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Episode 243: Cheers to 2026 in Review
Well, hello there, my studio teacher friends! Welcome to the Beyond Measure Podcast: your weekly dose of solidarity and acknowledgement of all the HUMAN elements that play out in our work as music teachers. Christina Whitlock here; your Anytime Piano Teacher Friend, ready to reflect on this past year as we get ready to do it all over again in 2026. Today I’m sharing notable highlights from 2025… personal, professional, and all things in between. There’s a lot here to unpack, so let’s get on with the show: You are listening to episode 243 of the Beyond Measure Podcast.
At the end of every year, I try to take myself on a date where I sit with a good cup of coffee and reflect on the events of the past year. I scroll through my calendar, flip through my day planner, and look back through photos from the year. From there, I keep a bullet-point list of what I notice. How much travel did we do? Was it a good year for spending time with friends and family? Basically, it’s a bird’s eye view of the year that shows me where my time went.
If you’ve never done something like this, I would highly recommend it. We all know how quickly life moves and it’s important for us to take opportunities to reflect on where our attention has gone.
Since I always enjoy hearing these types of summaries from my favorite podcasters, I thought I’d join the ranks this year and give you a little peek behind the scenes at what I’ve been up to this year.
Let’s start with the podcast, shall we? I released 44 episodes of Beyond Measure this year. The audience for this show has grown significantly. Podcast numbers are notoriously impossible to track accurately but it is clear we are growing over here and that is amazing.
I published the 200th episode of Beyond Measure last January, and if you’re ever looking for a quick-start guide to the podcast, that episode – no. 200 – features a one-line summary of every episode of the show up until that point. So, that’s 200 podcast episodes, each summed up in one thought. It was fun to put together, and I’ll probably do another one when we reach 300 episodes.
The most downloaded episode from this year was episode 229, which was titled Cheers to the REAL Role of Practice in Lessons. That was part of a series I did in August about the things that distract us from doing our best work. I really liked that series of episodes from the fall, and it appears you did, too. In those episodes – numbers 228 to 231 – those are some of the best performing episodes of the entire year.
There are many episodes I’m proud of from this year – all of them, really – but a few that stand out. Those that drummed up the most audience response from YOU were episode 235: Cheers to (Re)Connecting with Music, and 213: Cheers to Receiving Questions as Feedback.
As far as MY favorites, I REALLY enjoyed hosting the second annual Summertime Conversation Series this year. I thought all 6 conversations from that series were terrific, so thanks again to Leila Viss, Jason Sifford, Florence Phillips, Janna Williamson, Elizabeth Davis-Everhart, and Diane Hidy for joining me in June and July. Producing conversation episodes is a very different beast than hosting a solo show. Both have their ups and downs. I do not have the energy required to produce conversations all year long, but I do really enjoy shaking things up in the summer months and chatting with allstar teacher friends. There are a few more conversations on the horizon for next year, so stay tuned!
Aside from the podcast, 2025 saw a lot of other fun developments in my work with teachers.
I finally got more serious about redesigning my website, ChristinaWhitlock.com, at the start of 2025. It’s far from done, but I’m choosing to celebrate the fact that I am ending the year in better shape than I started it. So cheers to THAT! Ha!
I also started 2025 with a re-brand of my weekly e-letter. What was once One Thought Thursdays became Piano Teacher Confessions. I wrote 29 Piano Teacher Confessions this year.
Because Piano Teacher Confessions are different topics from the podcast, writing a weekly confession PLUS the weekly podcast proved to be a tough rhythm to maintain. I was doing great for the first half of the year, but definitely struggled to keep up with the e-letter this fall.
Piano Teacher Confessions has a special place in my heart. Writing really is my favorite medium, and I pour a LOT of time and emotional processing into those Confessions. I will also say, for posterity, that there were multiple times at NCKP that I had to pick my jaw up off the floor when people I’ve LONG admired told me how much they enjoyed reading my e-letter. Barbara Fast, Jennifer Snow… I’m looking at you, ladies. I had no idea they knew who I was, let alone that they read my work.
Speaking of NCKP, I’d be lying if I didn’t say that conference was an absolute highlight of 2025. I was selected to present for the ONLINE iteration of NCKP this past June, as well as the IN-PERSON iteration this past July, and… yeah… the opportunity to see and hang with so many of YOU was just next-level this year. Thanks to my roomie, Kate Boyd, otherwise known as the Piano Prof on YouTube, for being brave enough to share a room with me that week.
I also met with more teacher consult clients this year than ever before and count myself so fortunate to be in a position where I can help gifted teachers better reach their communities. We’ve worked together on building policies, improving lesson structure, working through tough emotions, strengthening our understanding of theory, harmony, technique, sightreading, rhythm, articulation…all the things. What fun it is to watch TEACHERS grow before my very eyes.
