In this episode, John Kozicki (Michigan Rock School and RockSchoolProprietor.com) interviews Shana Pistilli, founder of the Rubato School of Music, discussing the importance of inclusion in music education, particularly for neurodiverse students. Shana shares her background in special education and autism studies, emphasizing the need for understanding and adapting teaching methods to meet the diverse needs of students. The conversation covers building relationships with parents, managing expectations, creating safe learning environments, and the role of community in fostering a supportive atmosphere for all students. Shayna also highlights the intersection of music education and therapy, providing insights and resources for educators looking to improve their practices.
In this episode:
- Inclusion is essential in music education.
- Understanding neurodiversity enhances teaching effectiveness.
- Building relationships with parents fosters communication.
- Managing expectations is crucial for student success.
- Creating a safe environment encourages student expression.
- Community support enhances learning experiences.
- Integrating neurodiverse and neurotypical students enriches classes.
- Social interactions are vital for student development.
- Training for instructors is necessary for effective teaching.
- Music education can overlap with therapeutic practices.
The episode offers practical tips for instructors and studio owners—how to start conversations with families, adapt lesson plans and group classes, support non-speaking students, and know when to collaborate with music therapists—so you can make your studio more welcoming and effective for every learner.
————————-
Your ratings and reviews on Apple Podcast and Spotify are always appreciated!
Join our private Facebook group, “The Modern Music School,” a community for like-minded professionals to connect and share insights.
Sign up for our email newsletter on the website, and visit the Resources section to get FREE guides to help grow your music school, improve retention, and more.
Looking for a simple and effective guitar curriculum that includes FREE instructor training and support? Consider John’s book, Complete Guitar Strumming.
Episode Transcript:
John Kozicki (00:01.454)
Welcome to Rock School Proprietor Podcast. My name is John Kozicki and joining me today is the founder of the Roboto School of Music in Eastern Pennsylvania, which was awarded the Music School of the Year in 2025. And in addition to music, she also has a background in special education and autism studies. Welcome to the show, Shayna Pastilli. How you doing, Shayna?
Shana Pistilli (00:29.633)
good, thank you. Thank you for that intro.
John Kozicki (00:32.814)
Of course, of course. So we’re going to dig deep into, think, not just teaching music, but your niche, which is teaching neurodivergent students. Now, my understanding, and correct me if I’m wrong here, Roboto School of Music specializes in teaching neurodiverse students. And it’s even part of your mission statement.
on the website, right on the homepage. Do you only teach neurodiverse students at the school or do you have neurotypical students too?
Shana Pistilli (01:12.904)
No, we are open to everyone and one of the things that we highly push is inclusion. So to get inclusion you have to include everyone. So we are neurotypical, neurodivergent. Anybody who wants to learn music or just be a part of music is welcome at our studio. I think our split right now is about 60-40 neurodivergent to neurotypical.
So yeah, we’re pretty even.
John Kozicki (01:44.684)
No, I understand what you’re offering is both private lessons but also groups and performances. Is that correct?
Shana Pistilli (01:54.181)
Yes, so we did, we just this year got into a space that could accommodate group, group anything, know, last the past few years I was in a little 200 square foot office that I turned into a music studio. And then in April, I moved us into a 2000 square foot studio. So we started with summer camp over the summer and we did some group stuff. And then in this new year, we’re going to start pumping out some group class models, but we do
John Kozicki (02:08.226)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Shana Pistilli (02:25.274)
group performances, like all of our recitals are inclusive. So we’ll start out with a couple solos or whatnot. And then if a kid was like, I want to play an ACDC song for the recital, we’ll ask them, do you want to do it as a solo or do you want us to build a band around you? So it’s kind of, we’ve kind of always had this group model. We’re just now going to put it into like an actual class setting because now we have the space for it. So yeah, we, we do a little bit, a little bit of everything. Well, we try to at least.
John Kozicki (02:40.782)
Mm-hmm.
John Kozicki (02:48.098)
Gotcha.
John Kozicki (02:52.398)
Okay. Now this, this path that you’ve chosen with inclusion, but part of that is really leaning into your background. And you had told me in detail that in addition to music education, you also studied special education, and then you have your masters in autism specialization. That’s not
Shana Pistilli (03:20.349)
Mm-hmm.
John Kozicki (03:21.824)
an easy path to choose. And this is an area of focus that clearly you’ve spent a lot of time on. Where did this passion come from?
Shana Pistilli (03:32.998)
Yeah.
Shana Pistilli (03:37.128)
Um, so it started out with my family. Um, you know, I have a family member with autism and when you grow up around whatever special needs in any type of way, um, you start to see the inequalities more. So I would say that just because of my own personal experience through my schooling years, like my K to 12 schooling years, I would always notice, you know, the
John Kozicki (03:53.934)
Yeah.
Shana Pistilli (04:04.924)
The special ed class, the kids in there were able to like be in the chorus on the side or were able to play the bass drum in band but never actually offered like a true musical experience. They were just kind of placed where the teacher thought they could get by with having them involved but not really.
John Kozicki (04:17.496)
Mm-hmm.
Shana Pistilli (04:24.454)
teaching them. So I always just kind of was really in tune with that. And it never really sat well with me. And like as a kid growing up, you’re just kind of like, like, that’s weird, but you never really know what to do about it. So when I decided to go to music school, it was through like my, like halfway through my freshman year, maybe the beginning of my sophomore year, I had talked to
John Kozicki (04:25.955)
Yeah.
John Kozicki (04:34.572)
Yeah.
