Music, poetry, and teaching all have one thing in common for a few practitioners. It’s the idea of a silent apprenticeship.
When it comes to music, the performer often selects a piece, then learns it verbatim. This isn’t always easy. The performer will likely need to learn and practice new skills to perform the song, but after that’s accounted for, the performer can move on. Upon memorizing and internalizing the piece, he or she reaches the point of automaticity. This allows the artist to interpret and adapt a piece in a way that fits the performer’s and audience’s taste.
Just look at Hallelujah by Leonard Cohen. The song has been internalized and interpreted by countless artists, but remains beautiful every time as it opens the listener up to even more feelings.
It doesn’t take a teacher , coach or mentor– just a few chords and a sheet of music.
In poetry, you can read imitations throughout history by the likes of Pope and Yeats. Both did imitations of Donne and others to learn the craft , then moved onto their own work.
This silent apprenticeship was a fairly common practice, but I doubt many do it anymore as some interpret such a practice to be considered “inauthentic”.
Then again, the very authentic and eccentric Hunter S. Thompson typed Fitzgerald’s Great Gatsby for part of his education.
But when it comes to teaching, we rarely memorize and imitate the scores composed by master teachers with proven track records. I understand the struggle firsthand.
After nearly 10 years of teaching, I had the privilege of joining a founding team of rock stars– the only hitch was that it required me to memorize the plans of master teachers with proven track records.
I pushed back and hated it, but when I perceived the practice as one of apprenticeship and learning, I loosened up.
By absorbing, memorizing, and executing a master teacher’s words, questions and systems, I began to learn how they thought , crafted lessons and created learning for students– something that my teacher licensing courses didn’t do.
I internalized and performed the lessons first before making them my own and adapting them for my audience.
While I’m uncertain as to how teacher preparation courses are taught anymore, I do think a worthy investment would be for teacher prep programs to design a class that prepares the next generation of educators by studying , memorizing, and performing master lessons of the greats.
It could change the lives of new teachers and students alike if we could just value the merits of the silent apprenticeship. Great schools do this. We can all be great if we just follow.