At your next rehearsal, try saying nothing but positive things for 5 minutes straight. It sounds easy, but once you try it, you realize just how hard it really is to do. We are so used to saying positive things and then following those words up with a prescription for making it better. Can’t you just hear it: “That was great, and this was so much better, and I loved thus, and I am so proud of you for such, now if we could just….” It is a great technique. But just to mix it up and give our students a break from that routine, try finding nothing but praise to say for 300 seconds. It might be just the prescription for you and your students!
Peter Loel Boonshaft, Director of Education
KHS America
About the Author
Dr. Boonshaft is the author of the critically acclaimed best-selling books Teaching Music with Passion, Teaching Music with Purpose, and Teaching Music with Promise. Dr. Boonshaft is currently on the faculty of Hofstra University in Hempstead, New York, where he is Professor of Music and Director of Bands. He has also been named Director of Education for KHS America. 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.”
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