The Character Triangle

Teaching in the Suzuki method has so many shining
facets that lie waiting to be discovered – for teachers,

for parents and for children. Sometimes it’s the con-
tent of what we teach and why, other times it’s fresh ideas for

motivating everybody, and, potentially the most important
life gift, is how we learn to get along from our point of the
Triangle. This particular communication facet entails scads
of life skill riches and opportunities for personal growth for
everyone involved.
The lesson, especially early on, seldom goes as planned,
but that doesn’t mean badly. We all have our triangular
position. A trained teacher knows a great deal about what
she hopes the child will learn about the instrument; she’s the
expert. The parent is a bridge who is an expert of the child,
and the ins and outs of their experience. The child—well,
the child knows what is interesting and what is not. They
often haven’t had time on earth to connect the dots of their
experience, they don’t know what they don’t know, and
spend a great deal of time taking in and assimilating their
world to discovering how they can best operate in it.
Children are so changeable. We all accept that they grow
physically; their appearance and demeanor shift almost
daily. But one of the most captivating features of students

is how their communication changes, and how they dis-
cover and develop their power. Kids go through stages of

everything—they try on personalities and behaviors and
see how each works for them. A strong parent guides them
through their inevitable “difficult” behaviors by offering
other choices and clear boundaries. It’s also imperative
to recognize that when any person displays an extreme
behavior, it can be recognized as a need unfulfilled. This
is easily observed in a baby crying because something is
“wrong.” The parent figures out what the need is, and all
is well. In an older person, let’s say from two to 99 years of
age, crying happens less, but other actions and behaviors
take over the signal for the need. Conscious people might
notice their own behavior and recognize that some need,
unrelated to the behavior, is present.
Such was the case of my student Lucas. He had a great first
year, with the advantage of a creative mom and an older
sibling who was sailing along nicely on the cello. It was
an easy teaching experience, and I could predict that the
lessons would be full and rich and wonderful. Then the

second year came along, when over the course of two les-
sons our time together went from quite productive to just

awful. Lucas wouldn’t cooperate or do anything we asked;
he would leave the cello space and try to break something in

the room, or run around screaming, or yell at anyone who
would listen. It took me a few lessons to get over the shock
of the change of his behavior—I spent all my time, as did
his mom, trying to steer him back to what we remembered
as wonderful, dependable advancement and growth. We
ended lessons early, played games, and had big talks. Mom
and I only survived those lessons while Lucas thrived in his
new chosen self, discovering how to use this new power. I
asked colleagues, I complained, I grinned and bore it. (I now
recognize my mindset at that time as one of denial—a kind of
hopeful ignoring that there was a problem because I didn’t
know how to “fix” it, which in my mind made me a lesser
teacher, and I didn’t want to go there!) Mom was feeling the
stress, too; she had tried many approaches at home and in
the lesson to no avail. We strategized but nothing worked.
I have cats, and my students are often interested in them,

their personalities, and how they look. I’ve used their differ-
ences to describe bow touch and tone quality—one cranky

and skinny, one is big and likes a hard scratching, the other
very puffy and sweet. Lucas loved them, even though he
never met them. The night before a lesson, when I was in a
little panic about the next day, I randomly decided to make
kitty tickets, complete with paw prints, that had words
like kind, polite, cooperative, focused, persistent, patient,
determined, fair. I gave the cards to Lucas without telling him
anything about them—out of the blue he received a ticket
from one of my cats affirming that just then, a moment ago,
Bella (the puffy one) had noticed that he was very patient.
This stopped him in his tracks. He was really puzzled about
this—what had he done that she (not me) had noticed was
patient? I explained, and asked him to put the ticket by his
chair for later. Before he knew it, I gave him another ticket
from my big cat that said fair after we negotiated a fair
number for him to repeat a problem spot.

In that first ticket lesson, he got 12 tickets, which he duti-
fully laid carefully down beside his stool. No one told him to

put them in neat little rows, and the next week, when I gave
him a ticket from the skinny cranky cat that said organized,
he said, “Thank you,” which instantly got him another
ticket for politeness. Those tickets changed our lesson lives
completely, so one could imagine my big concern when,
after about five good lessons, I ran out of tickets and forgot to
make more. So, Mom and I decided the tickets were invisible
that week. I remember his first ticket was for cooperation in

that lesson, and I ceremoniously handed it to him, explain-
ing why he couldn’t see it. As I handed it to him, there was

a moment of recognition in his eyes that something was

amok, followed by an acceptance that
it made sense. The cats had been busy,
and this is what they could send. He
ritualistically laid the tickets down in
his rows. At the end of the lesson, when
we counted how many he had received
that day, he looked down to the empty
spot where tickets had been placed and
began counting, giving up after three
and exclaiming, “I don’t know, they
are invisible!”
Looking back, I’m confident I hadn’t

realized the cats were teaching charac-
ter to him—or to me! I was just trying to

get through the lesson by using a visual
aid as a taxi to get from the beginning
to the end of the half hour. He was very

proud of his tickets, and more impor-
tantly, his behavior. He never acted any

way with a ticket reward in mind—he
loved the surprise of it all, and also had
some pretty astute questions when we
discussed the ticket meaning, which
Mom also participated in. Do you
remember Suzuki’s story about Koji
Toyoda’s behavior of being untidy and
coarse after living on his own after
the war, and how the family decided
to just pick up after him and give him
an example of how to be? The tickets
taught that to Lucas: while focusing on
something positive, he got to consider
for himself his behavior, and he would
later choose different behaviors much

more conducive to learning and inter-
esting to him.

His mom and I learned about our-
selves, too, recognizing our attempts to

recreate the past because it was better,

easier, were a waste of time—and spe-
cifically that our “push” energy, trying

to force him to cooperate through any
means, was an archaic strategy. We
had both believed that magically one
day we would just return to the first

year of lessons when life was wonder-
ful and easy. We exemplified a state of

denial and blindness, the uncreative
state of expectation. Meanwhile, Lucas
had been exploring a new sense of
power, one of disruption, where he
got lots of attention, albeit negative,
for his actions. He needed to know,
and we needed to teach him, where
helpful lesson behavior was from: his
character, and ultimately, his choice.
When feelings of blame, remorse,
and maybe a little dread for the other
points of the Suzuki triangle come in
during a lesson experience, I know
now to consider my own role first:
how do I choose to behave under

this adversity? I still panic, ask col-
leagues, and read books, but I also

look for what I might need to learn:
perhaps different words, quality of
voice, clarity of thought, gentleness
of touch, how I use my energy, how
I perceive theirs—and then I move
towards the path of change. This
process impacts our triangle: conflict
is an opportunity to build a stronger
relationship. To earn that responsible
cat ticket for communication in the
triangle means you recognized: 1.
there is a problem, 2. every problem is
some sort of unfulfilled need, so who
needs what right now? 3. I have a part
in it, and 4. the leader is the one who
appears to be creating the problem. All
three need to respect each other and
work to solve the problem. The larger
character of our triangle is developable
and recyclable into our relational lives
with other people. For me this affirms
Casal’s famous assertion: “Perhaps it is
music that will change the world.” I’d
like to add, “One parent, one child, and
one teacher at a time.”