Teaching Philosophy

Hello! I am Dr. Kayme Henkel, a pianist based in the Milwaukee area. I have decided to have a theme for my blogging which is "Value because of who we are, balance through thoughtful planning and preparation." It might not immediately seem to be a theme about piano and everything piano, but I find when I keep these two thoughts in the forefront of my teaching and performing, both I and my students learn more successfully. So, I want to explain.
Value because of who we are. Each of my students are unique and because of that, I need to have different strategies for teaching each of them. Each of them will have different strengths and weaknesses. Each will struggle in different ways as they strive to master the craft of making music at the piano. But, each student is valuable in my studio and has valuable musical ideas. My studio includes students working towards a professional musical career as well as students who I think only touch a piano once a week (in their weekly lesson). I am ok with that. Each of them are growing as musicians and learning to express themselves musically. When I think of how we need to value each student for their gifts, I like to remember Romans 12:6-8
"We have different gifts, according to the grace given to each of us. If your gift is prophesying, then prophesy in accordance with your faith; if it is serving, then serve; if it is teaching, then teach; if it is to encourage, then give encouragement; if it is giving, then give generously; if it is to lead, do it diligently; if it is to show mercy, do it cheerfully." The apostle Paul specifically meant this for members of the Church, but I believe we can use this in how we deal with everyone. My students are not valuable because they might win a competition or because they receive a high rating at a contest. They might never play in a competition or play in a judged audition. That is ok, they still deserve the highest level of instruction I can offer.
Now the second part of my theme, "balance through thoughtful planning and preparation." One of the greatest struggles I believe we have is finding balance in our lives between work, school, spiritual life, family life, volunteer work, sports, free time and anything else we add into our lives. First and foremost I need to always strive for balance in my life, then attempt to help my students and their families find balance (or at least not help create an imbalance). This is how I came up with the somewhat simple name for this blog - Piano Mommy. I always struggle with juggling being the pianist I love being - the one who gets to practice every day, gets to read composer biographies and spend hours in the music library and the mother I want to be for my biological children - the one who makes meals from scratch, has a clean house, gets to volunteer for every church and school activity. I am not perfect at finding this balance. The only balance I have comes because of the strategies I have developed for lesson planning and because of the repertoire research I have done over a number of years. This blog is a way I can track my research and also share with other teachers who have asked about some of my strategies.
So, have fun reading through some of my thoughts and research, please follow me so you can see all my posts as they come available!