Spoon-feeding, in the long run, teaches us nothing but the shape of the spoon
E.M.Forster
If you think about it, contact time with students is very small. An average lesson is often between 30 minutes to an hour a week, leaving lots of time in between for students to work on their own. As a percentage that’s not a lot of time together.
The week between lessons is a long time for students to either get stuck (and then frustrated and give up on the task) or learn something wrong which needs unpicking at the following lesson. If a student is spoon fed then the likelihood of this is perhaps even greater. They don’t have the tools to figure out where they are going wrong.
Spoon feeding for me is teaching without fostering understanding – telling students the answer rather than showing them how to work it out. We can’t be with our students when they practice at home so helping them develop their own tool set encourages independent learners.
As Maria Montessori said …
The greatest sign of success for a teacher… is to be able to say, ’The children are now working as if I did not exist
Maria Montessori
How do you help students develop the skills to work independently in your instrument?
