During my son’s piano lesson, I could tell that he was not playing the music as written.

I had anticipated the teacher gently saying, “Those aren’t the right notes,” or, “Let’s try that again.”

But she took a different approach. She said, “That’s kind of your own song … because you’re playing the notes and rests where you want to.”

I love this.

I do love discipline and the persistence it takes to get something just right — as someone else has outlined. But I also love the idea of writing one’s own story, and a teacher who doesn’t begin with “that’s wrong” but instead embraces a student’s own creative voice.

And in the big picture, I think that’s a better lesson.