Overall, this year saw a record number of speaking opportunities for teacher groups at the local, state, and national levels. I also Zoomed into several piano pedagogy classes, which is terrific because I miss working with college students.
If you haven’t figured it out by now, spending time with other teachers is one of my favorite things on Planet Earth so I’m thrilled to be able to connect with so many of you online and in person.
As I’m talking about speaking gigs, I do need to give a special shout-out to the piano teachers in Cincinnati, Ohio. They are the best, and I got to spend two big days with them this year. I did a three hour workshop with the Southwest Chapter of OMTA this fall, and in February, the Keyboard Teachers Association of Greater Cincinnati asked me to come out for a masterclass when their original clinician got sick.
It had been a few years since I’d received an invitation to give a masterclass and – ahh – it was THE BEST day. I’ve said it many times before; I’m a masterclass snob. A good masterclass clinician must be able to engage the performer AND the audience. I feel uncharacteristically sure that I accomplished both those feats that day. There was something in the air and it was just a lovely, lovely day. Great musicians, excellent repertoire, solid teaching, and attentive audience members… it was just great.
Sometimes I feel as though I’ve pigeon-holed myself into this realm where I talk a lot about teaching… but people don’t actually SEE me teaching. That Cincinnati masterclass helped affirm the fact that maybe I can break out of that mold one of these days and get more eyeballs on my actual teaching. 😊
Speaking of eyeballs… I started 2025 with a vision of putting regular content on YouTube. I started a series called Really Really Quick Piano Teacher Tips and, well, that didn’t last very long. If you know ANYTHING about creating content for YouTube, you won’t be surprised I fell short on that goal. It’s just so much. YouTube takes an obscene amount of time. So, yeah… you can listen to the audio of this show every week on YouTube, and you can peruse the handful of tips I published, as well as, maybe two? teaching demonstrations I’ve posted there? I don’t know. Maybe more content will appear there on occasion this year… maybe not…. I guess we’ll see!
In other 2025 news: I debuted a new session for the online iteration of NCKP this year called The Paradox of Play: Taking Fun Seriously. I tumbled SO FAR down the rabbit hole on the research of Play, I decided to record a version of that session and offered a live watch party in August. That recording is purposely a bit different than the live version of the session, but if you’re interested in catching the recorded version, you can find that at ChristinaWhitlock.com/paradox.
That was one fun new offering for teachers, but as far as working with teachers is concerned, NOTHING tops the fact that I was able to hatch a vision and put it into action alongside one of my best teacher friends, Janna Williamson.
In case you missed it, Janna and I led a cohort based around Intermediate Piano Teaching this past fall and it was VERY well-received. We walked a group of wildly-insightful teachers through the second volume of Jeanine Jacobson’s book, Professional Piano Teaching. It was an INTENSE 10 weeks, no doubt, but my goodness, was that fulfilling on all the levels. We loved spending so much time learning alongside our colleagues in the course, we loved the excuse to dive DEEP into that material, it was simply a wonderful experience all around. We were determined to keep the study limited because we didn’t want anyone to feel lost in a large group of people, and this meant closing our enrollment early because the response was so enthusiastic. We gave our participants a course completion survey and they rated it, overall, a 4.93 stars out of 5. That felt great. We loved it, our participants loved it… sigh. The 2025 Intermediate Piano Teaching Cohort? Total highlight of this year. Lots and lots and lots of work… but totally worth it in the end.
(PS: we do plan to run another cohort next fall, so if you’re interested in signing up for it, I’ll leave the link in the shownotes so you get notified first).
Those are some details from my Beyond Measure worklife… and I’ll just say, my studio worklife is also going along swimmingly. I downsized my student load to 34 weekly students, which was… significant. At this stage of my life, I’m happier giving more of my attention to fewer students. It’s just a better fit for how I want to show up in my students’ lives.
I also released my waitlist this fall, a task I’d been putting off for years. I realized I had no plans to bring on any new students this year, and couldn’t see a likely scenario where I would bring any on next year, either… and there was just no reason to keep 60+ families on a waitlist. So, bye bye they went!
As I put all these thoughts together… I realize I am painting a pretty rosy picture of 2025! And, I mean, that’s good…because it really was a great year.
It was also a tough year. We all know there’s a lot of heavy stuff going on in the world, and it takes its toll. I’m also parenting kids ages 9 and 15 and there is A LOT that goes on at both of those ages. I am fortunate to have hit the jackpot when it comes to children, but even good kids are challenging. There are undeniable biological shifts that take place at these ages and the growing independence, the emotional regulation (and lack thereof), the life milestones… it’s all SO MUCH.
