Comparison is the Thief of Joy. It Can Also Be the Thief of Progress.

I don’t have a competitive bone in my body.

I do not have this in common with some of the children I teach.

In the Suzuki landscape, we have “benchmarks” in the sense that if you’re doing it by the book, every student learns the same pieces in the same order (though individual teacher practices vary).

To a child’s logical credit, this arrangement practically begs the student to compare themselves to their peers based on which piece they’re on or what book they’re in. There’s rarely a month of teaching where a student doesn’t ask something along the lines of: “How many pieces are in book 1? How fast can I finish book 1? There’s a book 10? How fast can I get to book 10??”

How fast? How fast? HOW FAST??!

That’s not the point.

Often, children (and their parents!) need help understanding how we measure progress in the Suzuki lesson. And yes, moving through the repertoire is a type of progress, but it’s sometimes the least meaningful measurement. Paradoxically, relying on trying to move through the pieces as fast as possible is sometimes detrimental to the valuable progress we’re actually looking for: ease of playing.

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