Analysis Assignment Of Teaching Kids to Practice

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Analysis: "Teaching Kids to Practice"
In the article, Teaching Kids to Practice, Willie asserts that extrinsic motivators can affect intrinsic motivators and the practice behaviors of music students. Extrinsic motivation is important in teaching and learning as the students are more likely to develop complex skills. If the students are motivated from a young age, this has a huge difference in their perception about learning as they are more upbeat and eager to learn. When students are exposed to many opportunities where they learn more about the music, they are knowledgeable as they acquire useful skills. Music students must practice and be motivated to be proficient and grow, while this requires patience as people cannot learn instantly.
Musical educators ought to focus on motivation to stimulate learning and practice. The author addresses his fellow music educators to appreciate the need of practice and inspiring kids to learn music. Willie rightly mentions that in the digital age, there are too many distractions that we are bombarded with data and information with the click of a button. It is no surprise that the phenomenon of instant gratification is common in the society compared to the past. Willie further maintains that learning to play an instrument requires dedication as acquiring musical playing skills is a long-term exercise. As such, he links the growth in information technology to low attention span and this affects the ability of musical students to practice consistently.
Willie explains that his experience in a tiny rural school taught him that he could not do everything on his own without the students’ input to improve music education. As a dedicated music educator, he sought to improve the music education where the high school band was struggling, but there was a marginal improvement at the end of the school year. The author uses his experience to validate his observation that motivation and practice affect how students learn. Willie stated, “in time, I began to realize that I was trying to "fix" everything myself.” His personal experience shows that he knows what he is talking about and his suggestions are practical.
The author identifies motivation and practice as the essential ingredients to musical instrument learning. He highlights that prior to his arrival in the school there had been a “band-buck" program that was exercised when the students played 15 minutes outside the class, where parents would authorize this and this would be exchanged for ‘prizes’ at auctions. While Willie was skeptical in the effectiveness of extrinsic motivators, he decided to give it a try and bring back the band-bucks. The author also indicates that as more students were willing to participate in the ‘band-buck’ exercise they were more motivated to practice. This corroborates his initial observation that the students failed to practice as there was no motivation. The author’s argument is reasonable since positive changes were experienced when the musical students.
To emphasize that the changes were related to extrinsic motivation, the author identifies increased practice and willingness to learn as key moments facilitated learn...