desire of the childish

On the guitar listserv, to which I belong, the most recent thread deals with teaching children guitar technique. A simple request for advice on choosing a published curriculum, elicits infinite conflicting posts on teaching philosophies. An amazing observation is that many of the ideas that are submitted are backed up by decades of teaching children and observing what brings about the desired results. Of course the next round of posts invariably are an argument that you are mistaken, because I do it quite differently and my way brings about the desired results. What very few ever seem to recognize is that the reason differing teaching techniques are preferred to by different teachers is that differing results are desired.
Does one start a child with rest-stroke or free stroke? Of course you start with rest-stroke because it is easier to produce a good sound and a good sound provides positive feedback for the child and he will be more motivated to continue. Of course you start a child with free-stroke because it is more versatile and a student can be quite successful with it if it’s introduced in the context of diads and triads. But children aren’t interested in harmony, they are essentially melodic. And it goes on and on.
Of course if you’ve stayed with me this far, you’re saying, “c’mon Rod this is non-sense and I’m not the least bit interested in this stuff.” Of course, that’s my point exactly. Are we trying to teach a child to play rest and free strokes? Or guitar? Or to make music? What child comes to the guitar to learn free-stroke and rest-stroke? What child deserves to be data collected for some teacher’s argument in an on-line forum? It is my experience that children respond to music and are drawn to an instrument to learn to make music. All that stroke stuff is just something that’s got to be done to get the music made. Or maybe it’s that once the child begins to make music, he will gladly embrace the practice of the details that make the music more beautiful.
What causes us grown-ups to get hung up on something short of the goal? What should be a means becomes an end. The end is ignored or forgotten about. Those under our tutelage or influence lose interest and we set about finding a new approach to the means that will recapture their attention.
This must be a basic human quirk. But how can we feel so passionately about something that we eventually lose sight of it? How can we be so caught up in technique and methods and procedures that we forget what end they serve. Often we so completely lose sight of our purpose that we institute procedures that have nothing whatever to do with the purpose. Then we judge the outcome based on performance of the procedures rather than the desired results.
Of course, I’m not talking about guitar teaching here. I so rarely rant about guitar playing on this blog.

Whoever becomes simple and elemental again, like this child, will rank high in God’s kingdom

Matthew 18:4 the message