Columbia Talent Education Association

TEACHING STAFF

• Katherine M. Kossmann - piano. Degrees from the University of Missouri-Columbia. Mrs. Kossmann has been teaching since 1975 and joined CTEA in 1981.
• Celestine Hayes - piano. Degrees from the University of Missouri-Columbia. Mrs. Hayes has been teaching since 1964 and joined CTEA in 1982.
• Carol Kmucha - violin/viola. Music degree from the University of Missouri-Columbia, with course work in Early Childhood Education from Cabrillo College in Aptos, CA. Mrs. Kmucha has been teaching since 1980 and joined CTEA in 1992.

The Columbia Talent Education Association is a not-for-profit organization for music education guided by a parent board.
The CTEA Suzuki program admits students of any race, color and national or ethnic origin.

Columbia Talent Education, Inc.
P.O. Box 7725
Columbia, MO 65205
For further information telephone: 573-474-6114

THE SUZUKI APPROACH

The Suzuki approach seeks to develop the whole child, helping to unfold the natural potential to learn and to become a good and happy person. It deals with much more than teaching a child how to play an instrument. The purpose of Suzuki training is not to produce great artists, but to help every child find the joy that comes through making music.

The key elements in the Suzuki Talent Education philosophy are listed below:

• Every child can learn. Talent is not inborn, but is developed in a nurturing environment.
• Begin as early as possible. Suzuki has found that children can learn to play an instrument very well beginning at the age of three and in some cases even earlier. It is never too early and it is never too late to start enjoying the learning process.
• Encouragement. A parent does not scold a child for mispronouncing a new word, but encourages the child to say it again correctly. Likewise, the Suzuki parent must always encourage the child through positive enforcement.
• Step-by-step mastery. Since this approach is success oriented, each skill is broken into small segments easily mastered by the student.
• Repetition is fundamental. The small child is encouraged to say the same simple words over and over until they are mastered. Suzuki limits the amount of material on any given level and encourages repetition.
• Active repertoire of all pieces learned. In one's native tongue, one never gets to the point where a word is learned only to be forgotten. The Suzuki approach encourages the child to play each of the pieces learned to enjoy the pleasure of mastery.
• Learn by memory. This is the "mother tongue" approach. The child learns the language by using and remembering words and small sentences. Memory is nurtured in a gradual manner until it becomes a highly developed skill.
• Reading after physical control. Just as speaking precedes reading, the Suzuki child's musical skills are well established before notation is introduced.
• Involvement of the parent. Either the mother or the father attends all lessons so that there is an understanding of the learning process and the parent can feel secure when working with the child as home-teacher. The most important single ingredient for success is the parents' willingness to create, not only a musical environment for the child, but also a total environment of affection, support, encouragement and understanding.