How a Teacher Can Change Your Life
Smiling with satisfaction, Karin Anderson continues to conduct while dozens of students were playing their instruments, and Gustav Mahler's Fifth Symphony fills the hall. The emotional (情感的) drama of conducting an orchestra (管弦乐团) of teenagers is part of a typical day's teaching for Karin. "Teaching is like surfing," she says. "You have no idea what's going to happen and there's no guarantee that things will go according to plan. You have to be on guard at all times." But the unpredictability of her students doesn't make her job hard, she says. In fact, working with sometimes difficult teenagers, which she says might exhaust other teachers, is what keeps her coming back day after day.
Karin believes music lessons may have unexpected benefits. Research has found that they improve a child's language development, and the reasoning skills extremely important to maths and science. "We can't be sure if music really makes kids perform better academically, or if smarter students just naturally become involved with music anyway, but there might be a connection. Certainly, schools need something for those brighter students. It's not so much giving them a release from studying hard, but more that they need to be stretched, and pushed in a different direction."
But the benefits of music education are for everyone, not just the clever kids. Karin points out that there are strong connections between music and the motivation to learn, the ability to focus, and even someone's confidence and tolerance.
Music can also help to create a positive, supportive learning environment, which Karin always tries to create in her orchestra. Being grouped by age, not ability, makes everyone new feel welcome and part of a family. "In school you're very aware of social classes—the rich kids and the poor kids—and all the little groups that gossip all the time," says orchestra member Laura Greene. "But in the orchestra, everyone is part of the group, and equally important. We're all trying to improve together. We've all got unique talents."
In Karin's classroom, there are no awards decorating the walls. She says this might put the orchestra under pressure or make them worry about competition, though in fact the school has won many prizes, which she is clearly proud of. "What's most important to me is that everyone works as a team," she says. "It's a magic moment when there's absolute unity."
Karin wants the orchestra to widen the horizons of everyone who joins. When some parents weren't able to afford certain trips of the orchestra, Karin surprised everyone by organizing what she called "scholarships", with the school paying part of the money to students who had been positive and cooperative. They weren't awarded on the basis of who had a special gift for music.
In her office, Karin proudly displays a picture of another student. Karin says, "Thomas was smart, but he hated school, and he seemed cut off from his peers, alone in a world of his own. The orchestra made him come out of his shell." After graduating, Thomas wrote to Karin, "I'm so grateful to you for allowing me to play the most beautiful music in the world, even though I never took it up professionally. I understand now that music educates the mind and the heart, and helps you to connect with others."
