The Most Important Person in the Room

I think teaching is deeply important. And the more I think about it, the more one thing becomes clear to me — first and foremost, we are all creatures of connection.

When a new student arrives, the essential thing is to build that connection. It’s the connection, more than anything else, that decides whether a lesson goes well, whether a child feels safe, whether they open up and maybe come to love the instrument.

That doesn’t require a special method or a clever teaching technique. Sometimes the most important thing is simply to listen to the child, to put them first, to ask how they’re feeling, what they need right now, whether something is missing for them. To me, that’s the whole foundation. Everything else comes after.

We are all human. We want to be understood, accepted, loved, and respected. Children are no different from adults in this. We may differ in age, size, and experience, but the need for authenticity, self-expression, and belonging stays the same.

When a student arrives for a lesson, I try to receive them as if, in that moment, they were the most important person in the world. Because in a certain sense, they are.

I follow one simple rule: the most important person in the world is whoever is in front of you right now.

Children sense very quickly whether they’re truly seen and heard. When they feel that they matter, they open up, start talking more, smile, show themselves. And that is already the first step toward a real connection.

Sitting down at the instrument, we don’t always rush straight into “learning.” I’ll ask what they’d like to play, how they’re feeling, how they’d like to begin the lesson.

After all, this time is about them. So their opinion, their wishes, and what they choose to share matter to me.

I can have an excellent lesson structure, a great deal of knowledge, and a clear plan — but if I’m not listening to the child in that moment, all of it can fall flat. First, we have to prepare the ground where the child is ready to receive what’s being offered.

And for that, a teacher has to notice what’s happening inside the student right now.

One child arrives listless. Another is full of energy and can barely sit still. A third might want to talk a lot, and a fourth might not want to talk at all.

I think this is exactly where the beauty of teaching reveals itself — in the ability to accept each child as they are in that moment, and to offer them precisely the kind of support they need.

One of my teaching principles is to play with the child whatever they themselves want to play.

Of course, not every child can yet judge their own abilities realistically. Sometimes a student who has only just started wants to play something very demanding.

But I try not to say “no” right away.

We try it. We listen to the piece. We see what’s happening in it. Maybe we play a small part of it.

And even if it turns out the whole piece is still too difficult for now, the child’s wish has already been heard.

They weren’t told, “You can’t do that yet.”

They were told, “I hear what you want. Let’s look at it together.”

That matters a great deal to me.

Because sometimes the biggest shift in a lesson doesn’t start with what the teacher says or shows at the instrument. It starts with the feeling the child carries away: I was heard, I was accepted, what I wanted mattered.

And only then does everything else begin.