The C,D,E's of Teaching - Creativity, Discipline, Experience

When I teach, I know I conciously and subconciously look to my own experience for guidance about what I should be doing, and what we (students and teacher together) should be accomplishing; not so much my college experience, but my own public school experience. Music was a central part of my life, both by default and by choice. Both my parents were music teachers. I went to football games and sat with the band; I went to concerts; I listened to private lessons. When I was 7, I started piano lessons. At some point, I know I could have stopped, but by that time it was something I wanted to do on my own. All that said, when I look at my students, I know my experience is not necessarily similar to theirs. Probably only a small percentage of kids grow up in a home where one or both parents teach music, or in some cases even play an instrument. So what I grapple with is, will what worked for me work for the students I teach? Is what I can do as a result what they want? With one to two days per week rather than five, and at a relatively young age, am I aiming for literacy and performance skill, or exposure and experience? I'm not very comfortable with exposure and experience because my whole background as a student was geared toward progression and accomplishment.

I'm more comfortable in a structured learning environment. I feel comfortable going through things by the numbers most of the time, even though I hope I do it in an engaging way. When I teach, my goal is to get my students to the point that they don't need me. I want them to be confident readers, and I want them to play with practices that are fundamentally sound to their instrument, and in many cases to all instruments. It's what I know. I think the merit is the same as the good you get from learning to read and speak your native language. Once you can do that, many doors open. So that's the discipline piece. Being willing to have the patience and perseverance to develop the skills. But does that encourage creativity? How do you do both? I hope I'm a creative player, but if I am, where did I learn that? I know how to teach by asking questions, and by modeling, and even by getting the students to ask questions. Does that help develop creativity, or just critical thinking? Is playing musically the same as being creative? It's hard to really play musically with limited performance skill. Do you work on the skill first? Can you develop creativity and discipline at the same time? In the real world, with limited class time, how do you balance the two?