Shana Pistilli (04:51.344)
my advisor and basically was like, you know, I had all these feelings as I was growing up, like, is there anything we can do about it? I don’t want to teach special ed, but I want to be able to teach, actually teach music to any kid that comes my way. And that’s when I added the minor and then started doing all the specializations. So it was kind of just like a, I wasn’t okay with what I was seeing and decided to do something about it. So yeah, that’s kind of where it came from.
John Kozicki (05:11.97)
Yeah. Yeah.
Do you think that now this is like maybe jumping ahead from how I’d plan to present these questions, but it’s already kind of coming out in the conversation. I think so. I think it’s very, very common when we are as music instructors or studio owners, when we are maybe presented with a situation from a parent contacting us at our studio and disclosing
Shana Pistilli (05:39.356)
Mm.
John Kozicki (05:46.959)
My child is neurodivergent. Without any sort of training in education at all, maybe we’ve got instructors and studio owners who have a background in music and possibly music education, but you’re in a minority with your specializations. And presented with that situation,
Shana Pistilli (05:56.466)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Shana Pistilli (06:12.753)
Yeah, yeah.
John Kozicki (06:17.102)
I think there can be some hesitation at times, not necessarily because I don’t want to work with this student, but it’s more a pressure of what can I do? Am I equipped to deal with this? And not even knowing when we’re talking about autism, we’re talking about a very diverse spectrum, right? So I mean, do you think
Shana Pistilli (06:33.275)
Mm-hmm.
Shana Pistilli (06:38.555)
Very, yeah.
John Kozicki (06:46.562)
There’s, do you think there’s something there where we’re almost hesitant to dig a little bit deeper and find out like, well, what does this mean? And instead we feel like we have to come up with an answer. yes, I can teach the student or no, I don’t think I can teach the student without digging a little bit deeper and understanding like, well, let’s find out what this is about first.
Shana Pistilli (07:11.621)
Right. So I think the digging deeper per se really needs to come from the teacher and the parents. You know, these parents of neurodivergent kids are
John Kozicki (07:20.686)
Mm-hmm.
Shana Pistilli (07:24.581)
kind of used to hearing no. So they I think that they hesitate to even put out all of the information because they’re scared it’s going to be a no right away. So as the educator I think it’s important that we get comfortable asking for more information and kind of phrasing it as like a I’m not asking this question to
John Kozicki (07:31.596)
Yeah.
Shana Pistilli (07:46.012)
be nosy or to give you a no, I’m asking this question so that I understand more if there’s something that I can do or I understand more what I need to go learn so that I can teach your student. So there’s definitely a lot of digging deeper that needs to happen from both sides of the conversation. But from the educator’s point of view, it really is.
John Kozicki (07:59.342)
Mm-hmm.
Shana Pistilli (08:08.517)
You have to be comfortable saying, accept your child as they are. I, at this point in time, don’t have the resources to teach them, but let me talk to some colleagues. Let me go do some research. Let me see if anybody else in the area can help out, whether they take your child on or I spend some time with them first. We have to get better at being, I’m not saying, no, I don’t know how to do that. Like we’re educators. We should always be learning and we should always be learning how to
better teach our students. So the digging deeper, yes. In long story short, yes, we should always be digging deeper.
John Kozicki (08:48.407)
Do you have a way, like, okay, so I’ll paint the scenario. Let’s say that you get this phone call. And I mean, it’s a little bit different for you because it’s right there on your website.
Shana Pistilli (09:00.827)
Mm-hmm.
John Kozicki (09:03.425)
But I can say I’ve gotten phone calls at my studio and sometimes the parents will disclose my student is on the autism spectrum.
Sometimes they’ll in certain ways speak in code and say things like, my child has some maybe learning disabilities or my child is a little bit quirky.
Shana Pistilli (09:23.515)
Yes.
Shana Pistilli (09:33.765)
Right.
Shana Pistilli (09:38.871)
Yup.
John Kozicki (09:40.011)
Right? And so they’ll speak in code and or divulge neurodiversity, which to me, I get that phone call and that’s an invitation for me to ask more questions.
But I, again, I’ve gotten comfortable with that over the years. I’ve disclosed on the show before and I’ve told you that my son is also neurodivergent. So that just being a parent of a neurodiverse child has allowed me more freedom to have those conversations. But for those of us who may not be comfortable in those situations, is there anything that you say on those phone calls that
invites the conversation.
Shana Pistilli (10:30.939)
so I kind of like to, especially if you can tell that a parent is kind of dancing around it, because a lot of times what I’ve noticed is, and I don’t want to put words into these parents mouths because I’m not a parent, you know, yes, I have a family member, but I’m not a parent. But from my point of view, like it’s almost like
John Kozicki (10:46.061)
course.
Shana Pistilli (10:54.245)
I hate the word embarrassment, but it’s almost like they’re nervous to tell you because they’re not sure what you’re going to say or how you’re going to react. So a lot of times I try to just…
kind of make it about who the kid is and like you know what those quirks are like you say so like like what are their some of their favorite toys that they like to play with and it kind of gives you an idea is this kid like very focused on one thing or have you like do you know how long they’re able to focus on one thing just kind of gives you an idea of like adhd autism like what their focus is like you know if they are more
John Kozicki (11:08.173)
Mm-hmm.
Shana Pistilli (11:34.537)
telling me more, I’ll ask about behaviors. Is there any specific behaviors that I might see that you might be worried about or that I should be aware of? So I kind of take it out of
clinical speak, so to say, and I just start to ask them genuine questions about their child just as a human being. No labels, just who is your child so that I can know them. I want to know who your kid is regardless of whatever label they may have. I just want to know who the kid is so that I can help teach them. And that can sometimes bring the walls down because they can then kind of tell like, you do just kind of care who my kid is. You don’t care what’s going on.
