Here’s a picture of what my student “Brad” did to his song.

In fact, he does this to all of his songs. It’s like marking his territory. When I asked him why he did this, he logically explained “That’s how I know which song to practice.” Well, I can’t argue with logic.

That said, how on earth does this kid manage to read the notes when he scribbles like this? Well, somehow he does, because in terms of practicing ethics, he’s one of the best students I have. He picks things up faster than most of my older students and he’s extremely talented for his 8 years.

Sometimes I have to tell him little things like that it’s an Eb not an E. So, like a good student he’ll grab his pencil to write it in to remind himself of the change. However, he’ll write Eb over the entire page, plus more scribbles! I can’t trust him with a pencil, but I can’t write it for him, because he’ll remember better if he writes a reminder himself.

I gave him a new song to work on last lesson.  Knowing that he would scribble over the page as soon as I gave him a new song, I hid all the pencils in the classroom. As predicted, he immediately looked for a pencil to scribble, but upon finding none nearby, he looked at me suspiciously: “You’ve hidden them, haven’t you?” He then proceeded to go sniffing around the room for pencils, like a dog.

It’s hard not to love this kid.