Welcome!
I’m so glad you’re here.
I’m Sarah Cashmore, a piano teacher with a PhD in education.
I love to help beginners take their first steps in piano.
Welcome to my website!
I’m a piano teacher with a PhD in Education who specializes in interactive learning for young beginners. Since 2006, my full-time work has been creating engaging learning opportunities that help people build new skills and gain deeper confidence in themselves.
My mission is to deliver piano lessons that empower children through guided practice so they always approach the piano with joy and delight.
Parents who seek me out are hoping to nurture their child’s interest in piano and are looking for an experienced educator who is also fun and accessible. Sometimes they also have a shy, sensitive, or creative child who needs a little extra care and kindness.
My teaching is guided by my core values of authenticity, kindness, light-heartedness, diligence, curiosity, and gratitude. Every lesson, video, and blog post I create is intended to enact my wish for aspiring musicians:
That you love the music you play
That your practice is full of joy and delight
That you experience growth that is consistent and reliable
That playing piano feels like spending time with a good friend
Why I chose online learning
One of the most unique aspects of my studio is how I embrace video technology in a way that isn’t common to in-person lessons. Students in my classes don’t just get lesson time with me. They get guided practice during our streamed lesson, videos to support their practice during the week, social media encouragement and inspiration, and opportunities to connect with other learners. Because in-person lessons rely so much on face-to-face conversations, most piano teachers don’t naturally reach for video technology when planning lessons.
But video technology offers many educational opportunities that I’m really excited about. Effective teaching strategies like modeling or demonstrating skills become easier to retain when a student has a recorded video they can watch as many times as they need. Streamed lessons also allow a child to learn from home in an environment they’re already comfortable in, which promotes their ability to learn. I also think social media has amazing potential as a platform for encouragement and connection, so my students can feel connected with their teacher and other learners throughout the week!
I encourage you to make the most of all the platforms you see available! Even if you decide not to take lessons with me, you can learn a lot about music from my blog, videos, and social media accounts!
My teaching story
I first started teaching piano in 1998, when my teacher John invited me to join his team at the John Lummen School of Music. I gained my first experiences teaching piano to young children and also learned how to craft fun music activities through my involvement in developing their first annual 8-week summer music camp. I brought my teaching skills with me when I went away to university, and started teaching part-time at the Dundas Conservatory of Music. I gravitated to shy and sensitive learners who needed a little extra kindness and encouragement to feel confident in their learning. I loved my work so much that I stayed long after I graduated, eventually growing my schedule to over 50 students per week!
Although I loved teaching piano, I was self-taught as a teacher to that point, and felt that I could learn more about education as a discipline. I enrolled in a Masters in Education program and became a registered elementary school teacher with the Ontario College of Teachers. I specialized in early literacy instruction because I loved working with young children and I recognized many similarities between teaching kids to read words and my previous work teaching kids to read music. So I guess I felt at home! During this time, I learned many important skills in student observation, lesson planning, and supporting groups of students.
After learning about so many different teaching strategies during my Masters, I became interested in the question of what made teaching effective or not. How come some approaches to teaching felt so stifled? Was there a secret ingredient to the kinds of education that felt exciting and magical? I decided to pursue my PhD in Philosophy of Education to answer these questions. I analyzed many theories of human development and concluded that the key to great learning was a special kind of student empowerment that helped kids navigate change on their own. I won two research awards for my work on the importance of student empowerment in learning. During this time, I also learned more advanced teaching skills like the “flipped classroom,” one of my favourite approaches to online learning that I still use today!
While completing my PhD, I started teaching university part-time as a Lecturer in the teacher education programs at Lakehead University and Niagara University. I mostly taught classes in Educational Foundations and Early Literacy Instruction. After I finished my PhD, I went on to teach Educational Research classes at University of Toronto. Student empowerment had become so important to me that it was a foundational concept in every course I taught. I have taught over 1000 new elementary and secondary school teachers and have supervised hundreds of graduate research papers on effective teaching in public schools. That’s a lot of marking!
The widespread shift to online learning due to the global pandemic led me to think a lot about how education could still be effective despite our inability to meet in person. I was also drawn back to creating my own learning experiences for kids. I launched Piano with Sarah to be a fully virtual piano school that integrates the best educational principles in motivation, engagement, and student support with the most fun aspects of streamed meetings (they can be fun!), prerecorded video, and social media. Thank you for visiting my site, and I hope you find everything you need to get started learning piano!