Carol,

I realize I was terse with you. Let me tell you how that happened.

I noticed you have been a member since 2005 and that you have posted 36 times. I decided to look at your profile and posting history. I went to your first posts 1,2, and to your last posts 34,35,36 to get an idea of your interests and concerns.

What I found was frustration on your part and stress in teaching and you blame it on your students lacks of this and that. Yes, we do cope with these problems daily in our piano teaching and the onus is on the teacher to effectively teach and reach that child. The child is behaving as he knows how to behave he does not yet have the instincts or training of how to behave and think like a musician. He is lacking because he doesn't know any better and he doesn't have his habits to succeed in music in place yet. "Yet" is the key word.

There are many approaches to teaching, many, many, many. When something is not working, we need to make even a small change to try saying something different. And, again, and again if the student is getting it. Over and over looking for new solutions for this child - each and every "problem" he has must be resourced to find a solution. That is the teacher's job.

In your postings I had time to find and read the topics:
1. Studio Makeover (Feb 21, 2009)
2. I think I just dropped (March 5,2009)
34. The same lesson all over again (Nov 5, 2009)
35. Anxious child (Oct 19, 2009)
36. Does teaching make you anxious (Oct 13, 2009)

I have no idea how long you have taught nor of your education - but I did see frustration, blaming, stress, considering dumping students, and your concern for the start of this new year of teaching.

I felt it important to say to you that you need to examine yourself as a teacher to work to eliminate those problem areas in your students based on how you work with them, improving the communication between you and your students during lesson - they need to think and listen and do - if they can do these things effectively in piano lesson, then they should be able to go home and work on their assignments with interest and even enjoyment. This is not happening because they are not having successful lessons - partly their fault I'm sure - but partly your fault too. What you have said in your postings tell me that you need to evaluate what happens in your studio and turn it around.

You should not be so frustrated - it's sad to see - music is this joyful activity that we are drawn to - and you are not enjoying your teaching in the way that you are doing it.

My words to you were based on wanting to get a strong message across to get your attention directed to examining yourself and your methods. I think it's pretty exciting when we are able to make a difference in our studios so that we have the desire to create a wonderful learning environment.

I know that you can turn this all around - but there has to be an attitude change and a method change on your part so that you can thrive on teaching instead of getting exhaused from it.

These changes are in our domain to do because we operate our own one on one piano instruction service and it is a business as well as a musical learning environment. You must come up with the answers to what you express about your studio. It is good to have empathy and ideas and support in the piano world forum, but it's within yourself that the answers will appear.

I have hit the wall so many times in my teaching, I'm sure I can equal your frustrations, but the stopping of those frustrations are yours to make. Students keep arriving every year and each one is being groomed by you to become a musician - so do it - despite the odds of what they bring to you as being the empty musical vessel (symbolically) that you are to fill. Stimulating them, motivating them, inspiring them, instructing them, understanding them is our job. We teach the person and prepare them for the work just as much as we teach the music and the music making.

I am truly sorry that you were insulted - I knew it was a risk to expound on this subject - but now you have the explanation that it was not this one post that drew my attention. I have received my share of criticism from others in my lifetime, and some was very valid and helpful, some of it not at all helpful.

How you and others see my postings here will be based on individual perceptions of what I am saying and why I am saying it and what experiences they bring to the subject. Teachers who have studied pedagogy are in a different place than teachers who have not. It is an exciting subject I think and all encompassing.

I believe our answers are in pedagogy study, and I'm very concerned about the lack of teacher's not knowing that it exists, what it is and how to use it. If we want our student's to be musically literate, we should make sure we are there in our teaching. The piano methods by themselves do not work that well, we must be our best informed and work with our students from within our own knowledge and efforts. It's the only way to acquire a strong teaching base and to have our own inate piano teaching skills to serve every demand made of us by these kids having problems.

Betty Patnude

Wow, if CarolR has vented her frustrations here at PW just 5 times in 4 years, I think she is doing great

These forums offer us a safe place to vent and seek/share solutions. Do you think most posts here are the opposite: "wow teaching is wonderful, no problems here, I just love it every day". No.

Betty, to assume that the only things she talks about on this forum are the only things that occur in her lessons is very naive, and overly judgmental. Perhaps she only posts here about the students with whom she is looking for advice on how to deal with, having exhausted all other options. One can get a very skewed image of teachers in general from reading a lot of posts on this site if they are not a teacher themselves, because there are lots of complaints and issues raised in many areas. One might think, in fact, that teachers in general hate their jobs because of all the problems.

