Why professional development?
Perhaps one of the most difficult things about being a teacher is remembering to be a learner as well. It is very easy for teaching to become a mechanical routine with lessons always following the same pattern.
This sort of teaching may produce acceptable exam results from your students but is unlikely to enable them to become musically independent, which is the real goal of effective teaching.
A range of skills
Playing an instrument successfully involves the development of a range of skills including: music-reading; aural perception; manual dexterity; hand-eye co-ordination; as well as an understanding of the music itself, the composer, the period or style, the instrument etc. Learning to play an instrument is the process of acquiring these skills and the necessary knowledge and understanding to shape an expressive and communicative performance.
Creatures of habit
Human beings are creatures of habit. We acquire and develop patterns of behaviour to enable us to live our lives at a slightly reduced level of consciousness! For example, we get up each morning, wash and dress and go to work without having to think too hard about all of our actions, we function on auto-pilot. That mode is ideal for repetitive tasks and we have even adapted it to deal with some very sophisticated tasks as well. Take, for instance, driving the car. Here we often talk to passengers, listen to the radio, look at the view and take in traffic information simultaneously.
Teachers as learners
Teaching should be different. Here we need not only to communicate information to the learner but also to help them assimilate and consolidate this new information and transform it into their own knowledge and understanding. Teachers need to be sensitive to the needs of learners and this means that teachers need to continue being learners themselves.
Refresh and enrich
Instrumental and singing teaching has a vital role to play in music education today and the teachers who work in this field are an invaluable part of the music education profession. Working within an ever-changing environment with new developments and initiatives on local, national and international levels, it is increasingly important for teachers to keep abreast of the latest thinking and to refresh and enrich their professional skills and knowledge.
Essential professional development
Instrumental and singing teachers often manage busy, demanding schedules with sometimes little or infrequent opportunity to meet up with colleagues; they can miss out on the networking, training and stimulation found within other professions. As a result, more and more teachers are recognising that some form of structured professional development is essential.
Richard Crozier
Director of Professional Development