Fellow teachers - have you made any new resolutions for 2010?

Professional? Business? Personal (if you care to share them)?

Happy New Year to all!

John

1. Be nicer to my students.

2. Practice more.

3. Fill my studio.

4. Teach interesting pieces that I haven't taught before.

Now I need to kick all the guests out of my house...ha! Happy 2010!

I am going to stop procrastinating..............starting tomorrow :-)

I haven't given a solo recital in a few years, so I think it's about time to put one together. I have a program picked out, so now I just gotta find time to get it ready.

I have 4-5 students interested in composition, so I'm going to make composition a bigger part of their weekly lessons.

I'd also like to do some more composing myself. I had some things published a few years ago, and I have some more coming out this Spring, but I'd like to make it more of a regular part of my routine. I'd also like to try my hand at an article for AMT or something. I write constantly, both here on forums, in my blog, and in a few dozen pages of drafts sitting on my hard drive. Hopefully this year I could cull an article out of it all and see if anyone's interested.

Love this thread!

1) Be clearer with my students and their parents about my expectations.

2) Develop a website.

3) Practice more.

4) Schedule more "me" time.

BevP

Happy New Year!!!!
My wish for you all:
Good health, peace in your lives, and prosperity in your teaching businesses.

My resolution for 2010:
(stole this from Sotto Voce)
Less time at this keyboard and more time at the other one!

Thank you for all of your suggestions, advice, and humorous tidbits you share here. PW is a good place. I learn so much from you and find this forum to be incredibly supportive.
Cheers to you.

1) Stay healthy so I can sing!

2) Audition for some opera companies in CA in April

3) Continue making sure I spend a lot more time at the piano for my own music

4) Be a bit more organized with my teaching. Since Thanksgiving, I've kind of gotten off track with my lesson plans and need to get back to them more thoughtfully.

5) I've got a couple of students who are now getting into advanced rep, and while my teacher said I could pass them onto her, I really love these kids (they've been with me for so many years) and I'd like to try teaching them until they graduate. I have taught advanced students before, but they were usually transfer students. This will be a learning experience for me. There is so much rep out there that I love and want to share with them, but also so much that I don't know. So more exploring into this late intermediate/early advanced rep.

5) This always is on my "to do" list it seems, but continue to find more ways to encourage students to practice. I have a few that are realizing that the minimal practicing they've done in the past isn't quite enough anymore, and those who have fallen off the wagon, so to speak.

Great thread!

1. Practice more
2. Connect more with other teachers

and, unrelated to the piano...

3. Lose 10 pounds and get in shape!

Believe it or not I intend to back off my "busy-ness" this year. I was feeling some shadows of deep burn out a few weeks ago and now that I've had a few weeks off, I am feeling inspired again.

Hope you all don't think I'm a party pooper.

I think that is SO music related. I lost 15 pounds between September and November. Made such a difference in my disposition. Feeling good makes teaching easier I think!

Anyways, here's my list!

1. Lend out my pop music books to students because I just have so much music to share. And will record when students take and return books.
2. Drink less coffee and more water!
3. Practice more the styles of music I love! And get really good at lots of styles I've been meaning to get to.
4. Keep my maid! I took on 2 extra students so I could have someone come in and clean my house every two weeks. Gives me free time to do other things I enjoy! I'd rather teach piano than clean house!
5. Might spend more time over in the Non-Classical Forum because I have so much to thank THAT forum for already!

Not at all! I was kind of feeling overwhelmed before too, partly due to having a few too many students ,and also due to health issues that forced me to teach extra to make up for lost time.

You may want o figure out what it was that caused the burn-out and see if you can make a change for this semester so it won't happen again.

Yes, thank you! It's pretty rare that I get the burned out feeling...I did re-arrange me schedule so that I have weekends off now so I think that will help alot. I sort of felt like I was working ALL THE TIME! Even though I'm doing what I truly love and enjoy, I just wasn't getting any "down" time to just lay around in my pajamas and watch a movie or read a book. My batteries were not getting re-charged at all. SO here's to an abundant and "balanced" 2010. Thanks everyone for your input and support!

My resolution for 2010: V - I

[I believe in resolutions I have a chance of keeping.]

Ditto this one! I also took on 2 new students so I could have a maid come clean every 2 weeks. It has been a lifesaver!! I would much rather teach an hour of piano than clean house LOL!

Some of my other resolutions...

1. Enforce my late fee.
2. Take better care of myself.
3. Pick one new long, difficult piece and really perfect it by the end of the year.
4. Learn to say no to people.

Nice topic!

1. Develop more patience with my students.

2. Balance my schedules (family, teaching music, social life etc.)

3. Spend some time for yoga sessions with my brother. Refresh my mind and body

4. Follow these reminders from Music Teacher's Blog. I just hope it wasn't too late for me to accomplish these things.

1) Incorporate a lesson swap schedule
2) Stick to my no-make-up-except-for-illness policy
3) Record student pieces and make CDs for them
4) Spend more time focusing on technique and sightreading
5) Recruit students to participate in state theory exams

Not at all. That was my resolution at the beginning of this semester, and it's working pretty well!

Hahahahaha! Am I the only one who thinks this is hilarious?

No, I had a giggle too

Thanks. I was afraid no one got it. I thought it was a perfect authentic resolution.

I am making no new resolutions for this new year because I already have an incredibly big "To Do" list that I have not finished from previous years. I'm just going to keep "ticking" the check off list and deleting until I'm at the end of it some day, I hope.

One day at a time!

One step at a time!

Present moment thinking!

Don't forget to have the ....
tonic on top.

Better make it a supertonic if you need it!

Hi John,

This winter anyway, I plan to do a better job of keeping the sidewalk and steps to the entrance clear of snow and ice. My plan is to shovel right away instead of counting on a forecast of 40 degrees to melt it. (That was my mistake last year.)

So I've been out shoveling today and yesterday.

BTW, do you have any New Year's Resolutions?

Checking on my resolutions of yesteryear...
1. I yelled less. That counts, right?
2. I did learn quite a few new pieces! But there were stretches (several days to a week) when I literally did not touch the piano outside lessons. I hope to get more organized so I have more structured practice rather than haphazard practice.
3. I ended 2010 with more students on my roster than in 2009. More kids came in than left. There are still gaping holes to fill in my teaching schedule, though.
4. I actually made a list of pieces I wanted to teach in 2010. I got to teach three of them. I also found several gems in new beginner books I haven't used before.

New year is 2011, not 2010
I am little confused here.
Smile!

I dragged out an old thread from 12 months ago.

I am so sorry!
It really confused me.
Thanks for clarify.

1. Do Much less correcting and much more encouraging of their own musical journey.

2. Try harder to find solutions to individual learning differences.

3. Keep ahead of them in theory (and remember to DO theory with them). As far as that goes, be more consistent in everything!

4. Practice sight reading so that I'm not always apologizing when I play through something for them.

5. Go to more local Piano Teacher's association meetings!

6. Find a beginner's method, or my own method for beginners, that I really, really, really like.

7. Read more about teaching, and constantly look for more creativity in my teaching!

A big one for me... I am careful to nick any issues in the bud, but I want to be better about praising the good in my students' playing. I have greatly learned from and appreciated the praise of my teachers as much as I did the correction. I need to work on giving encouragement more often than I do.