John Kozicki (11:55.255)
Yeah.
Right.
John Kozicki (12:15.277)
Right.
Shana Pistilli (12:15.784)
But that’s, I have found that that’s a really good way to go about it. Just ask, you know, human questions and learn about the child as a child, not as a neurodivergent student.
John Kozicki (12:27.126)
which I think is perfect, right? Because in any situation like this, whether we’re talking about a neurodiverse student or a neurotypical student, getting the parent to talk about the child is going to one, as you said, sort of start to break that, break those walls down and open up the conversation. And we’re not going to get the information that we need.
Shana Pistilli (12:36.613)
Mm-hmm.
Shana Pistilli (12:50.052)
Right? Right.
John Kozicki (12:56.416)
if someone’s feeling on guard for whatever reason, right? Whatever the reason is that they are or are not disclosing more information, we won’t get that information until they feel comfortable having the conversation. So 100%, I agree with you. Which kind of leads me to the question of, I suppose, expectations.
Shana Pistilli (12:58.277)
Yes.
Shana Pistilli (13:08.952)
Absolutely.
Shana Pistilli (13:23.878)
Mm-hmm.
John Kozicki (13:24.34)
again when we’re dealing with neurodiversity and autism.
I mean, it’s called a spectrum for a reason, right? We’ve got all different kinds of kids and all different kinds of learners on the spectrum. How important is it to manage expectations of like what to expect from music lessons? What to expect from…
Shana Pistilli (13:35.044)
Mm-hmm.
Shana Pistilli (13:55.237)
Yeah.
John Kozicki (13:59.958)
I guess yourself as an instructor, like what can you do? What can’t you do? How to manage those expectations for the parents. I realize I just gave you a huge question to answer there, but there’s a lot involved there.
Shana Pistilli (14:16.909)
There is a lot involved and it’s actually something that recently I’ve not been struggling with but been thinking about more myself because my students are just like these amazing little beings and they are capable of things that even I didn’t know was…
up in their little brains. So this question of expectation, even from my point of view as the educator, they far surpass anything that I thought I could provide them. I’ve built this community of safety, first and foremost.
you are safe to be who you are when you walk through my door and no matter what you will be safe and welcome and loved when you get here and that that little just like that the fact that they know that has you know that opens up this this space for them to really kind of dig deep and
do things that I don’t know if they knew was possible. I certainly didn’t know was possible. So I say that because my own expectations of these little musicians that I’ve been kicking out, like I didn’t know it was possible. it’s, it’s when I see parents come in and they see
the success that some other students have had, it’s really hard for me to be like, we don’t know what will happen with your kid because it’s sitting right in front of them. And I didn’t know that that other child was going to get to where they are. So I’ve been thinking about this a lot, obviously. But the question about expectation, a lot of the first conversations I have with parents is first and foremost, they are welcome to be who they are.
Shana Pistilli (16:16.972)
if they need to jump around the room while we talk about letters, they’ll jump around the room while we talk about letters. I had a student where the first month of her lessons, her number one goal was to be safe in the room. And that was not eloping, not having any physical behaviors, anything like that. And the mom completely understood and welcomed the fact that that was step number one.
She knew her child loved music. She had seen her child love music at home, but the child was now in a different environment. And for that love of music to be safe to come back out, the child had to feel safe and comfortable. So we had a transition time of her just being safe and comfortable in the room. And you know, after a few times where she realized that she was safe and she could be comfortable, her love of music came out and all was fine. But again,
John Kozicki (16:48.663)
Hehe.
John Kozicki (16:54.283)
Yeah.
Shana Pistilli (17:13.002)
it comes down to the parent and their own expectation. So I know this is a really long answer to a very complicated question, but it’s as educators we have to be willing to have honest communication with parents, which can be very tough because not all parents are willing to have honest communication with educators. But
At Roboto, the number one expectation is your child is safe and welcome. And from there, we will do everything we can to learn how they learn. And then from there, build a path around their learning. from there, it’s expectations has to become a continued conversation. You don’t walk in and say, you know, your kid knows where CDE are.
John Kozicki (17:41.015)
Mm-hmm.
John Kozicki (17:52.695)
Mm-hmm.
Shana Pistilli (18:05.232)
on the piano, sir, they’re gonna play, they’re gonna go to Juilliard when they’re in college. Like no, your kid has a baseline understanding of a few notes on piano and we’re gonna build off of that and we’ll continue the conversation of where they may go with playing piano. It’s complicated.
John Kozicki (18:20.269)
Yeah.
Well, I think it is complicated because when you’re talking about autism and talking about neurodiversity and that spectrum
you can have that label on some.
who maybe comes into your school and you realize like, music might be their superpower and they excel like incredibly. But then you have someone else who has the exact same label and you might be dealing with potentially a nonverbal student.
Shana Pistilli (18:42.554)
Mm-hmm.
Shana Pistilli (18:49.807)
Yeah.
Shana Pistilli (18:57.679)
Right.
Shana Pistilli (19:01.241)
Mm-hmm.
John Kozicki (19:03.369)
And that again is like a very difficult conversation to have, I think, and ongoing when you just don’t know. You just don’t know what these results are going to be. That said, mean,
Do you have nonverbal students that you work with?
