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6
Motivating Children to Develop their Potential
Dr Shinichi Suzuki
D
eep consideration of the two
questions
‘How is superior ability
cultivated?’
and
‘How is ability
stunted or neglected?’
is, pedagogi-
cally speaking, of great importance. In
answering these questions, we must
first reflect on what inspires or gener-
ates ability.
It is my fervent desire that everyone
who utilises the violin to develop musi-
cal ability, that is, who is involved in
the building of musical sensibility and
performance ability in their children,
will join me in pursuing the matters of
how, on the one hand, potential is fos-
tered, and, on the other, under what
conditions it isn’t. When these an-
swers become clear, a hopeful bliss will
surely pervade their daily lives and vio-
lin practice.
Many Talent Education parents are
impressively hardworking and dedi-
cated, but when we ask whether dedi-
cation invariably results in exemplary
development it seems that it is not
necessarily so. When their children
grow less interested in practicing, some
of these parents begin to apply pres-
sure only to find that this has no effect
but to make things worse. In the end,
a portion of these parents resign them-
selves and, regrettably, give up mid-
way.
This should not happen if they really
understand Talent Education. This un-
fortunate result is produced when, in-
stead of making a serious effort to
learn about Talent Education, commit-
ted parents adhere to traditional edu-
cational attitudes and merely entertain
hopes of training their children to play
the violin well.
It is extremely difficult to change the
conventional attitudes in adults. Even
the finest, self-reflective person finds
herself unconsciously reverting to for-
merly held beliefs. I would like, how-
ever, for people truly to understand
the new frontier of Talent Education.
Once they convert to the new conven-
tional wisdom, my hope is that they
will dedicate themselves, for the sake
of their children, to applying these un-
familiar new ideas with care and con-
stant reflection.
It is certainly undeniable that inten-
sive violin practice leads to superior
abilities. The problem is, what if it’s
the parents’ who are passionate,
while the children are completely
indifferent? Properly speaking, I
must
qualify
the
statement
‘Intensive violin practice leads to
superior abilities’ by amending it to
‘Intensive practice on the part of
the individual playing the violin …’
The real accomplishment of educa-
tion lies in gradually nurturing the
ents are charged is that of fostering the
heart-minds of their children. Are you
all willing to take on this challenge?
Parents who succeed in developing
finely honed heart-minds in their chil-
dren can perhaps be said to have ful-
filled their parental mission. Some of
you may wonder what this has to do
with ability. If you consider that the
simplest motions of shifting your hands
and feet start with the heart-mind,
however, then it is reasonably easy to
see that nurturing of the heart-mind
itself stimulates ability.
Just think, your children may be learn-
ing the violin, or perhaps it is painting,
but Practice is Practice, Whether
they're doing it willy-nilly or joyfully;
Whether they’re doing it carelessly or
carefully; Whether they're doing en-
thusiastically or they’re aiming for the
best; Whether they think they’ll take a
day off and practice tomorrow or
Whether they resent practicing and
rarely do so.
As you can see, there are a variety of
ways to practice. The same hour of
practice by people at differing levels of
the heart-mind will result in widely
divergent degrees of ability. I would
therefore like to see everyone come to
recognize that the motivating force
behind all ability development lies in
the heart-mind. Reflection upon this
knowledge hopefully will contribute,
one day, towards common understand-
ing that ‘Talent Education’ means ‘Oh,
yes, that association of parents seri-
ously committed to developing supe-
rior heart-minds in their children!’
I would like to emphasize that our re-
search is not concerned solely with
nurturing violinists'’ heart-minds. Chil-
dren’s heart-minds are shaped by
every aspect of their daily lives, and it
is useless to try to attune a heart-mind
exclusively to the act of playing the
violin.
November 1957
English translation by Lili Iriye Selden
Extract from International Suzuki Journal
Spring 1996
enthusiasm of that very individual
who does the practicing. Talent
Education’s mission from years ago
has been in exploring this principle.
It is now time to discuss how to mo-
tivate the development of ability. I
urge all of you to consider this mat-
ter along with me. Is not the gener-
ating impulse of ability invariably
linked to kokoro, the heart-mind? I
am always painfully conscious of
the significance of nurturing this
heart-mind, for ‘Kokoro is the life-
force of human beings.’
Of course, it is a relatively straight-
forward fact that even the simple
action of raising an arm relies on
the functioning of the heart. Be-
yond that, however, lies an even
greater truth. If asked, ‘What is the
most valuable central feature of
education?’ I would immediately
answer ‘Cultivating the heart-mind.’
I also believe that the loftiest and
most difficult task with which par-