4 Chair’s Column Anke van der Bijl • Putting procedures before people • Stopping the development of the respective instruments • Acting against the Suzuki Philosophy • Disrespecting Trainees and Trainers. These accusations make us sad. It does not contribute to the harmonious atmosphere we all wish for. The aim is not to scold each other. Teacher Trainers ought to connect with Trainees and provide a good example. To give Trainees the tools to open the heart of many pupils. To share the experience how music touches our souls. We should consider that even though our circumstances may be different, the ESA Board, the ESA Admininstrator and the ESA Teacher Trainers have the same goals - spreading the SUZUKI Philosophy through offering Quality Teacher Training in our ESA region. We follow our procedures to be consistent and fair to all of our 27 member countries and across all 19 of our instruments. These procedures have been discussed at length and voted on democratically by our ESA Board. And yes, I totally agree, our manuals have become vast ! In our attempt to accommodate different instruments, new countries, advances in tecnhology and new challenges as the SUZUKI Method grows in the region, we make more additions and amendments to the manuals, making them rather comprehensive whereas our main dream is to simplify them. Making three manuals more user friendly is a massive job because their content is inter-related. A change in one affects a clause in another. A first step may be to extract all sample forms and certificates and replace with links. Still, first we need to reconsider our procedures and all their variations For examinations - • 100 % in person • partly online • continuous assessment For teacher training : • 100 % in person • hybrid - 50 % in person, 50% & online • continuous assessment For clear charts on reciprocity. So far this has merely been a dream. It is time to move forward from having a dream to having a plan. Let’s start ! Soon all Teacher Trainers will receive a questionnaire about the current procedures. The results will help us ‘compose’ an appropriate review for the upcoming ESA Teacher Training Conference in Vilnius. There we hope to discuss new options with the ESA Teacher Trainers present. You all can contribute and share your experience, which is most appreciated ! Let us work together to keep true to our motto ‘Quality Teacher Training’. We hope to hear from you all. Balancing People and Procedures Suzuki Teacher Training : Theme with Variations & Deviations I n January 2024, I wrote a letter to all ESA Teacher Trainers expressing my concern about the amount of ESA examinations which do not follow our ESA Teacher Training and Examinations manuals. We (Officers and Administration) noticed that the majority(!) of all examinations do not follow the current procedures. It takes up much of our voluntary time finding ways to validate those exams without making the trainees suffer. In our most recent Board Meeting we also discussed the matter. It seemed most Board members were not aware of the vast amount of queries we actually receive. Examples of “deviations” to our procedures are - • Previous levels are missing i.e. Level 4 exams without a previous Level 3 • Exam report forms without names, addresses or levels or “pass” • Incorrect names and/or address of trainees • Issues with Examiner panels • Trainees are not members of their national Suzuki association (NSA). It takes hours of discussion and debate on how to let candidates pass without creating precedents for new issues. Valuable time we would prefer to use for other important issues, such as organising events and start the job of updating and simplifying our manuals to make them more user friendly ! When addressing these queries with the Teacher Trainers and NSA’s involved, it is mostly the Chair and Administrator who are accused of :
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