…this year’s National Conference on Keyboard Pedagogy! I’m so excited to tell you that I’ve been invited to share two presentations at this year’s conference. I love to present, but more than that, I love to meet and be around teachers. I’m hoping many of you will be there. Will you please let me know if you are coming so that I can know to look for you?
If you are trying to decide whether to attend or not, I thought I’d share with you why I think NCKP is “where it’s at!”
Most industries tend to lag behind sociological developments and technology. So, it’s not a slam to our profession to admit that we are one of the many that tend to lag behind. It’s just a fact of life that if you are not in the technology field, you won’t be the first adopter of facebook, or one of the first bloggers, etc. But, it’s important that our field of piano teaching not be too far behind a sociological development because our clients/students are definitely early adopters of such things (FB, texting, Twitter, etc.). When we integrate these things into our teaching, our students tend to look at us with a little more respect and think we are more relevant to them (whether or not that is the case) which often helps in connecting and communicating with them.
So, I’m always watching to see what piano teaching organizations are keeping up with the times, whether its the look of their website, their website’s ease of navigation, their FB posts, etc. I think the National Conference on Keyboard Pedagogy (a division of the Frances Clark Center for Keyboard Pedagogy) is such an organization that keeps up and tries to even lead the way in their industry. Here are some examples:
- Â NCKP and Clavier Companion are divisions of the Frances Clark Center for Keyboard Pedagogy. Clavier Companion has excellent, relevant articles for all teachers. Included in those articles are ones on integrating technology, career development, business development, etc.
- Clavier Companion regularly has an “ad feature” and “article feature” on Facebook in which cyber attendees can ask questions of a vendor or an author about their product or their article. Their questions are answered in real time and there have been some wonderful discussions during these ad features. One of my favorite features has been when Clavier Companion invited Kathleen Theisen and Kristen Yost to answer questions about the business of teaching.
- The NCKP and Clavier Companion regularly post relevant thoughts, questions, and articles on their Facebook page.
- The New School for Music Study (part of the Frances Clark Center which hosts NCKP) now has a piano pedagogy blog full of thought provoking articles which everyone should read. Clavier Companion also has a blog featuring a wide variety of respected authors and bloggers in the piano pedagogy world.
- Two years ago, NCKP starting doing Ped xi sessions which were designed to be similar to TEDx events in which novel and inspiring ideas in pedagogy were discussed. I’m hoping they bring it back this year!
- It goes without saying that all the major publishers and vendors will be at the conference displaying their latest products, giving away many of those products, and presenting sessions.
I promise I was not asked or paid to write this! I just had a wonderful time the first time I went to NCKP and came away with great ideas and inspiration. I’d love for you all to experience what I experienced.
Will you be there? See more thoughts on budgeting for a national conference. Or visit the NCKP webpage.
**To be clear, I want to say that I think MTNA is a great organization as well and I know they and NCKP support each other’s efforts to encourage sound pedagogy.
