Teacher Interview
Pamela Kotchie-Wharram is an amazing teacher and such an inspiration in my life. She has been teaching for 35+ years and has been teaching me for just under 3. Right in the beginning at my first lesson I knew that we were going to connect but I didn't know it was going to be so deep. Her and I really understand each other and get along very well. She helped me in times where I needed to talk to someone and didn't want to go to my parents. She taught me piano and helped me achieve my grade 3 piano. She also helped me complete my RCM advanced rudiments (level 8 when I wrote it) which has been helping me a lot through theory here. She is still even helping me a lot with my grade 6 piano for university. By that I mean when I went home for reading week, her and I got together and she helped me learn the technique for the test. Over the winter break I am going to get together with her again and work even more on the grade 6 piano repertoire. Honestly for me without her in my life I don't think I would have been able to choose where I was going to end up at for university or get through the hard times. Also if I didn't start taking lessons with her I don't think I would have gone to university for music. I couldn't have done it without her even though she wasn't my saxophone teacher which is my main instrument.
The interview that we did was very laid back. It wasn't insanely formal due to the fact that we are so close. On of the questions I asked her that really stuck out to me was when I said, “Has your teaching style changed over the years? And if so, why do you think that?” Her reply is something that was really well said. She said, “My teaching style has not changed over the years. According to my students needs and abilities, I may approach things differently but the end result is the same.” I think that is powerful because she knows that she needs to be there for the students and knowing what is good for their learning ability and what is not. She is the type of teacher that really gets to know their students to the level over comfortability that they can tell her things without going to their parents and such and making it a bigger problem. She never tells anyone about what is going on unless absolutely necessary. I think that is a good thing so we can trust her with our problems and she could maybe help us as well. She has that motherly quality to her and it is such a nice thing to be around. I also asked her is she thought she made an impact on the student’s lives in a musical way. Her answer was very thoughtful for those who did end up pursuing a career in music and for those who are there just for fun. She hopes that the ones that are going into music that she helped influence that decision or just made that decision more realistic. For those who are there just for fun she tries to show them all the benefits of playing a musical instrument. She also talked about how she showed her students her road to getting here and how she is still learning all the time, in hopes that they will take that knowledge and help guide their decisions as well.
All in all, Pam is one of the best music teachers I ever had growing up, even if we only knew each other for a short amount of time. We got along very well and I will always keep in touch with her no matter what. She is just someone you would always want to be around. I still consider her to be one of my teachers now and she is still teaching me new things all the time. She is still my piano teacher and is helping me achieve my grade 6 RCM piano. I am just so thankful that she is my teacher and I wouldn’t want it any other way.
Pamela Kotchie-Wharram is an amazing teacher and such an inspiration in my life. She has been teaching for 35+ years and has been teaching me for just under 3. Right in the beginning at my first lesson I knew that we were going to connect but I didn't know it was going to be so deep. Her and I really understand each other and get along very well. She helped me in times where I needed to talk to someone and didn't want to go to my parents. She taught me piano and helped me achieve my grade 3 piano. She also helped me complete my RCM advanced rudiments (level 8 when I wrote it) which has been helping me a lot through theory here. She is still even helping me a lot with my grade 6 piano for university. By that I mean when I went home for reading week, her and I got together and she helped me learn the technique for the test. Over the winter break I am going to get together with her again and work even more on the grade 6 piano repertoire. Honestly for me without her in my life I don't think I would have been able to choose where I was going to end up at for university or get through the hard times. Also if I didn't start taking lessons with her I don't think I would have gone to university for music. I couldn't have done it without her even though she wasn't my saxophone teacher which is my main instrument.
The interview that we did was very laid back. It wasn't insanely formal due to the fact that we are so close. On of the questions I asked her that really stuck out to me was when I said, “Has your teaching style changed over the years? And if so, why do you think that?” Her reply is something that was really well said. She said, “My teaching style has not changed over the years. According to my students needs and abilities, I may approach things differently but the end result is the same.” I think that is powerful because she knows that she needs to be there for the students and knowing what is good for their learning ability and what is not. She is the type of teacher that really gets to know their students to the level over comfortability that they can tell her things without going to their parents and such and making it a bigger problem. She never tells anyone about what is going on unless absolutely necessary. I think that is a good thing so we can trust her with our problems and she could maybe help us as well. She has that motherly quality to her and it is such a nice thing to be around. I also asked her is she thought she made an impact on the student’s lives in a musical way. Her answer was very thoughtful for those who did end up pursuing a career in music and for those who are there just for fun. She hopes that the ones that are going into music that she helped influence that decision or just made that decision more realistic. For those who are there just for fun she tries to show them all the benefits of playing a musical instrument. She also talked about how she showed her students her road to getting here and how she is still learning all the time, in hopes that they will take that knowledge and help guide their decisions as well.
