Personal Insights of a Music Teacher from the Coronavirus Outbreak

And in the blink of an eye everything, everywhere, got
turned upside down. The school closures, the online
working, the terrifying news, the unemployment
rates, flights were canceled, police outside in the streets,
trains and metros were less and less frequent, no cars
around, the fruit and vegetable markets closed, no more
restaurants, long lines at the grocery stores, etc.
And some were caught by surprise and froze, and some
laughed, and some cried, and some pretended it was okay,
and some got busier than normal, but I stopped. I went from
100 miles an hour to barely walking around the house, just
to get to the laundry machine and back, to my computer
where I taught my virtual classes and back, to make soup,
serve it, and back, to wipe counters and door handles and
back, to the front door to go
get the groceries the neighbor
would leave there, and back, to
answer the doctor’s calls, and
back, and “back” was always
this chair, in the kitchen, from
where I write to you now.
A nd there was one week
when all of us just stopped
reading the news. We could
not keep looking at the graphs
and charts where thousands
of deaths kept piling up—was
this a dream? Only two weeks
earlier, we were planning our summer and my son’s high
school prom, and now there wasn’t any more prom, his
SAT test was postponed till September, my kids’ swimming
season got canceled until next Fall, and the school’s end of
the year concerts were out of the question.
So these are the things I’ve learned during the quarantine days in Spain, when my husband lay in bed with the
coronavirus and I closely monitored his temperature,
and I felt the virus had climbed on me, on my shoulders,
on my hair—all I could do was walk with it, carrying it
like sharks swim with little remora fish by their side, and
try to let go of that creepy feeling. My brain was working
partially and thoughts came to me in gushes, or at night
in between interrupted spells of light sleep. Here are some
of my after thoughts:

Be present in the “now.”
I know we can get carried away
by technical details that we feel
very passionate about (what
part of the bow to start Twinkles
on, what type of shoulder rest to get, what kind of
vibrato to teach first, or when to introduce supplemental literature. . .) and most of the time, that’s
how it goes. But maybe not now. Right now, spending
a whole online lesson going through the regular
review pieces, scales and other exercises might not
be the best. The circumstances are too strange, and
if on top of it, you add the technical difficulties of
the virtual calls with their glitches and lags, then our
time together would be best spent connecting with
one another and keeping things simple. Maybe just
talking with our kids and doing a fun coordination
game is enough, or a few bow exercises and a breathing exercise is plenty, or a bit of music theory, or one
origami project could be enough. We are teaching

Learn to stop and not fear the void that is left in you.
A big source of self-healing power is hidden in each of
us, but to access that power you have to stop the noise
and the daily rushing. The coronavirus has helped
me find moments of silence to connect with my body
and little things around me. I found myself playing
open strings on my violin and noticing the sounds
from a church nearby, the texture of my hair, or the
smell of my hands.

Fragility: no matter how much we plan and prepare
for, we are all just hanging by a thread, and just a
single thing can change all the plans and everything
we’ve worked so hard to establish. Find strength in
the acceptance of that fragility,
because only by accepting this
very truth can we give more,
teach more meaningful lessons,
and make better music. This
acceptance should help unveil
who we really are and what we
are doing on this planet.

children who will be faced with
things we cannot even imagine.
Creativity and empathy might
be traits of extreme importance
in that not so distant future, and
this is an incredible opportunity
to model those traits for them.

