The Employing of the Piano as a Tool - One of My Early Experiences as an Educator...

When, in my early days upon returning from my experiences in Europe both in education and performance, I was invited by the superintendent of schools  in a community outside of Boston to do some teaching in the  music department. I hadn't  thought of that aspect at the time; however, this particular superintendent had a brother who was a percussionist in the Philadelphia Orchestra, and was interested in my joining the faculty(I cannot recall how I met this man, as it was so  long ago).
And so, I began part-time work in the school system, as I was already teaching elsewhere at the time.
I developed a course of study for third  and fourth grade students, who, by this period in their lives, had developed their reading habits sufficiently  to choose the piano as their instrument of the moment, as it were. My plan:
The Issue:  Seeing that the students in the system were allowed to take weekly  classes in the orchestral instrument  of their choice  upon reaching grades 5 and 6, why not introduce them, while in 3rd or 4th grade, to an instrument; specifically  the piano, that would teach them both the treble(G)clef and bass(F) clef?  That way,  a student,  upon choosing, say, violin(a treble clef  instrument), or, say, trombone(a bass clef instrument),  would already have learned  how to read the clef of the orchestral  instrument  chosen. In addition, if the student desired continuation of the piano privately after leaving elementary school, he or she  could easily do so.
The superintendent embraced the idea with, as I recall, a degree or two of  enthusiasm.
The idea appeared  to work , as I ended up, after a few years, teaching full-time in the public schools for twenty nine years, doing mostly 'pioneering', such as developing a four year program in college-level music linguistics, etc. I actually taught at a nearby college  as well during this time, teaching the same material that I was teaching at the high school, even on the same day, at times.
It was great fun - one issue that still resides in my memory was  my trying to explain to authorities from other school systems who visited my classes that I was NOT teaching the kids piano as a performance entity, but using it primarily as a tool for purposes of linguistics.
To this day, I'm still not sure that I was totally  successful in  producing a distinction between the issues of performance, and the art of  language as the end, not necessarily  the means to the end, as a small number of these visitors continued to believe that I was teaching 'how to play the piano' - no, no  - that was most assuredly not my motive...
But; it worked, evidently - I still get an occasional call from one of my  'victims of circumstance' voicing his or her  recall of the experience. That's enough for me!