Christina Whitlock, Beyond Measure Podcast

Today, I Confess: Sometimes I Focus on the Wrong Things... Oh, the irony... This week on the podcast, I kicked off a series examining things that distract us from doing our best work. I've compiled quite the list of shiny objects that cause teachers to lose their way. I'm excited to share more with you in the weeks to come. Here's what I didn't see coming: This week, I became a victim of my own distraction. My studio year kicked off on Monday, which is a relatively big deal around here. There...

Today, I Confess: It's Been 30 Years and I'm Still Figuring This Out... It's official, friends: I've been teaching piano lessons for THIRTY YEARS! Cue the party horns... Short story: I grew up as a big fish in a small pond and was hired to teach at my small-town music store at age 14. Did I know what I was doing? Of course not! Nevertheless, I quickly fell in love with piecing together The Human Puzzle (through the lens of piano study) and the rest is history. I've been a piano teacher for...

Today, I Confess: Sometimes Lessons are TOO Familiar... *psst! HELLO to my new friends from NCKP! 👋 I'm so glad you are here! In his opening keynote for the NCKP Innovation Summit last week, Randy Faber talked about Familiarity Bias. In a nutshell, our lived experiences make it difficult to see new paths forward. This is a roadblock to innovative teaching practices because we get too familiar with the lesson process and become blind to new possibilities that could benefit our students. Many...

Today, I Confess: Summer is Different Now. ...just a QUICK note for today: Summer is different. I hear it from teachers and parents and caretakers... it really is a whole new ballgame. ⚾ I'll be tackling some of my thoughts on dealing with the changing landscape of summer on the podcast next month, but for now, I just want to offer solidarity. If you feel like summer has lost its ease, that's because - for a lot of us - it has. 21st century Achievement Culture has pushed its way into summer...

Today, I Confess: I Don't Take Play Seriously Enough. (and chances are, you don't either) Where are my overachievers at? 🙋♀️ You and I both know: we live in a society that values work. I have now spent 43 years on this planet, most of them trying to prove my worth through productivity. If you can identify, I hope you'll listen to my conversation with Vanessa Cornett from last summer. Vanessa is one of my go-to voices of reason in this sometimes-volatile musician life. Here's an interesting...

Today, I Confess: I Wasn't Going to Take a Break... There are some funny (re: strange) things that go on behind the scenes of the content creators you follow... Myself included. Last week, a fellow podcaster left me a series of voice messages, lamenting how she woke up in the middle of the night with a nagging thought of something she needed to "fix" in her upcoming episode. One thing led to another, and that one adjustment ran her entire weekend off the rails. "Remind me why we do this...

Today, I Confess: This is Not Real. "This is going to sound really weird... but I don't feel like any of this is real. For as much time as I spend using technology, I have never thought of my life as being electronic. It's just electrons flying through the air." When Jason Sifford first spoke these words to me as we recorded Episode 220, I had no idea what an earworm his words would become. Truly, I've heard Jason's voice in my head saying, "I don't feel like any of this is real." more times...

Today, I Confess: I Have a New Obsession.... (and it's spelled P-L-A-Y) Earlier this week, I presented a session at NCKP online titled, "The Paradox of Play: Taking Fun Seriously". I've always considered PLAY a priority in the work I do. In fact, it's included on my list of core values that I discussed with Leila Viss at the start of this week's podcast conversation. Even still, my research for this session sparked a new fire under me, and my purpose as a piano teacher feels renewed on every...

Today, I Confess: Sometimes My Job is Hard. (And so is everyone else's) This time of year, I love watching commencement addresses given at various institutions. An all-time favorite features Kelly Corrigan at The Walker School from 2021. It’s worth 8 minutes of your time. A highlight, for me, is when she talks about her friend, Paul Ford: Kelly says EVERYONE loves Paul Ford because, “…at parties, he asks people what they do for a living. Whatever they tell him they do, he says, “That must be...