Philosophy:

Music is simply songs.

Scales exist only to organize musical tones, just as the alphabet exists only to organize letters. Music theory does not exist outside of the context of a piece of music.

Your ability as a musician is measured by what pieces of music you can play, and how well you can play them. And that is only if you choose to measure your ability as a musican, which is generally not helpful anyway.

Learn songs you like, one after the other. That is music education.

Some of my teaching role-models (both fictional and not) include:

Annie Sullivan
Mr. Miyagi
Mary Poppins
Willy Wonka
PeggyJo Wilhelm
Rob Westerberg
Lisa Lemay
Dave Ramsey
David Allen
Michelle Snow
Fred Rogers
Karen Pryor
Paul Pimsleur
Shinichi Suzuki
Martha Beck
Julia Cameron
George Martin
Chris Humphrey
Kenny Werner
Albus Dumbledore
Dr. Seuss
Eknath Easwaran
‘Abdu’l-Baha
Bill & Jennie McCann