We, of course, know that this is not true for the majority of those who post here. I just wonder why you assume the worst of Carol rather than the best. Rather than saying "look up the word pedagogy" you could offer some questions that will help her figure out if she has tried everything in the book, like, "have you tried choosing a piece for him that might be a bit easier but one you know he'll love and practice every day?" or something.

It wasn't so much the content of what you said, but the lack of respect with which you said it.

I do not think Carol was not looking for a solution. If that were the case, she wouldn't have bothered to post on here, I suspect. In fact, I'd argue that the reason for her posting in here is so that *she* could learn something that would help *her* reach this kid. Yes, *he's* not practicing, but *she* was looking for a solution.

We all have students where we aren't sure what to do, and frustration sets in. I feel that this place is a sanctuary for where renewal can happen for a teacher who may have tried everything they know and are at a loss. I think we all have been there, you recently with your post on that young child whose parents pulled from your studio.

I think it is important to be encouraging to one another, and not judgmental. The line between the two can sometimes be blurred.

FIRST RULE OF HOLES

When in a deep one, stop digging.

You know what Betty? It's my birthday and I have no time for you today, at all. I'm not even going to finish reading your message, it is so annoying. I'm definitely not responding to whatever point you were trying to make.

I'm sorry you have so much time on your hands that you decided to dig into all my postings. I find that really quite sad. I've just spent my birthday morning planting bulbs in the garden, and I am not going to have my mood ruined by someone is so defensive they need to go through and point out everything I have ever posted on this forum to make a point.

But thank you anyway.

Carol

Happy birthday Carol. Working in the garden is a good way to enjoy a fine morning!

Happy birthday, Carol! We like having birthdays around here - any excuse for a party

You know, if you go to your profile and put in your birthday (you don't have to put in a year, I don't think) you'll get a cake showing up next to your name on all your posts all day the day of your birthday - kind of a little celebration here at PW -

Cathy

Where's your birthday cake? You must not have your birth date on your profile.

So here you go:

Here's a Birthday Smile for you, Carol!

May we all have 'dolls' for students!!!!

AWWWWW, Thanks, guys! I'll have to change my profile! I feel like I've made a lot of new friends in the last couple of days! I really appreciate all the supportive comments that I've gotten.

I appreciate that you all (most of you) see my posting for what it was - a bad day. If we can't vent here, where can we? I adore teaching and I have wonderful students. Monday is my longest and toughest day (but not usually all that tough) but it gets better from there. By the time Thursday roles around, I'm sorry that my teaching week has ended.

But it IS good to sometimes just be able to say rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr, so thanks for listening.

Carol

Happy B-day Carol. I saw your OP for what it was and I have no problem with it. The fact that Betty P. does doesn't really surprise me as it's her job to correct and make sure we all teach to the highest of our abilities.

What would we do without her telling us how to teach? Thank God there's someone like that to help us all climb to the highest levels of piano pedagogy. I for one am thankful!

Happy birthday, Carol! Hope you have a special evening filled with loved ones and music.

Here's hoping all of your students are uber-prepared for their lessons today. Have a happy day!

Funny how this kinda got lost in all the subsequent, um, discussion. Anyway, I agree that a specific checklist could potentially be quite helpful. While it's easy (and admittedly most likely) to assume that the student isn't practicing at all, it can also be the case that the student is simply not good at being productive in their practice. So things like simply tracking time spent practicing can often lead to the same, lack of, results.

As to specific examples of a checklist, you basically gave them in your post. What we do with our daughter when she starts spinning her wheels is to have her do this, based on the list her teacher gave her, she writes down a very specific goal for that particular practice session. This could be things like (measures 14-18, at tempo, with proper fingering and dynamics). At the end of that practice session, she then writes down how much time she spent and how much progress she made towards attaining her goal. We found that this has helped greatly to keep her focused and to break the problems down into more easily attainable chunks. This also helps to avoid the "well I practiced for XXX today" excuse and puts the emphasis on productivity vs simply spending time in front of the piano.

Happy Birthday, Carol!

Enjoy your day,

Barb

The checklist is about learning steps. I write down a specific list of steps to be followed and they cannot be checked off unless the task was successful at least 3 times in a row.

I may be a novice when it comes to piano, but the way you're describing it, I'd say it's actually very much like math. Practice in math is just as essential to understanding it and learning how to use it, probably more so than talent.

Yes, I am aware this is completely off-topic

I quite agree with Morodiene here.

Carol, I hope you had a very happy birthday in spite of it!