Shana Pistilli (19:29.571)
my god, yes. And they are… They get their point across. That is for sure. So we’ve been… I’ve been using the term non-speaking because they will… They will verbalize in some way, shape, or form. They will absolutely communicate. So yes, I have right now… four?
John Kozicki (19:49.217)
Fair, yeah. Okay.
Shana Pistilli (19:58.628)
non-speaking, three or four non-speaking. And they, I mean, they’re some of the most talented students that have come through our door. it’s, know, non-speaking is not non-feeling, non-knowing, know, non-doing. It’s just about finding a way to communicate and…
John Kozicki (20:09.847)
Mm-hmm.
John Kozicki (20:17.377)
Yeah.
Shana Pistilli (20:27.543)
Yeah, I mean, they’re some of the most talented.
little musicians that I’ve, you know, ever come to know and through, you know, at our studio we do a lot of colors and rhythms and blocks and stuff like that and once they figured out that I kind of had this way for them to get all of this whatever they were go music they had going on in their head they really kind of took it and ran with it. So yes, we do have non-speaking and they’re some of my favorite human beings on this planet. you know, they,
They tell you what they want. They find a way.
John Kozicki (21:03.467)
Haha
Going back to your group program and your performance program and your mission of inclusion, what does that look like in terms of group configuration? Are you purposely purposely including neurodiverse students with neurotypical students? Is it more organic than that? Is it just like, these kids are both into the same kind of music, so we’ll…
Shana Pistilli (21:10.596)
Mm-hmm.
John Kozicki (21:36.041)
group them together, how does that look when you are really focused on that mission and you’re planning groups?
Shana Pistilli (21:45.446)
So I will say at first it was very much like, we always need to have a group that has neurotypical and neurodivergent musicians in it. we definitely did like kind of focus on that. But as the studio itself and as my students have grown, it’s become more of which musicians like this song.
which musicians know this band. It has truly become what I always wanted it to be. No matter your neurons, neurotypical, neurodivergent, no matter who you are, you are just a musician.
John Kozicki (22:26.242)
Mm-hmm.
Shana Pistilli (22:28.013)
And if you are the right musician for this song, then you’re going to come play it, regardless of neurodivergence. So at first it was focused on, we’re going to be inclusive. We’re going to have these groups of neurodivergent and neurotypical. But it’s really kind of cool as I’ve seen it lately, where it’s just transformed into everybody in this building, everybody in this community is a musician before anything else.
and if you’re the right musician for the gig, then you get the gig. If you’re not, you’re not. Regardless of neurodivergence, it’s just, yeah, like that was the goal the whole time is you’re just a musician. That’s it. You’re just a human. So it really has organically turned into that, which is really cool to think about as I like, you know, I was getting ready to talk about stuff. So.
John Kozicki (23:00.309)
Yeah, which is…
John Kozicki (23:09.825)
Yeah. Yeah.
Shana Pistilli (23:19.235)
Yeah, now it’s really just if you get the gig, you get the gig, just kind of like real life, which I think the parents really appreciate too. So it’s cool.
John Kozicki (23:23.98)
Right.
Yeah. Well, and you hit on that community that you’ve formed.
Shana Pistilli (23:33.774)
Mm-hmm.
John Kozicki (23:37.07)
Put me in that scenario, I guess. What does that sense of community look like from the perspective of a neurotypical student and maybe their family? is there… I tread lightly here, but there’s certain areas where neurotypical kids will excel and usually that involves…
Shana Pistilli (23:58.766)
Yeah.
John Kozicki (24:07.149)
social skills. Right? is, what does that look like? mean, is it welcoming? Is it supportive? Is there, is there struggle at times? And what, if there is, what do you do to, kind of help that along?
Shana Pistilli (24:24.878)
That’s a good question and honestly to this point, know, knock on wood, we really haven’t had anybody feel any type of way about not getting a song or getting a gig or whatever. And I think it’s because, you know, from the first lesson or from the first time you walk in our door, like it’s pretty obvious that we are.
John Kozicki (24:35.307)
Okay.
Shana Pistilli (24:50.848)
just inclusive to everyone. Like no one is better than anyone else, no one is more special, less special, whatever. I think that I’ve been very lucky with the kindness of the families that I get. You know, if something like that was to pop up where, you know, maybe a mom of a neurotypical individual gets upset that, you know…
their child didn’t get a performance over a neurodivergent musician. Like is that what you mean? Like kind of if that scenario popped up.
John Kozicki (25:21.933)
Honestly, I don’t know, It’s more about understanding social interactions, I guess, and how I see those present themselves in my studio, just in everyday, right? Which is mostly neurotypical kids, but just seeing how neurotypical kids interact with one another.
Shana Pistilli (25:33.188)
Mm-hmm.
Shana Pistilli (25:37.006)
Right.
Shana Pistilli (25:46.989)
Yeah, mean, kids are tough. And teenagers are tough. And it’s only getting tougher with, you know, the age of social media and technology and all that. So I’ve I’ve definitely just been super lucky that the kids at Roboto are.
John Kozicki (25:50.027)
They are, they are. Yeah.
Shana Pistilli (26:09.261)
raised well, you know, like I definitely, I definitely give props to the parents for that because you’re the way you treat other people comes, you know, a part of it comes from how you’re raised and how you see the people in your life treat other people. So I have been very lucky. We do like social nights and like parties and holiday. We just had a holiday party and I think that’s kind of been really helpful and we don’t point it as, you know,
night for all the neurodivergent kids to come practice social skills. It’s just Roboto open mic, Roboto pizza night, Roboto and everyone’s welcome. And again the neurotypical kids just always seem to show up, you know, maybe they don’t have something to do that night and this is a way to go get some free pizza. it’s…
John Kozicki (26:43.095)
You
Shana Pistilli (27:01.124)
I understand where you’re coming from and I’ve just been very lucky to have good kids, which has helped a lot. And down the line, if I have an issue, it just be a conversation with the parent, honestly. This is what Roboto is. And if your child has an issue with it or if you have an issue with it, then…
John Kozicki (27:08.15)
Yeah.
