Katie Jeanne

This is my friend Katie. She's 14 years old, loves giving hugs, and really loves pizza. She truly is just a sweet spirit. 

When word got around that I was teaching piano for my senior project, Katie's mom asked me if I wanted to teach her. Of course I said yes! Why would I pass up an opportunity like that? My older sister, Dianna, taught Katie for a while before she got a job as a teacher in downtown Tucson. So no, Katie does not fit the same criteria as all of my other students. She does have a past with learning music. But that's okay! I knew it was going to be different teaching her, and that she would give me quite a bit of diversity in my teaching methods. 

Earlier, I read an article about teaching children with Down Syndrome how to play the piano. The author of the article, Rosie Cross, says this:

I believe very strongly that people with learning difficulties, however severe, have as much right to play a musical instrument as the rest of us. What is desperately needed is more teachers who are prepared to teach them, and who will persevere when progress seems elusive.

Patience is definitely an attribute that is needed by these teachers. I honestly don't know how my sister started with Katie from Square 1. My head would have just been filled with doubt. But now that Katie has some familiarity with the piano and with reading music, I feel that I can endure. 

Rosie Cross writes that children with Down Syndrome have a great aural memory, meaning that they have a really good way of remembering things they hear. She also said that they are good at mimicry. If I play a tune for Katie on the piano and tell her to play it, she has a better chance of copying what I just did rather than if I place a piece of music in front of her and tell her to play it. She won't get the satisfaction of playing it right because she doesn't know what that song is supposed to sound like! That's the main thing this article taught me: aural memory and mimicry. 

This article also talked a lot about illustration. At first, I didn't think she meant literal illustration, but she did. She actually draws a picture and tells her students with Down Syndrome to play on the keyboard the feeling they get from the picture. She tells a story about Ziekel, a student of hers. His father stands next to the piano telling a story while Ziekel plays along on the entire keyboard. I simply could not do that. I've never been good at improvising or composing. I think it's great that children with Down Syndrome are good at that! I'm sure Katie will teach me much more throughout this process than I'll teach her.