Really pleased to hear your children had a positive experience and your lessons sound remarkable too.
Yes, still head of department although we’ve been restructured so I’ve acquired Art and Drama too- ‘The Creative Arts’ (as opposed to ‘The Non-Creative Arts’ 🤦♂️)
I think lots of these anecdotes prove it is very much a relationship thing with a genre of music or the instrument, making it a moving target for teachers the whole time. We’re under constant pressure to be adaptive in our teaching now the days of concept of ‘my way or the highway, ruler to the back of the knuckles’ is very much gone, I hope. But we are dependent on who engages and finds that motivation. I have two yr11 bassists at the moment, I’ve tried to be as equal and provide the same opportunity for both, one on one before school lessons, play in productions etc. Both did our show this year, but one has done nicely and the other has bitten my hand off, found loads of bands to play in, got chucked out of jam nights for being under age and much to my great pleasure applied for the national youth musical theatre course this summer and got the gig as bassist for Our House. I didn’t even know he was applying!