John Kozicki (27:20.493)
Mm-hmm.
Shana Pistilli (27:26.91)
know, Roboto’s not gonna change. Roboto’s gonna continue to include everybody. So you kind of have to get on board or figure something else out. Like I wouldn’t be opposed to saying goodbye to a family if their child can’t be respectful to everyone in the room. And that’s…
John Kozicki (27:42.138)
Yeah, and I think that is exactly true to your mission. You can’t have an inclusive environment when not everyone views that as important. So shifting gears a little bit. Now, you have another instructor that works for you. And does he have a similar background or is it different?
Shana Pistilli (27:45.932)
Yeah. Yeah.
Shana Pistilli (28:01.315)
Mm-hmm.
Shana Pistilli (28:10.19)
haha
John Kozicki (28:11.113)
If it’s different, you have you offered any training or are there differences in which students your other instructor may teach versus you?
Shana Pistilli (28:23.076)
So he does not have a similar background. He went to UART.
which now doesn’t exist anymore, but that’s a whole other issue. And very performance based, was in a wedding band, you know, has always been, he’s an incredible, incredible, incredible musician. So we connected through my Share the Stage event, which is a big annual show we do in the fall. And we take all of my neurodivergent individuals and we surround them with
professional musicians, we put on this big benefit concert and all the proceeds go to the Autism Science Foundation in New York for research and resources. So he also works at Rockdale with Jared Loss and Jared Loss, one of my, he actually works for me now, one of my kids, Tom Bach.
John Kozicki (29:12.841)
okay.
Shana Pistilli (29:20.164)
Jared was kind of the first educator to say yes to Tom. Tom’s mom, she’s an amazing woman and she’s an amazing fighter. And she definitely struggled to find Tom music lessons knowing that Tom just wanted to play guitar. And Tom was able to find that safety and community through Jared. So Rob also works at Rockdale and the first couple years of Share the Stage, Rockdale was helping with the providing musicians to surround my kids.
John Kozicki (29:24.993)
Mm-hmm.
John Kozicki (29:49.623)
Mm-hmm.
Shana Pistilli (29:50.07)
So Rob volunteered for Share the Stage and kind of had this like holy moly moment of like I cannot spend the rest of my life playing in wedding bands and I didn’t know that like…
these, there were this program that Shana has with these kids existed and I want, I want to be a part of it. So Rob came to me after, I guess it was the first year, this stage year, and basically said like, how did you get to where you are? What did you do? You know, what can you teach me? And at that point it was like really good timing because I was.
John Kozicki (30:25.26)
Yeah.
Shana Pistilli (30:29.739)
you know, super booked. It was just me teaching and I needed to bring on another teacher. So Rob came to me and we went through about, I want to say like a month of him sitting in on lessons, my lessons. And I specifically scheduled him to sit in on high needs lessons to really learn. And then
John Kozicki (30:57.005)
Mm-hmm.
Shana Pistilli (30:58.251)
He is just the type of person where he understands that a true educator learns the human in front of them and adjusts what they’re doing to teach that human. He doesn’t teach from a textbook. He doesn’t teach from what he learned in college. So him having that mindset and just that…
John Kozicki (31:08.471)
Mm-hmm.
Shana Pistilli (31:19.127)
that base helped him really kind of easily transition into Roboto and being able to just teach to the kid in front of you. So after that month or so of training, I mean, he was ready to just kind of go for it on his own. And we have pretty similar lessons. Like it’s not like I get all the neurodivergent lessons and he gets all the neuro typical, like we’re pretty evenly split. You know, and I don’t have any worries giving him a more high needs lesson. And he knows that he can always reach out to me.
if he wants me to sit in on a lesson to help come up with a plan for a kid. But he’s just an amazing person, an amazing educator, and really kind of seamlessly figured out that his philosophy around education really helped in the neurodivergent community. And he kind of found his niche. So it was cool. Yeah.
John Kozicki (32:10.451)
I love that. I love that because that’s it’s it’s a perfect example of real life where you’ve got a musician.
That’s who this instructor is. This instructor is a musician and made a conscious decision to say, I’m going to do this, I can do this. This should not be a barrier in what I wanna do. I mean, a month’s worth of sort of sitting in with you, sure helpful, but like a month’s worth of sitting in with you is not all that it takes for him to embrace what this is.
And I think that’s fantastic. And part of the reason I wanted to talk with you on the podcast was so that we could share these types of things for other instructors to realize like, okay, yeah, maybe this is scary at first, but the more you do it, the more you get comfortable with it. And I think in the front end, where we talked about it, first is having that conversation with the parent about the student. Let me understand.
Shana Pistilli (32:59.843)
He
Shana Pistilli (33:18.263)
Yeah. Right.
John Kozicki (33:22.093)
who your student is, let me understand what we’re dealing with here so we can make a plan. Maybe the second part, and we talked about this a little bit as well, is managing expectations. What do you expect from this situation? What do I think I can provide? Let’s all get on the same page. Now, third part.
Shana Pistilli (33:48.067)
And that expectations are an ongoing conversation and ever-changing. Maybe you have an expectation check-in once a month with a parent, because things really do change quickly. Sorry, I’m to interrupt, but yes.
