Shinichi Suzuki:Nurtured by Love-The classic Approach to Talent Education

from  http://bbs.huasing.org/bbs.php?B=179_11783780

发觉自己一下子写完好像很痛苦，看这里这么冷清，先贴一部分上来。。。因为读的是英文的，所以写的时候也变英文了。不过俺语文想来不够好，大家凑合着读吧。。。欢迎质疑提问。

Shinichi Suzuki:Nurtured by Love-The classic Approach to Talent Education

Shinichi Suzuki is amusic educator. After reading his philosophy and this book, I admire him,respect him and I learnt the essence of education from him.

Suzuki’s book　Nurtured by love was written inJapanese and translated into English by his wife.　 He was born in 1898. His father had a violinfactory and he is the eldest child in the family. However, his father did notlike him to learn the violin, and only when he was 17 years old, he startedstudying the violin and went to Germany to learn from the finest violinists ofthe world.

Here, I would like toshare a few points I thought are most important in his book.

The philosophy:

1) 　The mostimportant thing is to Nurture a NOBLE man,Dr Suzuki'sguiding principle was "Character first, ability second". He thoughtthat man’s ultimate direction in life is to look for love, truth, virtue andbeauty. Teaching music is not my main purpose. I want to make good citizens,noble human beings.

2)　Love is the most importantessence in the education. He believed that and happiness and enjoyment of lifeand music are most important for children. What the educator needs to do is toembrace the children with love. “Where love is deep, much will beaccomplished."

How to nurturechildren? What are the principles of nurture?

Children are the fruit oftraining and environment.Every child is talented. Talent is not inherited. To surrender to the thoughtof having no talent and give up the effort is COWARDLY.

"I have no doubt that peopleare born with hereditary physiological differences, but I believe that aperson's abilities grow and develop depending on the stimulation from outside."　However, he also believed that “"anychild can become superior, and my confidence has never been betrayed."

a)　　　　　Learningmusic is like learninga language.

Dr Suzuki gave a few examples. First,All Japanese children speak Japanese. They just learn from listening. And if aTokyo boy of 6 years old moved to Osaka, he could quickly acquire the Osakaaccent. We have not known any human who could not speak their mother tonguelanguage. However, if a human being is raised in another totally differentenvironment, e.g. raised by wolf until she/he had pass the stage of learning alanguage,　 he might totally lost hisability to speak. 　In animals’ world, thefirst month in a nightingale’s life determines its fate. If they were takenfrom the nest of wild birds, and listening to “Master bird”-a good teachereveryday, the infant birds will, through physiological transformation, learnfrom experience to produce tones as beautiful as those of it teacher. However,if they remained in the wild environment, there is always a failure. Dr Suzukialso wrote, If Einstein, Goethe and Beethoven had been born during the StoneAge, wouldn’t they likewise have only the cultural ability and education of menof the stone age?

"Musical ability is not aninborn talent but an ability which can be developed. Any child who is properlytrained can develop musical ability just as all children develop the ability tospeak their mother tongue. The potential of every child is unlimited".

b)　　　　　Repetition is the key word in learninglanguage. So does music.　 But music is also a language that goes beyondspeech and letters. 　“If a child hears fine music from the dayof his birth, and learns to play it himself, he develops sensitivity,discipline and endurance. He gets beautiful heart." If children surroundedby out of tune pitches, 　they then alsobecome tone-deaf.

“This is where its emotional impact comes in. Bach,Mozart, Beethoven - without exception they live clearly and palpably in theirmusic, and speak forcefully to us, purifying us, refining us, and awakening inus the highest joy and emotion."　

Part two:
The training methods
A) Sensitive period:
Music education should start as early as possible. Dr Suzuki believed that children should start learning or enjoying music at birth, or even when they were inside the womb. This concept could be quite similar to some others.The best to start playing an instrument can be as early as 3 years old (This is what I thought, As we have to follow the developmental stages of a child, only after his/her physical strength and fine motor control have developed to a stage, we can start the instruments.)

B) Quality of the music and musical sensitivity.
A few music educators agreed that the quality of music is very important for children. As they compared language and music learning, it is natural that to teach the children their own folk songs in their culture. Furthermore, listening to high quality music recordings is another key point in children’s music education. Suzuki selected those recordings and pieces mostly from Baroque and Classical genres.

1) Development of music sensitivity. Suzuki always emphasis on listening to good recordings. Listening to music is like listening to people speaking. Children will acquire the sound. You can imagine, children can learn standard English or Mandarin, they can also learn the dialects. Children imitate. So we should set good model and recordings for them to imitate. So play the good recordings at home, and children will unconsciously become musically sensitive.
2) Importance of tonalization. Tonalization is coined by Suzuki, which means the quality of the voice. The purpose of tonalization is to develop a beautiful singing tone.

C) Family method: the triangle of student, teacher and parents:
Parents play very important role in Suzuki’s method. He mentioned: lessons are taken once or twice a week and are very short. The other six days, children practice at home. “ABILITY is developed by home practice.”
1) To motivate the children to practice even more, both the parents and teacher must praise the child “how hard and well you are practicing these days.” This is the point in psychology not only applied to music or instrument study, but every type of education.
2) Always believe that every child can be educated. Never have prejudices like. Parents also must believe that children can learn. People become and maintained confidence that children can be educated. I would say, inherent talent only play a very small role. Furthermore, Only with training, the children’s potential will reveal and only with training, children can do whatever better than they have inherited.
3) Parent is the home teacher. The parent attends all lessons, takes notes, and receives instruction. It is never too late to learn. It would be the best if Parents learn before or together with the children. It is the best way to motivate children. It is also a good way in communicating with children. Parents will understand the difficulties children are facing. Parents might learn slightly faster than their children, and therefore easier to do home tutoring every day.

Remember, Suzuki method focuses on the total well-being and self-esteem of children, not the musical product. Learning is blocked by result or criticism or pressure. Teachers and parents should provide safe and joyful learning environment.