I started taking composition lessons with Prof. Wills a couple weeks ago. Something I've noticed that's been kind of cool is that the lesson materials he has spent time preparing remind me a lot of the lesson materials I developed for guitar lessons that I taught a few years ago. They're very clean and neat, and yet very thorough, offering students not just a basic idea of something but a definitive understanding. It's clearly important to him that his lessons be solidly grasped in a way that leads students to a greater musical fluency rather than a mere passing grade. I've come to appreciate this kind of teacher more and more as I've returned to school for the back end of my 20's.
The different approaches to teaching music (or anything else) that different teachers take is worth considering. I admit that it's been difficult for me not to applaud the teachers I like and, at times, resent the others. My issue really isn't the 'others', whose teaching I've had trouble connecting with, but simply that their style has not agreed with my expectation, which has been mostly based on my own style of teaching from years ago.
It seems natural for anyone to prefer his own style of anything, and it's always easier to like people in whom we see something of ourselves. But I can't help but conclude that a teacher shouldn't have to use the influence of something other than the inherent value of his subject in order to teach it. Teachers shouldn't have to operate in the way of "get them to think I'm cool, then they'll listen when I tell them music (or whatever) is also cool." At least not at the college level, in my opinion. No, a teacher should influence his students by being the very thing he seeks to teach. Wasn't that the obvious distinction everyone noticed between Jesus' teaching style and that of the scribes and Pharisees?
"Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light." Matthew 11:28-30 KJV
I'd like to embody the way of Jesus more in the way I live. After all, we're all teachers of something to someone.