John Kozicki (33:51.797)
Love that. Yeah.
John Kozicki (34:02.304)
No, that’s great. Yeah, that’s so important. Okay, now any tips that you might have? maybe, you know, again, a hard question to answer, but for instructors who are like, yeah, I want to get better at working with neurodiverse kids, but they’re just so different, right? Like this one that I worked with, like,
Shana Pistilli (34:18.531)
you
Shana Pistilli (34:28.928)
Mm-hmm. Right.
John Kozicki (34:32.034)
two months ago seems completely different from this other one and all the things I used didn’t seem to work. What are maybe your, you know, top tips for instructors or advice for instructors who don’t have the same training as you, right? Maybe they’re like your instructor Rob or just, you know, background in music. What tips do you have for working with neurodiverse kids?
Shana Pistilli (34:33.601)
Right. Yeah.
Shana Pistilli (34:52.226)
Right.
Shana Pistilli (34:59.107)
You have to be willing to think outside the box. Like you have to be willing to say, I went through, you know, maybe I went through this academic schooling, maybe I didn’t, but like whatever my idea of.
music education is, whether it’s through my own experiences when I was getting lessons, like you have to just kind of throw that all out the window and start with a complete blank slate and just look at the kid. And if that means saying to the parent, I would like to, you know, for this first lesson, lesson and a half, you know, you may not see
teaching coming from me. You know, maybe I just want to try a few things and see what the student understands from the way I’m speaking, what the student understands from what I’m asking of them, being willing to say I need to take a second to learn more before I can jump in to teach. And it’s a really, I think it’s a really hard thing for a lot of educators, especially
John Kozicki (35:49.368)
Mm-hmm.
Shana Pistilli (36:10.627)
older educators to be able to say, okay, wait, I need to take a second to learn something new. And that’s a whole nother conversation with, you know, you know, I still work in public school, so I see a lot of old head educators still. But yeah, being able to just sit down with yourself and say, I need to kind of throw out what I think is music education or education in general. And I need to start with a blank slate, learn who the kid is.
John Kozicki (36:18.327)
Mm-hmm.
Shana Pistilli (36:40.621)
and just be willing to try things. know, a lot of the resources that I now have and I now use is because I was just willing to try things out, you know.
John Kozicki (36:52.002)
Mm-hmm.
Shana Pistilli (36:53.659)
see, you know, if the kid likes, you know, colors. So a lot of what I do is based on colors. Well, what happens if a kid doesn’t know their colors, which has happened to me before? I have this whole system based around color notation and colors on the keys and blah, blah, blah, blah. And then all of a sudden the mom walks in and was like, what are you doing? He doesn’t know his colors. And I’m like, wait, what? Like, what do I do now? So it’s a hundred percent about just…
John Kozicki (37:02.987)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
John Kozicki (37:15.959)
Yeah.
Shana Pistilli (37:20.641)
looking at yourself and being okay with not knowing what to do, first of all. Being able to say and accept, I don’t necessarily know what to do right now. And then after that, being willing to say, let me try some things and see what works.
John Kozicki (37:26.861)
Mm-hmm.
Shana Pistilli (37:39.041)
Just start throwing things out there. If you think about movies where they’re trying to come up with a vision board or a strategy board, they literally just start putting stuff up on a board. It’s the same thing. Just start throwing things out. See what the kid hooks onto. So yeah, it’s definitely a very internal process, I think.
John Kozicki (38:00.333)
It sounds like what you’re prioritizing is making a connection with that student first and then branching out from there so that once you make the connection, very similar to how you said it’s important to have that conversation with the parent, you make the connection with the student and then figure out, how are they going to learn? What is going to resonate with them? This is not really
Shana Pistilli (38:06.721)
Yeah. Yeah.
Shana Pistilli (38:13.772)
Yeah.
John Kozicki (38:29.409)
groundbreaking stuff and exclusive to neurodiverse students. You know, this is really kind of important for any student. And to soften the blow of what you had mentioned about quote unquote, older instructors, I think, I think we’re really where that that sentiment might be coming from.
Shana Pistilli (38:31.17)
Right, yes.
Shana Pistilli (38:41.317)
Everyone. Yes.
John Kozicki (38:58.733)
is maybe more traditional ways of teaching, which are very linear, right? And very much by the book, very much like, all right, well, we’re going to use this method book, open up to page one. And when we finish page one, we’re going to flip the page and go to page two. don’t work ahead. When we get to the end of the book, we’ll go to book two.
Shana Pistilli (39:04.256)
Yeah. Yes. Yeah.
Shana Pistilli (39:13.938)
Exactly, Yup.
Shana Pistilli (39:20.29)
Yes. Yes, exactly, yes. Right.
John Kozicki (39:28.793)
And I think, like I’ve talked about this a lot on the podcast, what that does is it doesn’t really prepare people to play music and embody what it is to be a musician and have music as a more enriching part of their lives. As much as it does, it teaches someone how to use a specific tool.
Shana Pistilli (39:44.737)
Mm-hmm.
John Kozicki (39:57.858)
which that tool may be a piano, it may be a guitar, but it’s following instructions rather than embodying what it is to play music. And I’ve sort of gotten a bit tangential here, but those more traditional ways of approaching music, I don’t think they work very well for any student, but they’re certainly not going to work for
Shana Pistilli (40:23.711)
No.
John Kozicki (40:27.745)
nor diverse students.
Shana Pistilli (40:28.904)
Yes, absolutely, and that was a much better way of putting it. And that is exactly what I meant!
