Rant warning!!!

I have another pair of sibling who I teach one after the other, a boy and a girl. The girl is quite serious (or would like to be) and the boy is more of a 'play for fun' type. Sometimes one or the other can't make the lesson so I end up with just one for the full time slot which is fine by me. A little advanced warning might be nice so I can alter my planning.

Last week the boy was on holiday his sister took the whole lesson. I was quite glad because she has ABRSM grade 5 coming up in 3 weeks time and she could do with the extra time. With this in mind I would have expected that this week would be back to normal. Oh no! This week the boy shows up on his own because he missed a week. Sounds fair you might think? BUT....he is not working towards anything in particular at the moment and she has her exam shortly. I just can't believe they would be so stupid. She can not afford to be missing lessons right now.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHH!

Rant over.

SO whhhhhhhhat if she flunks her ABwhatever grade 5.. She will just do it again. or not...

You all piano teachers have been in cranky mood recently.. How about a "my wonderful students" thread.. It may have therapeutic value..

That's just not good enough. It's not necessary.

Rant away, that's what we're "hear" for. Lol, get it

Honestly I don't think people think sometimes. They probably didn't even realize that DD needed that extra time, they just wanted things to be "fair".

It's all about attitude and taking responsibilty you see.

Over in the UK there is a national obsession with these exams. I would rather they didn't bother but everyone pushes for them all the time. When they commit to doing an exam they do so on the understanding that they will work hard enough to do well. It matters to me for my students to do well because of my reputation and also because I know that failing something is not pleasant. This particular girl cares as well. She would be devestated to fail and is not the kind of girl who does fail. She is a high achiever in academic studies and is perfectly capable. Her only problem is that she has left the bulk of the practice until the last minute as many of them do. Missing a lesson this close to the exam is stupid, especially as there was no reason for her to miss. Her parents should know better as well. It stinks. And I will be telling her so next week.

She is lucky it's 3 weeks off. I only got the dates at the start of the week. I could have been sooner as far as she knew.

AND.....

If she does flunk it she will not just do it again. The next opportunity would be November/December. There's no way I am listening to the same pieces for the next five months. If she flunks she is going to have to learn different pieces for next time and she won't like that.


Think I've done now.

I have a son like that too. I hate to say it, but sometimes that's the best thing for them .
JMO, The sooner they fail the better. My son didn't fail at anything until he went to college and then it was really, really rough. he didn't fail, but he sure got a huge reality check!

I love ranting! It's a great opportunity to blow some steam and the folks here are helpful. Questions for Chris: What age is the young lady student? Will you be discussing the issue with her parent(s) or her directly?

Can I join in too? This isn't really a rant, more of a

"You have GOT to be kidding me!!"

But...
Remember I finally "fired" that mom 2-3 weeks ago?
Well, today I got a check for what she owed me (shocker!!!)
with a note that said "I just wanted to be sure you would be holding her spot for fall so I thought I better pay you".

SERIOUSLY?????
See title of thread please...

Has/had this been clearly articulated to the student and her parents?

She is 14 years old and as I said very intelligent. Certainly old enough to take responsibilty for her own learning. To be fair to her parents they probably just didn't think and were balancing out the lessons because the boy had missed a week. But I feel like she has taken advantage of the situation. After her extended lesson last week it was clear to her that there was much work to do and I was expecting a big improvement this week. I think she has not practised enough and took the opportunity to skive the lesson when her parents suggested it. Had I have anticipated this I would have called the parents to make sure she came but it caught me by surprise. I think I will call them now to check on her progress.

Wonderful comment. So helpful.

We are in a cranky mood from time to time because we face unbelievable crap from time to time. I understand *exactly* what Chris is talking about, and I'd wager most teachers do too.

Well "rant" disclaimer or no, reading the original post and then the ensuing details really makes me wonder. Now I know that I'm a bit old fashion in this regard, but in my book calling someone "stupid" is considered derogatory. The parents were called stupid over a matter that they may have no idea about. And if you consider them "stupid" for not knowing, one can easily argue it's part of the teachers responsibility to keep the parents informed when such situations arise (I realize that he said that he was going to ping the parents, but IMHO that should have been done _before_ any ranting/name calling). A teenager is a teenager, intelligent or not (not to mention the fact that being intelligent and being responsible/mature are different attributes entirely).

Talk about showing people some respect.

Everyone gets to, wants to, NEEDS to rant sometimes.

We are a piano family, so we rant to each other where we can *hopefully* get some support, and it is a *safe* place to do it where no one says something they will regret to the wrong people.

I just came across this website and thought I should add it to my post:

[url=http://][/url] http://www.stuff.co.nz/oddstuff/2516854/Bar-encourages-verbal-abuse

It is important to rant!!

Let the rants fly!



Better out than in I always say.

Chris, as my students approach exam time, I frequently ask the more suspect ones if I'll see them next week. Wait, that's not quite correct....I say, see you again next week, RIGHT????

I called up a parent who was just crawling in to bed to read them the riot act because a student missed an important event. What were they thinking? Didn't they want their daughter to excel? Dad answered the phone and told me, in a rather sheepish voice, that mom didn't want to talk to me, because she had guilt written all over her face. I was furious. I told them that I worked my rear end off trying to help their daughter, what possible excuse could the conjure up for not getting her to lessons? Etc., Etc. Etc.

It doesn't matter, mom is too wrapped up in the family business, and daughter misses school events, church events, social events, and of course, piano. Argh.

