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Sensei's Speech
By Dr. Haruko Kataoka
Matsumoto 10-Piano Concert Matsumoto, Japan
November 16, 2003

Nurture

Thank you for coming to this 10-Piano Concert today. I was supposed to speak a little later, but I would like to speak at this moment because I was so moved by the children in the concert.

I have been teaching music differently from the traditional way with Dr. Suzuki's legacy in my mind. The most important thing in education is to give children the best. We must provide the best for them. It is the same discipline we employ when we teach children to say "Please," and "Thank you," and "Hello." That kind of discipline will affect the future of the child.

Dr. Suzuki realized that, and he believed that the most important period of time is childhood if you want to teach music. We all can speak our mother tongue. Nobody tries very hard to speak their own language. Without realizing it, one day you can speak Japanese, English, French and so on. Dr. Suzuki's idea was not for creating professional musicians. It does not matter if you have a musical sense or not. If you learn good basics in a good environment you will be able to enjoy music for life. He valued that kind of education. Education is a good word in Japanese. It means to teach and to nurture. However, people generally consider education to be just teaching and not nurturing. Childhood education requires both teaching and nurturing. It is not only teaching the student, but also having the student be able to do it.

I have been teaching piano now for forty years following Dr. Suzuki's philosophy. It is true that students change if the teacher does as Dr. Suzuki said. For example, when giving tests to students, some students may get a perfect score. Some will get only 30% of the questions right. In traditional thinking, the students who get 30% will be considered lazy, or it will be assumed that they did not study enough. Dr. Suzuki would say that the teacher only taught 30% of the work. I was surprised by this idea, but ever since I heard it I have always taught my students until they score 100.

Of course, all children are different. They have different personality traits and come from different family situations. It seems very difficult to teach, but on the other hand it is fun to teach different children.

We are not teaching robots. Normally, children are not greedy to learn even if teachers try so hard. They do not practice seriously until two weeks before an event, but I heard better performances today than two days ago. They fixed things I asked them to fix two days ago.

During the last piece, the Chopin Polonaise, I was moved by the performance. I myself played that piece a long time ago. It is very complex and difficult to play. I did not learn good technique from my teacher, I just tried hard. People praised me after my performance. They wanted to be nice. Today's performers were not trying so hard to play the piece. They were just enjoying it. I was not feeling well for the past month and could not help them much. Only one person in the group was able to play the piece a month ago. They could not practice much. They are all my students, but most of them live far from here. Some attend universities in Tokyo or Kyoto. I was so happy when they asked me to let them play in the concert. I told them it will be hard for them to practice because of the distance, but they begged. Only one of them studies piano. The rest study law, and so on. I thought that children are wonderful. They were so good today. They are all together with beautiful tone. Some of them were crying after the bow. I cried too. Children and humans are wonderful. If you are really serious, you can do anything.