John Kozicki (40:32.365)
It’s part of what I do, Shayna. So in those, let’s go in the lesson room, right? And you are, connecting with your student, you’re trying the colors, you realize, the colors aren’t working. You’re trying, you’re opening up your toolkit and you’ve got all these tools at your disposal to try and get somewhere with a student and
Shana Pistilli (40:44.641)
Mm-hmm.
Shana Pistilli (40:51.359)
Hahaha
John Kozicki (41:00.997)
Sometimes the things that you used last week just aren’t working this week. sometimes it’s just, it’s not a good day. It’s just an off day, right? Is there ever a point in a lesson where it gets so challenging that maybe you decide, okay, we can’t keep doing this. We either have to end the lesson or we need to like maybe.
Shana Pistilli (41:04.784)
Mm. Mm.
John Kozicki (41:31.169)
chill out and do something different. What have your experiences in those situations been like?
Shana Pistilli (41:37.746)
So I’ve had many of those experiences. mean, I’ve had…
lesson that ended with me, you know, getting hit in the face. There’s, you know, I’ve had the whole spectrum. So, again, I’ve been very lucky with the parents that I have, where a parent is either in the room or a parent is out in the waiting area and I just can open the door and say, hey, we’re not having a great time today. Like, do you want to come in? Do you want to end early? Do you mind if the student and I just like have a dance party?
John Kozicki (41:54.317)
Mm-hmm.
Shana Pistilli (42:12.109)
There’s been many times where the lesson itself switches from, see what we can learn today, to let’s see what we can do to be safe and be comfortable in our own skin.
John Kozicki (42:21.686)
Mm-hmm.
Shana Pistilli (42:30.592)
You know, I remember this one lesson I had and half the lesson was just spent with music playing in the background and he just wanted to kind of like lay on the beanbag and get some pressure every once in a while. And I said to the dad, like, it doesn’t seem like we’re going to get much playing or sorry, my cat’s like in my face. It doesn’t seem like we’re going to get much playing or like so-and-so, you know, learning.
done today. He’s kind of just searching for some sensory things. And again, I have great parents and the dad says, okay, like that’s who my kid is.
So again, open communication with the parents is always going to be your best friend so that when those instances come up of being you, you have the ability to say, mm, you know, today’s not the best day for learning. Today is more of a sensory input day or today’s just not a good day at all. You know, do you want to come in and read a book with us? Do you, I’ve had that happen where we just ended music altogether and we just read a book and then they left.
John Kozicki (43:28.022)
Mm-hmm.
Shana Pistilli (43:40.164)
So yeah, I have had this happen many times and whether it’s my background of knowing the signs of when to stop and not push it too far or whether it’s just I’ve been lucky with parents that chime in and are welcome to being part of the conversation, I don’t know, but yeah, I mean, you can tell when a kid’s kind of had enough.
Regardless of neurodivergence, you know, if a kid’s having a bad day or a kid’s really tired or a kid’s not feeling good, you know, you can see it in their face and you can tell. So just keeping the communication with parents and knowing that it’s okay to be like, today’s just not their day. And that really kind of goes for any kid, I say.
John Kozicki (44:10.325)
Yeah.
John Kozicki (44:26.09)
Yeah, I agree 100%. And I think there’s also an element of, of us as instructors, sometimes we put pressure on ourselves to feel like we have to fill that lesson time with learning and teaching. And that’s not necessarily always the case. That’s sort of the self-imposed belief that we put on ourselves that, we must be teaching and we must be making progress.
Shana Pistilli (44:37.141)
Yeah. Yep. Yep.
Shana Pistilli (44:49.942)
Yep.
Shana Pistilli (44:54.838)
Right.
John Kozicki (44:55.596)
progress looks different. It’s not always about how much someone learns or how much someone information someone takes in. And I think again, you mentioned it too, that goes for any student. But in instances where you’re dealing with neurodiverse students, that self-imposed pressure that we can then try and impose on our students if they’re having a bad day.
Shana Pistilli (45:10.378)
Anyhow.
Shana Pistilli (45:23.393)
Yeah.
John Kozicki (45:25.546)
their rigidity can kick in and you will not make any progress if you’re at that point, right? So I think it’s okay to relieve that pressure both for us as instructors and for the student and say, all right, what do you need? Let’s just find what we need right.
Shana Pistilli (45:27.125)
Yeah. Yeah.
Shana Pistilli (45:48.63)
Yeah.
And something that really helps us with that is, mean, we, you know, my studio has a trampoline. Like we have, yeah, we have Legos sitting, or Jenga sitting out, we have books sitting out, we have paper schedules or paper communication boards, we have iPad schedules and iPad communication boards. So there’s definitely a level of things that I’ve put into place where the students and the parents know that like, if you’re not doing okay, there’s things we can do instead. But yeah, just like you
John Kozicki (45:56.715)
Yeah.
Shana Pistilli (46:20.311)
said, just the expectation, not the expectation, the knowing that like, let’s try something new, or something different, and both be okay with the fact that right now just something different needs to happen.
John Kozicki (46:26.828)
Mm-hmm.
John Kozicki (46:33.43)
And this, you know, this goes back to like, guess, understanding the student and I’m shifting gears here a little bit, but all of this makes me think of kind of this cross section and where the lines are between what would be considered music education and music therapy. And I wondered if you had thoughts on that, whereas
Shana Pistilli (46:38.858)
Mm-hmm.
Shana Pistilli (46:53.601)
Mm.