It could be a possiblity that the girl may not want to sit for the exam because she is not as prepared as she should be and probably that could be a reason why she didn't turn up for the lesson. It seems odd given the prominence that music exams play in the UK that the parents and/or the girl would choose to skip a lesson so close to the exam. Maybe the girl feels overwhelmed and stressed about her possible lack of preparation.

I used to have this mom who would show up late and tell me her daughter would have to have an "abbreviated" lesson. I thought that was hilarious. I've been into interesting terms lately. Abreviated, phased out, etc.

Not at all.

People do stupid things all the time. I certainly do and I am sure that you do as well. We are all prone to being stupid at some point. Yesterday I took my wife out for coffee and whilst in the queue realised that I had left my wallet at home. STUPID!

As for the parents having no idea. Well they know she has an important exam in a couple of weeks time. It's not the first exam she has taken. Is it that difficult to work out that going two weeks without a lesson this close to the exam is a bad idea?

As for the girl not wanting to take the exam. She begged me to enter her for it and promised to work hard.

Sorry, but I have been stewing on this all morning.

It comes to something when you can't sign on to PW for a quick rant without getting your ear bent about respect.

bitWrangler, can't you read between the lines?

End of a long day.
+
Summer term and having to compete with school work, trips and sports activities and events.
+
Exams and recitals fast approaching and nobody seems to care except me.
+
Students winding down for the Summer hols and winding me up in the process.
+
Kids who don't practise and parents who don't encourage them.

=

Frustration and stress which leads to the need to vent.

I know this is a public forum but to me (and others I assume) it's a place where I can share my experiences with people who are in the same boat. Sometimes this involves letting off a bit of steam. We piano teacher's can feel very isolated in this job. We don't have work colleagues to sound off to when thigs get on top of us. This might not be the best place to do so but it's all there is.

So you don't like the word 'stupid'. Perhaps it was a stupid choice of word. What would you prefer? Silly? Thoughtless? Is that a little less derogatory?

Whatever!

Of course I dont really think they are stupid.

Of course she is not really in danger of flunking the exam.

Of course I don't really have anything against these people.

It just wound me up.

You are a parent in a musical family. If your kid had an important exam in a couple of weeks would it not occur to you that missing a lesson was a bad idea?

That's all I am saying.

Now, Chris, that's a first class rant! Feel better?

Getting there.

Off topic, but I had to share this one...

When my son was about 12 he wanted "skinny jeans" so he asked me if I would "edit" his pants for him Lol lol

PS, I did, and it worked fine.

Me too, and I didn't start the rant.

I understood exactly what you were talking about. I almost wrote you a PM.

The smug, condescending answers you got yesterday are typical of responses from people who simply have not faced the stress we face, especially this time of year. Summer is very difficult, for one thing. We do expect all sorts of strange things to happen, yet we still get blind-sided by the few students we have assumed are bit more responsible and serious.

As others have said, most parents look at us as a service, easily replaced. The are whole number of problems we face that I don't think non-teachers (piano) can possibly understand, Chris.

Thwaaack.....(that's the sound of a bulls eye!)

Actually, your response made me "wonder". It seems as though you did everything possible to misinterpret everything Chris was talking about. It started here:





My question to you: why would you assume that Chris has not been clear? Why would you assume that his instructions were vague and that the parents were giving him cooperation? Why assume that the situation is not exactly as Chris described it?


Oh good grief. He didn't call them stupid to their face. He used the word, in a moment of extreme irritation, to describe how they handled lessons, in this situation. I suppose it is beyond you, in irritation, to say of someones actions: "Gosh, that was stupid". You are not being old-fashioned. You are being "holier than thou". By the way, do you teach? Do you have personal experience dealing with the kind of craziness we teachers so often run into?

You do NOT know that. You have suddenly decided to be apologist for parents and a family that Chris knows but you do not.

You are assuming Chris is irresponsible and that he did not keep the parents informed. Why do you make such assumptions?

Yes. Talk about showing people some respect. Your high horse could not be any higher. If you had spent any time reading Chris's posts in this forum, you would know that he is a highly committed teacher and faces some very real problems. But no, you are not interested in that. You'd rather assume he is a jerk and lecture him about how he should have handled a family that you have assumed did nothint wrong or foolish.

Thanks for your support Gary. I do appreciate it but I don't want to be responsible for starting a war here.

bitWrangler, I have read a lot of your posts on the forums and understand that you take your music tuition very seriously and have a good relationship with your teacher. I know you have high expectations of your kids and ensure that they practise regularly as well as giving them plenty of support. You are one of the good ones and I would not like there to be any ill feeling. Sorry if you found my remarks offensive.

I do think this time of year is difficult. This week I have had four cancellations because of school trips or term time holidays. Needless to say they all want make-ups. Hardly any of my students have got anything to show for a weeks practice because they are snowed under with exam revision or have shows or sports events to prepare for. The school where I work cancelled me due to exam week which means I don't get paid. I had a cheque bounce from an adult student. And on top of this I am worried that some students will not perform well in their exams or recitals because of lack of preparation. As we all know piano is bottom of the list of priorities. And yet when things don't go as well as they would have liked they will look to me for answers and explanations.

Anyway, a rant is a rant. I have taken today off and feel better about things now.

Could we just let it go?

This time of year is especially difficult for us in our teaching business. I feel fortunate to have found this forum and all of you classy folk here to discuss these issues with that we face every day. We want to vent and bounce ideas off each other. Of course we may not always agree and that comes out as unsupportive sometimes.
I'm taking Mondays and Fridays off during this summer from teaching, in hopes that it will give me some time to reflect and relax.