Playing Piano Teacher

Two of my piano students are sweet, sweet girls that come late in the day on Thursdays. They have a little brother in Ms. Crazy Preschooler’s preschool class, and a baby brother that is Destructoman size. Their mom also comes for lessons on Tuesday nights, having taken lessons for many, many years (she’s really very good) she just wanted to have a little bit of a refresher when they bought a new piano a couple of years ago.

As the mom was sitting down to play last week she told me that her girls have been playing “Mrs. Mason” all week. It’s a game where they sit in a chair next to the piano and pretend to be a piano teacher. They wrangle the Ms. CP size brother into being the piano student and the sister that gets to be “Mrs. Mason” covers the piano in sticky notes.

I laughed and laughed, because I am notorious for using enormous qunatities of sticky notes as I teach. I bookmark pages with sticky notes for students. I write out practice instructions on sticky notes. When there are important messages, like students needing to reschedule, I record all the information on sticky notes and stick them to the side of the piano. When I need to order student music, I make a list and sticky note it to the piano. There are piles of sticky notes all around my piano: ones that can be used, sticky notes on their way to the trash, and new sticky notes in a nice little cube stack. For Christmas several students gave me sticky notes. It was a great present. I was THRILLED.

So it makes me smile that these two sweet girls have a schemata that makes them think that a piano teacher loves a nice supply of sticky notes.