4. It was curious to note the different reactions each kid had to
   the virtual classroom learning.
   Some of the kids who would
   normally be the “clown” in
   a classroom situation were
   perhaps the quickest to turn in
   an ear-training or note-reading
   assignment, some of the shy
   kids who would normally not
   participate in class were the first
   ones to submit videos of their
   playing, others were respectful
   and kind online when in person
   were quite the opposite, and
   some of the kids who were my
   most solid performers and engaged students in the classroom
   I never heard from online—they
   never turned in anything or
   even showed up to any of our
   virtual classroom calls.
5. Always assume the best of people: you do not k now the
   realities your students are living with stuck at home, or what
   new situations they are facing,
   or why they are not turning
   in any assignments. My own
   kids did not want to talk about
   their sick father. Being present
   for kids during these weeks is
   already an amazing thing even
   if it’s just a phone call or nice
   email away, or even if all you
   can do is just send them practice
   videos you make for them. Do
   not minimalize this new reality
   in your virtual connections with
   them, not even if you are teaching a baby class. I’ve seen adults
   who put on their regular voices
   and go on as normal. I think
   that confuses kids. They sense
   something major is happening
   all around them even if they
   lack the vocabulary to put it into
   words or the maturity to say it.
   Acknowledging this new reality
   is very important for them.
6. Sing! We never do enough singing. They will always have their
   voices with them, even if a
   string breaks, or if a bridge falls
   off, even if they forgot their
   bow in the orchestra room. The
   power of the voice is very strong.
   I found myself humming melodies stuck in my head. The
   benefits of singing for any music
   student are endless: intonation,
   breathing, phrasing, expression, and more.
7. Realize that we learn much
   faster from tough situations. I’ve
   learned a lot about technology
   these days because I’ve had to;
   there was no way around it!
   Before March 2019 I never really
   needed to use technology in my
   teaching and Skype or Zoom
   had been the biggest steps for
   me a couple of years back. But
   now in just a couple of weeks, I
   had to learn to use Google Meet,
   Google Classroom, ClassDojo,
   SeeSaw, Acapella, and Flipgrid.
   It was hectic at first but I got
   a handle of them! This made
   me wonder about the many
   times we expect kids to repeat
   countless string crossings, or
   a hard spot, or shifts without
   an “imperative” need. We are
   good at distracting them with
   toys and cute practice ideas, but
   realizing that certain things we
   just learn faster when there is a
   “real need” was an important
   realization for me.
8. Shut down the pedagogical
   mind and turn on your human
   sensors. Listen to music you
   have not listened to in a long
   time. Listen to music for the
   sake of it, not trying to find the
   perfect performance example
   of anything at all.
9. Team work—do not assume
   anything! If you teach for a
   school, in any music programs
   (orchestra, plan with your team
   to make sure you are all agreeing on a philosophical path to
   follow with the virtual learning.
   When our school went online
   there was little time to stop
   and think, and we just went in
   several directions as teachers
   took teaching online however
   they could. The drive to get
   that going was stronger than
   the need for consensus. No one
   thought the virtual learning
   would last as long as it is lasting, so no one realized that the
   same difficulties would be had
   in other subject areas, and we
   made things more complicated
   than they needed to be. I’m
   talking about assigning musicreading assignments that use
   either solfege or letter names,
   checking on when big projects
   were due in what subjects and
   trying to avoid having your
   projects coincide with those
   other teachers’ projects deadlines, agreeing all on the same
   platform so we don’t have families trying to learn ClassDojo,
   Google Classroom, and See
   Saw at the same time, requestfrom the classroom teachers
10. to keep the fine arts and other
11. specialist teachers in the loop of
12. things, etc.
13. We cannot lose the power of
    laughter. I’ve spent many days
    without being able to laugh at
    anything, and then after three
    weeks, I was talking to my mom
    about how to make a homemade
    face mask with whatever we
    could find at home and we
    started laughing and laughing and I realized how much
    I had missed it. That moment
    of laughter untied many knots
    inside me.
14. Think about our profession and
    its future. This crisis is bringing
    a terrible financial situation to
    musicians, dancers, actors, and
    visual artists all the same. If culture wasn’t already neglected,
    now it will be at the bottom
    priority level for most governments. Yes, we can teach and
    perform online to get by, but
    a virtual orchestra or a virtual
    choir is not the same as the real
    thing, it’s just a collage of small
    bits of single performances. Music is an art form to be shared,
    it is a language that we speak in
    groups, all together at the same
    time, and we are now stuck
    speaking it to ourselves at home.
    We cannot expect all parents to
    buy into this virtual model of
    learning, and yet we need our
    income. (But maybe it is a good
    time to let go of families who
    were already not following our
    lead?) Each of us will have to
    come up with ideas to survive.
    Think of the teachers who live in
    areas where the online learning
    is not even a possibility: what
    would you do? How could you
    keep in touch with your kids
    and teach even if you could not
    livestream with them?
15. Take this time to empathize
    with those who have survived
    similar pandemics or major
    crisis. Now we have a tiny idea of
    what thousands of people went
    through during Hurricanes
    Harvey in Texas, and Maria in
    Puerto Rico, or Katrina in New
    Orleans, or a crisis like the Ebola
    outbreak in Africa. Let’s not ever
    again let our comfort and wellbeing erase what others endure
    in their daily lives. Think of
    people who live in jails and are
    always confined to small spaces,
    or those who cannot ever eat
    what they want. The privileges
    we are accustomed to are not
    “normal” for many human beings in this planet.
16. The online sharing of teaching
    ideas/resources is a great source
    of inspiration, but can also
    be overwhelming and time
    consuming. Set a limit to how
    much time you allow yourself to be online and just take
    with you whatever resonated at
    that moment. Moreover, each
    teacher knows their families or
    their school resources best, so
    trust your instincts. And do not
    compare yourself to others. We
    are all at different points in this
    learning process, and actually it
    would make sense if we do what
    we tell the kids after auditions
    and recitals: if you gave it your
    best effort, it is enough!
    I hope my coronavirus conclusions
    are useful to some of you; if nothing
    else, it is a great exercise to write them
    down, so I invite you to do the same
    before we get carried away thinking
    about the return to the classroom
    next fall. Like Emily Dickinson said,
    “One step at a time is all it takes to get
    you there.”

Cecilia Calvelo-Hopkins
is a Suzuki violin teacher,
a SECE teacher, a Suzuki
parent and an Orff teacher.
She holds music degrees
from San Francisco State
University and the University of Houston. She
currently lives in Valencia, Spain and teaches
music at the American School of Valencia. Cecilia
has served as violin faculty, clinician, and lecturer in several Suzuki institutes, conferences,
and music festivals in the US, Spain, Mexico, and
Perú and she plans to continue travelling, learning, and making music for many years to come!