I have spoken before about teaching a student from the ground up. Giving them a step by step process to build a great drumming foundation one brick at a time. This to me is the best way to learn almost anything. Start from the bottom and add to what you have learned. However I have found myself taking a very different approach to teaching with most of my students and I have finally figured out why that is.
I have always said that I heavily take the students motivations and opinions when building a curriculum, and what I have discovered is that a linear approach only works if a student has already bought into being a drummer and will do whatever I throw at them to achieve that. In other words, my students who are 12 and up. With my younger students I can tell when a lesson is too dense to keep their interest so I move on. Sometimes I question the journey we are on because it seems so scatterbrained at times, however I see my students having fun and proud of what they accomplished. In most cases its led us to some pretty advanced places at a super early stage in there learning.
The best example I have is with one of my piano students. He asked me during one of our online lessons why we weren’t using the black keys and why they are even there. So I gave him a very quick answer about keys and how depending on what note you “start” on, there would be certain black keys that would be played. He was extremely interested in this and asked a bunch of follow up questions so I made our next lesson about sharps and flats. I made a video explaining them, gave him a worksheet to fill out and an exercise to play. He loved it and got it right away! Keep in mind this student had only been playing piano for about a month, that’s 4 to 5 lessons. He understands what sharps and flats are and what keys and key signatures are, but he can barely play a scale. This is not a typical order of operations, but because I followed his interest he worked harder and felt better after getting it. Since then we have learned scales faster and even major and minor chords and intervals extremely easily because we focused on what he wanted to do first, then back tracked. He was already confident in the concept and was excited to apply it.
What I learned is that a Linear approach is more productive, however if a child is not having fun and is not kept engaged, then it is the least productive method. Sometimes you need to follow their lead and try a more abstract approach.
Hilary