John Kozicki (47:00.854)
Framing music education is more.
focused on an outcome and building skills, whereas music therapy is, I guess, typically more about using music as a tool to achieve an outcome that might be, say, social skills or something like that. There’s a weird cross-section and overlap here, but do you see any sort of differentiation in your world where you might say,
Shana Pistilli (47:29.046)
There is.
John Kozicki (47:37.782)
This sounds more like a situation for a music therapist versus someone for your studio.
Shana Pistilli (47:47.221)
So I’ve had this conversation with parents and I’ve kind of turned parents away quote unquote or it’s, you know, sent them a different direction because I make it very…
very known in the beginning that I am not a music therapist. I do not have the skills of a music therapist. Like that is a very, you know, they go to school, they learn all that stuff. I am a music educator. Now with that being said, music is therapeutic.
And there’s no way, there’s no way around that. Like you’re having a bad day, you throw on some music. You’re having a great day, you throw on some music. You need to get motivated to clean your house. You throw on some music. Music just is therapy. So the way that I kind of talk to parents when they bring up, know, like, is this music therapy? Especially when it’s a younger kid, you know, is I’ll say to them, I am not a music therapist. I am a music educator.
John Kozicki (48:19.177)
Right, which is where things cross over. Yeah.
John Kozicki (48:44.053)
You
Shana Pistilli (48:48.707)
we will use music in a way that we will learn skills regardless of what skills those are and again it kind of sounds like music therapy but no sorry my cat is on top of me goodness okay so for example I have one student who
he’s five or six. He started when he was like four, he was really little. So like you would think, okay, you’re just gonna do like music therapy sessions. Well, I don’t know how to do a music therapy session. I know how to do a music lesson. So we just made a schedule. We spent time learning piano. We spent time pushing piano keys. We spent time playing drums. Like everything that we did was very much…
learning how to play an instrument, any instrument. And there was no expectation of this is gonna help with your speech.
this is gonna help with your social skills. This is gonna help with your emotional regulation. That is not why you’re here. You’re here to have fun playing music. And that’s kind of how I phrase it when people ask me. Like, I am not doing anything in a clinical sense. I am helping a kid have fun playing music. And that’s about it. I mean, obviously it’s more than that. But like, in that sense of the therapy versus education, if we’re not having a piano lesson,
John Kozicki (49:57.056)
Yeah.
John Kozicki (50:03.848)
Mm-hmm.
Shana Pistilli (50:24.61)
having a music lesson where we’re learning how to play things or how to enjoy being involved in music. Maybe we have a dance session. It’s yeah, it’s more so being a part of it than using it in a clinical sense. I think that makes sense.
John Kozicki (50:39.989)
Would you say that, yeah, would you say that the two, what you’re doing in music education and what a music therapist might do could work in parallel with one another?
Shana Pistilli (50:52.734)
Yeah, especially at a young age. When you have littles, look, music education and music therapy look very similar. It’s definitely with my older kids when you can see a clear difference. It’s harder to tell with the littles. With the littles, they’re very much the same. Like a group music class is gonna look pretty similar to a group music therapy session. Yeah.
John Kozicki (50:59.915)
Mm-hmm.
John Kozicki (51:14.535)
Okay, okay. So Shayna, I know you present a lot to schools to help them teach special needs students. Is this something that you do with public schools or private schools? Or is it also something that you do for folks like myself who run private music lesson studios?
Shana Pistilli (51:24.896)
Mm-hmm.
Shana Pistilli (51:38.592)
Yeah, to everyone. I’ve done presentations to Boston public schools as a whole, New York public schools. It’s because I am also still in the public music ed sector. You know, I’m an elementary band director. I do a lot of presenting on that as well, but definitely also in the private studio sector. just…
Besides my passion for teaching music to anyone, I care very deeply about helping educators. I don’t want to say become better educators, but like become more open.
to other types of education than traditional education. know, education is not a one size fits all. It never will be, it never should have been. So that’s really kind of what I care about is just like giving educators the space to accept that not.
John Kozicki (52:22.122)
Mm-hmm.
Shana Pistilli (52:43.194)
what you’re doing is not going to work for every kid and let’s have that conversation and it’s okay. Like you’re able, you’re allowed to realize that and I would love to help you start to find resources to make your day-to-day teaching more welcome to the fact that it’s not one size fits all.
John Kozicki (53:01.172)
I love that, I love that. And where can people connect with you or find you so that they can start exploring those resources?
Shana Pistilli (53:11.488)
On the Roboto website, there’s like a inquiry form for lessons and then there’s an inquiry form that comes to me for presentations and trainings.
John Kozicki (53:23.37)
love that. Okay, I will link to that in the show notes. You had also mentioned you have resources on your Instagram, I believe.
Shana Pistilli (53:30.952)
Yeah, so a lot of like the Roboto Instagram page, obviously we post, you know, fun videos of us performing and stuff, but there’s also, there’ll also be times where a student will have like a really powerful lesson where they learn something new and I’ll post, you know, the resource in which we used to help them get that success that they got. So there’s a lot of those videos on the Instagram as well. And then even just emailing me through the, through the Roboto website, like I’m always willing to send out resources.
again because I just want everyone to be able to do what I do.
John Kozicki (54:04.203)
Yeah, I love it. This is great. We’ll link to both the website and the Instagram. Shayna Pestelli, this has been a fantastic conversation. I love it. So much, so much good information in here and I know our listeners are going to love it. Thank you for being on the show. All right, we’ll see you next time.
Shana Pistilli (54:12.862)
haha
Shana Pistilli (54:21.716)
Thank you for having me.
