Behavior in the Studio

Last summer I had the great blessing of being able to study Suzuki Teacher Training with some amazing people who changed my philosophy of teaching completely. I knew it wasn't going to be easy taking on these changes, but I knew in the long run, it would completely renovate the way my studio was ran.
    First, I had Suzuki Cello Book 1 training with Barbara Wampner from San Franscisco at the Chicago Suzuki Institute 2015. Barbara studied directly with Suzuki in Matsumoto, Japan many years ago. When I asked her how to deal with a troublesome student that was eroding my deep well of patience, she only had to say one sentence that would change my life. "Well... we are not here to teach music Leilah...." I felt so confused after this statement... I asked myself in my head... "wait... we're not?" She continued.... "We're here to teach character first, and then music." Her next sentances went on to discuss how without character, you cannot study music. So as suzuki teachers our main goal with the young children (and really any age) is to develop the character necessary to study music and then, and only then do we have the chance to teach them music.
    A few weeks later, I got another amazing life-changing opportunity to audit a Suzuki Piano Book 1 training class with Rita Hauck. Rita Hauck was even more focused on this aspect of music lessons and would go as far as to make kids apologize for their bad behavior, even (and especially) if it was to their own parents.
    At first, I found this shocking. In the world today, teachers are supposed to be careful and not make a parent feel uncomfortable... We have been trained to walk-on-eggshells and cater and spoon feed the parents. But in reality, this is not helping the child develop character at all! In fact, it is doing the opposite!! I began my professional teaching studio in the fall of 2015, and the first few times I had to ask a student to apologize to their parent, I felt like perhaps I may have been stepping over my boundaries as a teacher...but then I talked with the parent afterwards and made sure this was okay for me to do in the lessons....instead of getting the reaction I expected of "no, it is my job to discipline my child"... I got a shocking and quite opposite reaction... "Oh please do! I was so glad you did that!!".
    Therefore, I have adopted the teaching philosophy that I need to develop their character first, before I can teach the kid anything about music. (Does this sound familiar?? *Cough* "Wax on, Wax off." -Karate Kid *Cough*.) I began to realize, that teaching masters of ANY discipline, have been doing this for centuries....it IS the only way to teach life-long lessons.
    I have decided after re-visiting the Chicago Institute this year and taking book 2 cello with Barbara again... that I will NOT apologize for correcting bad behavior in my studio. Rather, I will further raise my standards this year and hopefully gracefully balance this discipline, with nurturing love.