Certification levels and faculty are two different tracks. From time to time they can intersect. We cannot automatically make all certified teachers faculty members. To use the analogy of a college or university, the institution graduates students but does not necessarily place them as faculty members.

Someone can be at the Master Teacher level of certification and on the associate faculty. To use the analogy of a school’s faculty, one can be a DMA and be an assistant, associate or full professor.

All Golandsky Institute faculty have reached the Master Teacher level, but not all Master Teachers are faculty.

Anyone studying can bring a student whether or not they are in the program. The program was set up from the requests of the participants to have some formal certification for their efforts.

The Institute needs to see that a teacher has an aptitude to do this kind of work before being admitted to the program. The skills needed to do this work well differ from other disciplines and therefore need to be evaluated on their own terms. When a student “of any level” is observed by a master teacher it is very clear whether the basic skills of the work is present and being taught well. There needs to be some capacity to implement the basic work to be considered a good candidate. The only answer to the question of why would someone need this ability beforehand perhaps is best explained by the fact that there are prerequisites for entering music school. Someone has to audition with a fairly standard program of music performed at a certain level before admission. We are asking to see 2 examples of some capacity to teach the special skills of The Taubman Approach well before entering the program.

The level (meaning, beginner, intermediate or advanced) is not the important issue here. What we are looking for is a realistic understanding of the work. It is possible for the work to be taught at every level and we are looking for the teacher to have the ability to implement the skills well enough to show promise.

Then, concerns around that the students who would benefit most from a lesson with a Master teacher are often those who really need the help / are very injured, and not the teacher’s “best” students.

We would suggest substituting ” My best Taubman work” in place of
” Best Student”. This way the emphasis is placed on the Taubman work presented and not the overall level of the student musically. For example a beginner can be taught to line up to the instrument correctly and that can be a challenge of a certain type. However, an advanced pianist can be shown to do this and have their own unique challenges. That in essence is the heart of the complexity here. Reaching all ages, levels and personality types to do the work well. This is the value of the mentoring. To take advantage of the experience of the faculty and executive board to help reach all these types and teach the work well.

The idea that supervision is part of the program, before people register, is not concealed. We want to clarify that people do need to think this aspect through and evaluate whether it works for them financially before applying.

The program begins with a conversation between you and your faculty member teacher.

The faculty member presents the possibility to the board for review and then makes a request for an application from Robert Durso.

At this point the application is sent to the potential participant via email with a one year projection schedule and upon return is evaluated for acceptance by the board.

You return the application via email to bob.durso [at] golandskyinstitute.org and send an application fee of $50 made out to the Golandsky Institute.

Units will begin as soon as you are accepted into the program. Robert Durso will contact you upon acceptance.

This is a results based program. If you are more skilled you will advance through the process faster than someone with less experience. No one can apply to this program and be instantly certified. It requires showing your results and meeting the criteria of the program and levels.

The supervised lesson is where the participant brings their student to a faculty or board member to watch that person teach their student. This gives the greatest value. What is very important is for the participant to be able to watch, learn and extract the value from the corrections seen. We want to develop that skill so that the participant will be able to see the larger context of the correction and use it in their other teaching. Watching the participant teach their student in front of the master teacher will cut down the about of information and value that both the student and teacher can receive from a short 30 or 60 minute session.

We do not think that group lessons would be productive. The training that is needed is highly specialized and complicated. It works best one on one.

Yes, however, some should be live and that is up to the participant and mentor to decide.

Yes, however, it must be your own student from your home studio that is being seen by the faculty member.

Yes, absolutely!

Yes, Philadelphia would count as a Teacher Training.

Those in the certification program are struggling to find enough time with approved certification mentors (Edna, Bob, John and Mary.) They often have to choose between their own lesson and having their students seen by a teacher.

Yes, we have already decided that any faculty member can see students up to 6 times. After that, the person must be seen by one of the four of us for the lessons to count.

1. Faculty member, please pick a board member to be the co-mentor with for your participant.

2. A Participant can bring a student to a faculty member 6 times before needing to be seen by the board member on the 7th time. Of these six times only 3 can be via Skype with the faculty member. The other three must be live. After the student is seen by the board member 7 units will be valid to include on your tracking sheet.

3. When the participant is bringing the student to a Board member without the faculty member you must video tape the lesson for the faculty to see later or Skype the faculty member into the session.

4. If you are Skyping the lesson in, both the participant, the student and the faculty member must be present.

5. Final validation of the requirements for certification must be live. What that means is that although you can facilitate the learning with Skype the student must be seen live for a board member to certify the requirements outlined on the website for certification. The 7 units does not automatically certify the work of that student.

A member of the board (Edna, John, Bob or Mary) will have to evaluate the overall progress with the mentoring teacher to determine if certification is appropriate.

• Mary Moran’s Teaching Children Taubman Approach workshop (is this be counted as teacher training?)
• John’s Brisbane weekend workshop in January (I think you okayed that one last year)
• Therese’s workshop on Taubman Approach in Sydney in February?

All workshops given by GI Faculty will count. The idea is to participate as much as possible in this type of setting. It improves your theoretical and practical knowledge.