusual teacher, conveying the crucial skill of reading to everyone, and at the same time welcoming an individual student\u2019s creative idea. Whenever I hear parents of piano students say, \u201cHe\u2019s only a beginner, so he doesn\u2019t need a good teacher,\u201d I think of my first-grade teacher, Sarah Steinem.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In ninth-grade English one day, we were going around the room reading aloud, and I suddenly realized that, with just two exceptions, every good reader in the class had gone to the elementary school I\u2019d attended. More than that, we\u2019d all had the same first-grade teacher. I was impressed that the difference she made was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/boykonpiano.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1827"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/boykonpiano.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/boykonpiano.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/boykonpiano.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/boykonpiano.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1827"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/boykonpiano.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1827\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1828,"href":"http:\/\/boykonpiano.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1827\/revisions\/1828"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/boykonpiano.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1827"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/boykonpiano.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1827"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/boykonpiano.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1827"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}