Do you need a speaker for your next event?

I’m Bonnie Blanchard, a performer and private flute teacher in Seattle, and author of a new book called “Making Music and Enriching Lives: a Guide for All Music Teachers. I’m also an educator and top-regarded keynote speaker, specializing in music pedagogy. My passion is helping music teachers find creative solutions to their challenges.

My new book draws on my thirty years of experience teaching music and running a successful private flute studio. Over the years I’ve developed a unique teaching philosophy and teaching techniques that set me and my students apart from our peers. I would enjoy the opportunity to share with your group the powerful tools and insights that will help them to enrich their students’ lives and bring them to new levels of performance and enjoyment.

I’ve shared my new approaches in speeches for the Seattle Flute Society, the National Flute Association, the Music Teacher National Association, and the Washington State MTNA, along with several Washington state chapter and district conferences. I offer a high quality, well prepared program tailored to the needs of your group on a variety of topics including “Transform Your Teaching,” and “Do Something Different!” In each I reveal key concepts and practical tips to empower teachers to think differently about their teaching, gain more fulfillment, and grow a studio of happy, successful students.

My presentation style is informative, entertaining, and down-to-earth. If you engage me as a speaker, I will appreciate the opportunity to sell my book after the presentation. I want to assure you however, that my presentation will not be an advertisement for the book. I will address issues of importance to all music teachers and offer innovative ideas and useful techniques they can immediately apply to their own teaching.

Participants will leave the session with solid strategies to implement and renewed motivation to give students their best.

Bonnie is becoming increasingly well known as a pedagogue. She has contributed articles to Flute Talk magazine and been quoted in American Music Teachers magazine. She has given pedagogy speeches at the Seattle Flute Society, the Seattle chapter of MTNA, the 2004 Seattle Flutewise event, the National Flute Association conventions in 2001 and 2007, the Music Teacher National Association national convention in 2005, the 2007 Washington State MTNA convention, and Washington state chapter and district conferences.

• Transform Your Teaching
  

  An inspirational speech packed with ideas that can be immediately applied.
  By Bonnie Blanchard

  Who wouldn’t love students who are motivated to learn, dedicated, hard working, and who love music all because you are their teacher? In this speech I’ll describe a simple, yet life-changing way of viewing teaching, the Music for Life approach

  Learn how the Music For Life approach will help you:
  
  

  • Get results through strong relationships with your students
  
  
  • Instill pride and respect in your teaching, your students, and your program
  
  
  • Expect more from yourself and your students
  
  
  • Achieve higher standards
  
  
  • Get their attention with day to day techniques that make teaching more fun and effective.
  
  
  • Energize your teaching and make you want to keep your job!
  
  

  Both new and experienced private and classroom teachers will feel excited and energized to return to their students with innovative ideas and renewed passion after attending my speech, Transform Your Teaching. The Music for Life philosophy is based on the student-parent-teacher relationship. Teachers will learn how to forge strong bonds with their students which will enable them to ask for higher goals .They will learn how to set high standards for their students and themselves and how it will pay off in the end. My approach will improve the quality and enjoyment of their teaching, and will help them make a lasting impact on their students’ lives.

• Do Something Different
  

  Sandy seems like a smart kid. He professes to love the piano and says he practices. His mom is supportive and involved. Then why does he always show up unprepared for lessons? Anita complains bitterly about her assignments. This piece is too hard and the next piece is too long. She is very capable of handling material at this level but never without a fight. How to make her accept the challenges of learning? Tom has been studying violin with the same teacher since he was four. Now the lessons seem to drag on with a dull regularity and he is thinking of changing teachers. What could make him stay? Matthew is a wiggly five year old better adapted to recess than recitals. What can be done to keep his interest during the lesson?

  In my speech, Do Something Different, I will share my techniques for addressing many of these common challenges. With my extensive knowledge and experience, I can deliver an exciting educational product. I’ll give teachers practical tips and even phrases to use to help them foster happy, confident students, teach underperforming students, and keep students excited about learning. I end the speech by sharing my fun and crazy teaching tools. See the gravestone, the police siren, the composer action figures and and the ever popular screaming chicken! Instead of being bored with the old routine, Do Something Different will give teachers creative, practical, and fun ideas to motivate and inspire their students and themselves.

• Music in the real World
  

  How many of our students view music as something they do at their lessons and at home practice but not as something that is part of their real world? How can we get kids to embrace music so that it becomes part of what they do and who they are forever?

  This session, Music in the Real World, provides ideas and techniques that hook kids into loving their lessons, their music, and you as their teacher. Learn how to give your students the skills to be independent, make music part of their day and their identity, and create opportunities to share with others. Our goal is to help students embrace music so that it becomes part of their real world now and after they quit lessons. And isn’t that what we want for all of our students?