Experience Summary
I have fifteen years experience as a clarinet teacher, including five years as Adjunct Professor of Clarinet at Duquesne University. In addition to this work teaching advanced college-level performers, I maintained a private studio of students of all levels, from fourth-grade beginners through accomplished adult amateurs. As a member of a touring performing arts group, I led arts-enrichment workshops for K-6 elementary students throughout the United States. I've worked as an SAT tutor (math and English). As a call supervisor for the telefundraising firm Public Interest Communications, I coached callers one-on-one in effective techniques of persuasion. Most recently, as a substitute teacher in the Northampton, Massachusetts, public schools, I taught classes at all levels, K-12, for the 06-07 academic year. I have two stepsons in elementary school who love to have me help them with their homework.
Teaching Style
The cultivation of a positive relationship with the student is at least as important for successful teaching as is a thorough understanding of the subject matter. Even a teacher who sees a student for just an hour a week can become a mentor and role model who has a profound and lifelong impact. Confidence is contagious--positive reinforcement and unwavering enthusiasm for the process of learning can, with patience, ignite even the most reluctant student's natural impulse to grow and improve. High standards are best maintained by repeated expressions of faith in the student's ability to meet them. Teaching is a creative process: the individual personality of each student is the starting point for the creation of a teaching method subtly different from any that has existed before.