Collaboration's time has come!

Jugglers were among the first to openly embrace sharing and growing. The spoken rule for jugglers is, "You teach me a trick, and I'll teach you one, and then we'll both know two!"

The idea of collaboration began for me with Dr. Suzuki, who encouraged all teachers to share teaching tips and stragegies through regular meetings of two or more teachers. Until then, the piano teachers I had known were secretive about their methods. The entire system was so competitive that the feeling seemed to be, "If I tell you my secrets, then you will know mine plus your own, and then your students will be better than mine," with the implied subtext, "and I wouldn't be able to stand that!"

It has been a joy to see how greater openness has filtered down to the students. Instead of having rival studios in which one dare not speak to another teacher's student, fellow students become best friends and root for each other to do well in competitions, even when they are going head-to-head in the same one.

We all win.