All in all, Pam is one of the best music teachers I ever had growing up, even if we only knew each other for a short amount of time. We got along very well and I will always keep in touch with her no matter what. She is just someone you would always want to be around. I still consider her to be one of my teachers now and she is still teaching me new things all the time. She is still my piano teacher and is helping me achieve my grade 6 RCM piano. I am just so thankful that she is my teacher and I wouldn’t want it any other way.
Student and Teacher Interview Comparison
Both my student interview and my teacher interview went very well. All of them had great answers and were very insightful. The teacher I interviewed is named Pamela Kotchie-Wharram, she was/still is my piano teacher. The two students I interviewed are two of my best friends, Janielle Palmer and Carmen Lalonde. These three people are very close to me and I was glad to be able to ask them questions about their musical experience within the classroom and in a private lessons setting.
There were many things that they said that were similar. What I mean by that is the fact that they had answers that could be easily compared together. The one that were very similar was when I asked Pam if she felt that she made an impact on people’s lives musically. She talked about how she wanted the students to have the full experience even if they weren’t going to pursue a music career. She wanted the students to know about her time getting to where she is now. Janielle and Carmen were asked if their music teacher influenced them in anyway. This was a similar answer because Janielle talked about how the teachers would tell her that you don’t have to go into a super hard career where you have to have a desk job, you can go into music and do what you love. The two things they said worked together because Pam wanted to show that you can succeed in music and Janielle talked about the same thing but having people tell her that rather than her showing people. I was glad that they both said this because it proves a point that music teachers want people to do what they love even if it is a job that isn’t as common or seen as a good thing.
Something that I found interesting about what Pam said about changing her teaching style and how she didn’t believe that her style has changed, it has just changed according to the students’ needs and abilities. It is understandable that she thinks that and with that I could see in my music class with Carmen and Janielle in it too. Our teacher would be flexible to how everyone needs to learn and how they need to be kept attentive and not bored all the time, so for Janielle that meant that she was always encouraged to try a new instrument and get it up to performance ability. For Carmen that was to be given challenging music (especially within our pit band where she was given the harder piano parts to play). For myself I needed to be working on something all the time because if not I would become very off topic so I was given hard parts where it kept me on task to be able to work out the parts for myself and come back and be able to play it with the band. Relating the two things together, Pam works to get the students to have the same end result that was the same for the three of us, we had different things that we did but we still came together with the pit band and were able to play amazing shows.
To bring it all together, there weren’t any contrasting parts to the interviews which for me was nice because that means that Pam works the same as our other teachers at our high school, which is a good thing because those teachers there were very good and really knew what they were doing, same with Pam. I was just really glad to be able to ask them these questions and get their thoughts and feeling about this topic.
Both my student interview and my teacher interview went very well. All of them had great answers and were very insightful. The teacher I interviewed is named Pamela Kotchie-Wharram, she was/still is my piano teacher. The two students I interviewed are two of my best friends, Janielle Palmer and Carmen Lalonde. These three people are very close to me and I was glad to be able to ask them questions about their musical experience within the classroom and in a private lessons setting.
There were many things that they said that were similar. What I mean by that is the fact that they had answers that could be easily compared together. The one that were very similar was when I asked Pam if she felt that she made an impact on people’s lives musically. She talked about how she wanted the students to have the full experience even if they weren’t going to pursue a music career. She wanted the students to know about her time getting to where she is now. Janielle and Carmen were asked if their music teacher influenced them in anyway. This was a similar answer because Janielle talked about how the teachers would tell her that you don’t have to go into a super hard career where you have to have a desk job, you can go into music and do what you love. The two things they said worked together because Pam wanted to show that you can succeed in music and Janielle talked about the same thing but having people tell her that rather than her showing people. I was glad that they both said this because it proves a point that music teachers want people to do what they love even if it is a job that isn’t as common or seen as a good thing.
Something that I found interesting about what Pam said about changing her teaching style and how she didn’t believe that her style has changed, it has just changed according to the students’ needs and abilities. It is understandable that she thinks that and with that I could see in my music class with Carmen and Janielle in it too. Our teacher would be flexible to how everyone needs to learn and how they need to be kept attentive and not bored all the time, so for Janielle that meant that she was always encouraged to try a new instrument and get it up to performance ability. For Carmen that was to be given challenging music (especially within our pit band where she was given the harder piano parts to play). For myself I needed to be working on something all the time because if not I would become very off topic so I was given hard parts where it kept me on task to be able to work out the parts for myself and come back and be able to play it with the band. Relating the two things together, Pam works to get the students to have the same end result that was the same for the three of us, we had different things that we did but we still came together with the pit band and were able to play amazing shows.
To bring it all together, there weren’t any contrasting parts to the interviews which for me was nice because that means that Pam works the same as our other teachers at our high school, which is a good thing because those teachers there were very good and really knew what they were doing, same with Pam. I was just really glad to be able to ask them these questions and get their thoughts and feeling about this topic.