[CAUT] Forum format (was Re: Requirements forcontributing/posting; RPT status

[Israel Stein]

At 06:47 PM 7/17/2008, Paul Revenlo Jones wrote:

>From: paulrevenkojones at aol.com
>
>Subject: Re: [CAUT] Forum format (was Re: Requirements 
>forcontributing/posting;
>         RPT status
>Message: 2
>
>Michael:
>
>I think that this was well worth repeating. Israel is one of the 
>best and brightest among us not because of his academic background 
>but because of his innate learning capacity and the care which 
>brings to his teaching and piano skills. At CSPT we have fostered 
>the idea of a student/student relationship between instructors and 
>students. I am as much a student as my students if I can keep my 
>mind open and in "beginner's mind". We can only pass on to our 
>students an almost flat, two-dimensional view of how to "do" stuff. 
>Only by their application and practice and openness can they achieve 
>deeper dimensionality. Some do. Some don't. In the meantime, I'm 
>learning gobs thanks to them! So thanks to Israel, too!
>
>Paul

Paul, Mike - thanks for your kind words. But I do not want to be 
credited with (or blamed for) Ron's words. So here is an annotated 
text below...

Israel Stein



>-----Original Message-----
>From: Michael Magness <IFixPianos at yahoo.com>
>To: Pianotech List <pianotech at ptg.org>; caut at ptg.org
>Sent: Thu, 17 Jul 2008 5:16 pm
>Subject: [CAUT] Forum format (was Re: Requirements 
>forcontributing/posting; RPT status
>
>
>When I was reading the give and take between Ed Sutton and Ron 
>Nossaman on the subject of putting the archives into a more 
>comprehensible(Wikipedia/Pianopedia) type format something began 
>itching around in my brain that I remembered reading on the CAUT 
>list last fall during the discussions of a CAUT designation.
>
>IMHO Israel Stein's letter on how people learn or don't learn and 
>why was rather illuminating and apropos to this discussion.
>
>I found and copied it here for those who care to avail themselves
>
>
>
>At 11:00 AM 11/11/2007, Ron Nossaman wrote:
>
>"Yes, they're the very people who say this is how it's done because 
>this is how I was taught, and will resist further education to their 
>dieing breath".
>
>IS
>Hmmm... Sounds very much like the guy who figured out the best way 
>to "improve" a Steinway sostenuto system and refuses to hear any 
>reasonable objection from those who have to work with those things 
>every day. Yeah those people who learned in school to weigh various 
>options and fit the solution to the problem just don't come anywhere 
>near that level of genius.
>People who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones...

RN
>They were too often taught incompetence, and have practiced it with 
>dedication and diligence ever since. Plenty of these people have 
>educational certification of some sort or another, which is 
>apparently no dependable indicator of capability in practice. 
>Realistically, I don't think people can be taught anything. They can 
>be exposed to information, and either learn or not, as they are 
>either capable or willing. The information can come from a 
>structured "educational" environment, or through the curiosity and 
>personal research efforts of the student. Capability is the easy 
>part (we can all learn), it's the willingness that's tough. Those 
>unable or unwilling to learn can still be trained, or programmed, to 
>do fairly complex tasks without understanding what they're actually 
>doing. I expect we all fit this category in some instances. The fact 
>is that anyone incapable of learning without being taught is doomed 
>to run their programming forever because they'll never overcome 
>their ! education - or rather someone else's education that was 
>installed in them. Also, credential and qualification are not 
>synonymous and never were.

IS
>And anyone incapable of receiving instruction and seeing the value 
>in others' knowledge is doomed to run their own programming that 
>they have installed in themselves through their often erroneous 
>conclusions. As for example the rather ignorant description of the 
>educational process we find above. In my close to thirty years 
>experience in first formally learning and then occasionally teaching 
>piano technology I have not seen anyone trying to "install" learning 
>in someone else. You expose people to knowledge. You guide them when 
>they go astray. You show them possibilities. If anyone has ever been 
>to any of the classes that I organize you will see that students are 
>given the opportunity to discover what there is to be learned and 
>provided answers to their questions as they arise - from a variety 
>of instructors, each with a different perspective. They learn with 
>their eyes and hands - not with their ears. And with the available 
>guidance, they manage to figure out things that eluded them for 
>years - you can see the light go on... Your description of the 
>educational process above, Ron, is typical of the myopia of many of 
>the self-taught who never see anything but the inside of their own 
>brain. Fortunately for us all, many of the self-taught understand 
>the value of knowledge they can receive from other and seek it at 
>every opportunity - rejecting what does not work for them and 
>assimilating the rest best they can. And yes, sometimes they too get 
>it wrong. Don't get me started about the value of follow-up...

RN
>Information doesn't just spring out of nowhere. Someone somewhere 
>must have an original thought or observation to start a learning 
>process that there is no one to teach at the first generation. So 
>the notion that someone can't learn without being taught is indeed 
>nonsense. It has to start somewhere.

IS
>And I wonder how many people spend months and years reinventing the 
>wheel to learn the basics of the piano craft and screwing up 
>countless clients' pianos in the process (thereby contributing to 
>the low esteem and the low pay that this thread started out about) 
>when they could learn the same in maybe a year's time - given some 
>competent instruction - or a couple years' apprenticeship, and then 
>go on to develop a much higher level of skill and expertise from a 
>firm foundation. Perhaps on to some innovations of their own. I 
>wonder how far David Stanwood would have gotten with his system if 
>he would have spent all that time and energy trying to teach himself 
>the basics of how to tune and regulate pianos - instead of learning 
>it all from Bill Garlick in about 7 months (that's about how long it 
>should take for a person of normal intelligence willing to put in 
>some time - it ain't rocket science).
>  It still seem to me that the widest variety of methods and 
> approaches I was exposed to - without being told which is the best 
> - was in my time at the North Bennet Street School. From a variety 
> of teachers - with diametrically opposed approaches. Some of them I 
> still use. Some I have rejected as inappropriate for the 
> circumstances in which I find myself working. Some don't fit the 
> way my mind, eyes or hands work. That is the value of a good formal 
> education - exposure to a variety of knowledge, in an atmosphere of 
> feedback, discussion and analysis - leading to understanding rather 
> than just "rote training".
>Most (not all) of the stuff I hear and read from some of these "self 
>taught" guys (and Mr. N is one of the worst in that regard)  suffers 
>precisely from this lack of varied perspective. They see things from 
>one pair of eyes - their own. Never engaging in the give-and-take 
>that a true student/teacher relationship is based on, from which 
>both learn. Perhaps that's why some of these folks have such a 
>jaundiced view of the educational establishment - they seem to 
>universalize their own miserable experience which may have been 
>caused in part by their own unwillingness to perhaps listen to 
>someone else's voice but their own...
>Israel Stein
>
>Mike
>--
>Perfection is not attainable, but if we chase perfection we can 
>catch excellence.
>Vince Lombardi
>
>Michael Magness
>Magness Piano Service
>608-786-4404
><http://www.ifixpianos.com/>www.IFixPianos.com
>email <mailto:mike at ifixpianos.com>mike at ifixpianos.com

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: https://www.moypiano.com/ptg/pianotech.php/attachments/20080717/5244dff6/attachment.html