Intermède : Kindness

Dear Teach Suzuki Violin Members and Friends,

This week on Teach Suzuki Violin while writing the post about the 2nd movement of Bach’s A minor violin concerto, I was reading a harrowing memoir by Brando Skyhorse about his incredibly difficult childhood and that vital missing quality in his early life that is every child’s right: kindness.

I began thinking about the kind people I’ve known and their far-reaching effects on others.

My high school English teacher, Leon Segal, was one such kind person. He treated all students kindly, becoming an friendly adviser in our efforts to write better. I never heard him raise his voice and English classes were like a conversation between interesting people. He encouraged me to teach simply through the example of his teaching. After graduation, he asked me what I wanted to study at university. I had no thoughts about teaching. When I said, “music, psychology, anthropology, philosophy, mathematics,” he just smiled and made no comment.

A few years later I came back to see him where he lived with his wife at his small farm outside my home town. He welcomed me like an old friend and asked how were things going. When I talked about wanting to start a music school, he said, “Oh, you’ve got that far, have you?” as if he knew all along what I was going to do.

We remember kind people. They have a lasting influence on our lives.

Kindness is a quality we learn from our own childhood – and from children themselves. Young children gauge a person’s kindness very accurately – by how they are understood and treated. They know kind people are friendly, helpful, sensitive to their feelings and protect them from harm. The very word “kindness” is derived from kinder (child).

How we treat children is the measure of our humanity.

Who are the kind people in your life?

Cheers, John