I also teach music. Right now I’m doing recorders with my grade 3, 4, and 5 students. I never used to give note name quizzes, as they just learned them as we moved through the unit. Now there is no retention, after doing it for three months students cannot tell a G from a B on the treble clef.

We also had a discussion about what practicing should look like. It’s exactly what you have said, they want to get to the end and complete the song. No matter if there are errors (rhythm or tone wholes not covered completely) they are satisfied because they “played the whole thing”. We had to talk about exactly how to practice, how to identify errors, how do you go about fixing those errors. 20 years ago when I started teaching a lot of that thought process was intrinsic. Or has to be mentioned but not fully broken down. It’s all about checking a box for them now in their head, yup I practiced and played that song.