PLUS: this fall left me struggling more with anxiety and depression than ever before, which ended up being an excellent catalyst to help me find a terrific therapist. I’m fine; we’re all fine here, but facts are facts and it’s important to acknowledge the realities that live between the highlight reel.
Since I don’t want to leave you on THAT note, let’s talk about books! Yay, books!
I liked everything I read in 2025. Here’s my Top 5, in no particular order:
- First up? 4,000 Weeks by Oliver Burkeman. This is the first book I read last January and is based on the premise that the average human life is just 4,000 weeks. It doesn’t sound like much, right? The subtitle is Time Management for Mortals, and it was such a great way to kick off the New Year. This sounds depressing, but it is not… it’s all about accepting the fact that time IS finite, and we WILL have work that goes unfinished… it’s such a good pushback on productivity culture and this hustle hustle hustle thing we do in America. Highly recommended.
- Related to that one, I’ll also share the book When Breath Becomes Air, by Paul Kalanithi: This book was a finalist for the Pulitzer in 2016? If you’ve been around awhile, you know I wrestle a lot with the idea of Potential… specifically unrealized potential. It’s a big hangup for lots of teachers. And yet, don’t we ALL have unmet potential? Anyway, When Breath Becomes Air is a memoir by Paul Kalanithi, who was a 36 year old neurosurgeon… celebrated in his young career in multiple areas… like, SERIOUSLY, the most potential-packed human you can imagine… someone with a good heart and determination to make a positive impact on society… who then gets diagnosed with terminal cancer and actually died in the middle of writing the book. It was completed by his wife and his editor. The way the book wraps up… with this stunning epilogue by his wife… it’s just the most beautiful book about what makes life meaningful. It reminds me a lot about Being Mortal, by Atul Gawande, which I talked about here on the podcast many years ago. I’ve always said Being Mortal should be required reading, and I feel very similarly about When Breath Becomes Air.
- Third on my list of favorite reads this year? Let’s go with Quiet by Susan Cain. Truth be told, I’d already read this once, but I re-read it this year as I was polishing up my presentation on Quiet Students. The subtitle of Quiet is The Power of Introverts in a World that Can’t Stop Talking. Regardless of whether or not you consider yourself an introvert, this book provides some really important insights into how we got to where we are as a society… where the loudest ideas are all-too-often-equated with being the best ideas. Both this book, AND 4,000 Weeks, which I mentioned a moment ago, offer keen insights to aspects of society that will leave you going, “oh, I get it now!”.
- So, you can probably figure out that I am not much of a fiction reader…but I did knock out a couple of good fiction books this year. I’ll close us out with two of those. First of all, I’ve gotta shout out The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho. I mentioned this in one of my What’s Working podcasts earlier this year, but I just loved listening to Jeremy Irons read the audiobook version of this book. It’s all about a man’s quest to find his purpose and the lessons he learns along the way. Definitely some overtones to some of the other books I’ve mentioned on this list as well.
- Last? I’ll cast a fiction vote for The Wedding People by Alison Espach. This is about as breezy of a fiction recommendation as you’ll get from me… and, by breezy, I mean… this book still deals with themes of suicide, depression, and what we expect from life… but it’s all done in a pretty lighthearted way.
Ah, I’m cracking myself up by how dark those book selections all sound… but I promise, they’re all worth reading. It’s also pretty obvious my book choices have largely shared a common theme this year: What defines a well-lived life?
So, friends, that’s a bird’s eye view of 2025 for me. As always, any of these types of reflection episodes come with the hope that YOU will take some time to reflect on similar questions in your life. I hope you will set aside an hour or two this week to look back on your 2025 calendars. Scroll your photos. Read your journal entries… scan through your sent emails… track the number of times you went to lunch with a friend or volunteered at your kids’ school. Whatever it takes to account for how you spent this year. The accomplishments, the lessons learned, the whole shebang.
…and while you mull over when you are going to take this account of your year, allow me to toast us out of here.
Studio music teacher friends from all around the world: wherever this year is leaving you: on a high, on a low, or tossed somewhere in between, I hope we all take a few minutes to consider how we want to show up in 2026. How do we want to FEEL and how do we want to make OTHERS feel in our presence? What is in our control and what is not? These are all big questions and I can’t answer them for you… but I can (and will!) be sitting in them with you. Cheers to us as teachers and as human beings, friends! Hear, hear.
Okay, friends! That’s a wrap on the 44th episode of 2025! As always, thanks for being here! I have a BOATLOAD of links in today’s shownotes, including links to related episodes and to the books I mentioned as my favorite reads this year. If you are interested in becoming a SuperFriend of the podcast, helping to support my work and scoring yourself some bonus material, be sure to check out THAT link in the shownotes as well. Head to ChristinaWhitlock.com/episode243 for all the details. Be well, my friends, as you travel ever onward and ever upward. See you NEXT YEAR!
