There are several posts recently about transfer students coming along to their next teachers with bad technique and a host of other issues. New teachers gets this dumped into their laps with the understanding that things will be fixed, or many times, parents and students have no idea that anything is wrong in the first place.

Here is my point:
I agree that there are folks who should not be teaching piano.
Exactly what capabilities should a teacher have to classify him into the "good" category?
Case in point:
Recently a student came to me playing level 5 repertoire. He studied with a teacher who has a fine reputation, is in MTNA, students in guild and competitions. Student came to me because he wants to learn music other than classical.
Student has a variety of bad habits, including excessive moving about and collapsing fingers. I am giving the teacher the benefit of the doubt here.
I guess what I'm suggesting is that perhaps we are too quick to blame the teacher?

Collapsing fingers and hands are sometimes very hard to fix in my experience. Some kids actually have bad hands or problems with dexterity. I have had two kids from the same family with the same problems with dexterity. Another mother-son team both dragged their fingers.

I really don't see much of an issue with past teachers since you only have the future to work with and you can't stop those other teachers from teaching. Besides, now you can gain a good reputation once his or her family and friends learn how quickly you turned things around.

A previous teacher could have been busily focusing on rhythm or musicality during a limited lesson time. You don't know what they had to deal with. I always think the students still gain from another teacher's presence and manner even if the musical progress was limited.

There are some physical therapy type of exercises you can do to build the upper body and arms of a student having flat fingers and collapsing joints.

If the child is petite or sunken chested they need to get their posture in place with shoulder framed, neck elongated, and head balanced on the neck first. How arms hang from the shoulder applies, and how the forearm is angled to the upper arm matters, the elbow need to find their spot not too close to the body and not too far away from the body. Then we get to work with the hand shape, wrist and finger formation.

The most recent exercises I've used with kids for these purposes are:
1) Spiders running straight up and down the wall one handed about 5 times each hand/arm.

2) Spiders doing pushups on table top with the hand.

3)Then there is finger tapping on the table top using the thumb for support and all other fingers tapping on their end tips not the fat pads.

4)Standing in a corner doing a small push up with hands on both sides of the wall for support.

5) Another one is to lightly grab a door knob and turn it in both directions to encourage rotation of the wrist.

Kids can do this exercises at home as part of the assignments. You may need to include a parent in on supervision of them.

In children the finger digits are very small and sending messages and holding a shape gets lost in the nervous system. You can say "curve your fingers" time after time, but if the student isn't saying the same thing to herself over and over, the thought isn't getting through to her fingers. Your reminders are simply reminders and the thought goes away as soon as you've gone on in the lesson from that point.

A good teacher is someone who goes out of their way to study with a master.

A pedagogy teacher once said to me:

The worst students will always play badly despite your best efforts. The best students will always play well despite your shortcomings. The real measure of a teacher is found in the middle.

I don't believe in measuring a teacher by his or her capabilities, fees, training, or credentials. Just show me how well their middle students play.

There is a great measure of received wisdom. You can't just make it up, O Locker of Many Threads.

Hats off to Kreisler; you really summed it up well.

It reminds me of an observation by John Perry many years ago, back when he did Guild Auditions. He observed that once you heard two or three of a teacher's "average" students, you pretty well knew how to write the rest of the report cards. In a very real sense, the acorn doesn't fall far from the tree!

So, when it's time to choose a teacher you get them to line up their average pupils in a row and you listen to 'em?

Visit one of their student recitals!

Wasn't there a thread about that?

I have read more than once about a transfer student coming in and playing a number of pieces brilliantly. That student would show his or her teacher off in a good light at any recital and maybe competition. The new teacher then discovers that this same student cannot read notes, doesn't know how to interpret or understand music but maybe is great at being programmed into inch by inch instructions in producing an impressive piece for recitals. So if a student wants to learn how to play piano will recitals tell us whether the teacher can teach those skills?

Recitals of a large number of students do give a general sense as to what the teacher emphasises in the lesson, but you are completely correct, keystring, in pointing out that many of the real teaching challenges can only emerge over time (say four or five lessons) and one-on-one.

My concern is at the student / parent end because we may not know what to look for or what the goals actually might be. Because this particular thing has been related by several teachers in regards to transfer students, I'd like to paint one particular scenario. These students came in playing a limited number of works impressively because apparently they had been drilled into them by rote. The students did not know note names at all, could not read music, and depended on numbers being written in. I imagine that student / parent would be under the impression for a long time that progress was happening, something was being learned, and this is how it is done. They would not know anything is missing: These students seem to change teachers after years, not months.

Ah, well, I can speak with some experience on THIS issue. I've had most of my transfer students come to me over the past 15 years because the parents have been concerned that even though their children appear to be making progress (sitting piano exams at regular intervals and getting acceptable results) they don't feel that their children are actually learning anything of substance. So I have had parents say to me "My child plays two or three pieces quite well, but when I ask him about his music he doesn't seem to know anything at all", or similar.

So they want to come to me so that their child will be a real musician. And it's hard work to take a student who is playing music maybe 4 years beyond their skill set and rebuilding their knowledge base.

I think in the 21st century the onus really is on parents to learn as much as they can so that they can make good parenting decisions along the way. But it's hard for parents who have no background playing a musical instrument, and even harder if you start off with a teacher who turns out to be less than effective.

Elissa said: "I think in the 21st century the onus really is on parents to learn as much as they can so that they can make good parenting decisions along the way. But it's hard for parents who have no background playing a musical instrument, and even harder if you start off with a teacher who turns out to be less than effective."

I think it's important to consider the topic of "Parent Education" in our studios. It may sound like an offensive title, but it's a good and supportive subject if you can give hints and suggestions that help parents fill their roles well. Thee teacher and the parent are the most interested people in what happens during the piano lessons years to enhance the power of a really good outcome.

I've seen some great articles recently on the web that state how to cultivate this in our studios. I'll find some ideas and post to share them next week.

I've known about that triangle (teacher-student-parent) for many years and believe it is super helpful to students when the parents are positively supportive with great attitudes toward piano lessons. If it isn't happening naturally, it needs to be encouraged, and even taught.

Thank you for your answer, Elissa. I suppose that with places like PW the word is starting to get out on this need to become educated on what music education is about.