#306. “Change The Ending”

by | Mar 24, 2026 | Boonshaft's Blog

Seemingly every day I teach, I realize something I am doing that I need to improve, correct, or completely reimagine. It might be my choice of words, the tone of my voice, my sounding exasperated, how I sequenced the material, my choice of examples, my rushing the process, or any number of other flaws or blunders on my part. When that happens, I can only get upset that I didn’t realize those issues years or decades ago! It is frustrating to say the least. But when that happens, I try to remember the words of C. S. Lewis: “You can’t go back and change the beginning, but you can start where you are and change the ending.” It’s true that I can’t fix what I did in the past, but I can learn from my errors and make sure I don’t keep repeating them. For each of us, we can “change the ending” of our teaching story every single day.

Peter Loel Boonshaft, Director of Education
KHS America

About the Author

Dr. Boonshaft, Director of Education for KHS America, is the author of the critically acclaimed best-selling books Teaching Music with Passion, Teaching Music with Purpose, and Teaching Music with Promise. He was honored by the National Association for Music Education and Music For All as the first recipient of the “George M. Parks Award for Leadership in Music Education.” Dr. Boonshaft was selected for the Center for Scholarly Research and Academic Excellence at Hofstra University in Hempstead, NY, where he is Professor Emeritus of Music.

The content of this Blog article or Banded Story is the intellectual property of the author(s) and cannot be duplicated without the permission of KHS America and/or the author(s). Standard copyright rules apply.

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