Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Piano Teachers Forum Committed VS non-committed students... How do you tell?

You are unaware of how angry you are with her. That's not the same thing.



You're deciding how she should feel. You barely know her and it would appear have only slight contact with children her age. It is probably not a good idea to base your reactions on how she should feel. Apparently she does NOT feel the same way you think she should feel.

As you gain experience, you will realize asking people why they leave is counterproductive. Some don't know, some are embarassed to tell you, some will lie to spare your feelings, some will be angry and blast you unfairly. Few if any will give you any information that helps you improve. (and if they did, you'd have to be willing to accept feedback, and I'm not sure how ready for that you are) Bottom line, they don't owe you a reason. Just reasonable warning, for which you collect your fee.



To you it WAS a breakup, the end of a personal relationship. To the customer it was simply a neutral business decision, not that much different from deciding on Burger King vs McDonalds for lunch. To you it was cold and impersonal, but that kind of emotional baggage did not attach to the customer. So calling the child cold and avoidancelike is unjustified. She might indeed be so, if she broke up with her boyfriend this way, but we have no evidence for that.

Clearly you and I see this incident from different sides. You're probably not going to buy any of my perceptions. (you did ask for feedback - but there's no contract requiring you to agree with it!) I will say learning to detach from these situations after five minutes is a valuable skill to have, and critical to being able to teach professionally. Perhaps, too, (just speculating) you invest a bit too much of yourself in the emotional end of the teacher-student relationship.

Teacher and students, bosses and workers have always been all over the map, honest, dishonest, hard workers, slackers. A friend of mine said that his mother said the sadest think is that you start out in grade 1 in the turtle group and work up to the busy beaver group through life only to arrive at a resthome and be lumped in with everyone else all over again like grade 1. The key is to develop good skills over your lifetime to manage your environment because you can never control all the elements.

I love people and can't say I dislike any person, but I have always said even as a young person that:

Let the enemy think they are winning and they will only fight half as hard. I suppose always appear confused and stupid to the enemy and they will think they are fooling you.

I love all people but some don't make the list.

If you care, I care. If you don't care, I still care.

Being polite is awesome because for whatever reason people always think you are weak or weak minded. Being polite has nothing to do wth anything but being polite.

When negotiating terms of anything, contract, divorce, work, holidays, whatever, only go for 1 term - important in your mind - and you will win because it is the only thing on the table. If you have more than one term the other side technically gets to decide which term you get or don't get in reality so that is why it always works. I guess another way of saying it is negotiating can be timely and costly but with one term, you just have to wait for them to decide what is imporant to them. I guess I say let them have all the small stuff - that isn't important to you - and go for the one thing that is imporant.

I'm not a teacher; I'm a student, but I can't help but see this as a sweeping generalisation. Yes I am a teenager, and yes I have a keyboard but that doesn't that I am not committed to the piano. I have spacial and monetary restrictions that prevent me from buying a real piano.

As the venerable Zen Master is fond of saying, "We'll see . . ."

I wrestled with this issue of generalizations for a number of years. To some degree a teacher has to keep in mind "who" she is teaching, in the sense that if you have a 5 year old beginner, a 12 year old beginner, and a 30 year old beginner, it would be nonsense to approach the 5 year old and the 30 year old the same way. You don't have to have a long conversation about goals to figure that out. But your 30 year old will need to get the same skills and knowledge that the 5 year old needs.

The generalization that makes me uneasy is the one about "teens", "adults" or any other group. The fact of not having an acoustic piano can be due to having the money and housing but not caring - in which case it can be a sign - or not having the money or living quarters. I believe strongly in communication as opposed to making assumptions. This is not an easy thing. You are "speaking a different language" when someone is new to music study.

If a student is keen to learn to play and is told that short fingernails are needed, then not cutting them can be a sign that the student doesn't care -- or that the student hasn't caught on to what training with a teacher is about. The fingernails can't be that serious, can they?

This particular student had a keyboard given to her, and had only a vague idea of what it was about. It's like when someone is given a puppy as a surprise gift, and hasn't ever thought of owning pets. How much care will that puppy get?

No offence intended, but I think any piano learner who goes to the bother or registering on a piano forum, and posting on it, is already more committed and motivated than the average student.

Teenagers are undergoing some very important brain-development (this is biology) and until that is completed they are poorer at seeing the 'big picture,' poorer at prioritising, and more prone to making decisions they later regret, compared to adults. That means that when they say, 'I wanna play piano' and 4 weeks later say 'I can't be bothered with piano' - we teachers shouldn't be surprised.

Coming from education (not piano, lol), I will strongly suggest that you do not contact the girl again. Don't call her, text her, or send her a letter (at this point if there was any kind of contract it would be null and void anyway-she is 16).

You will be at risk of harassing a minor and that is not a positive with a teacher.

Just shut the door and move on.

I think if she is 16, it should be her parents that is dealing with piano teacher, not herself. Is she paying for her own piano tuition? Is she coming to piano lesson at your place by herself without her parents?

I think that you are a relatively new piano teacher is part of the situation. It can be hard to not take things personally sometimes, but the reality is this:
Every student who signs up for lessons will quit at some point.

I've had students who stayed for as long as 13 years, and I've had some who only last a month or less.
My wife and I both have taught for over 30 years, and yeah sometimes it still sort of bugs us when someone drops, but it IS going to happen, so there is no value in taking it too seriously unless there is a more serious reason presented.
It's over. You now have a time slot open for a new student who may take it more seriously.

As far as texting as a means of communicating, of course it was avoidance. She is a kid who for whatever reason was in charge of cancelling her lessons with an adult. That is going to be intimidating for most kids.
(of course it could be her parents think she is still taking lessons and giver her money lol)
It is also however how more and more people choose to communicate. It is what it is.

Regarding the comments about teenage beginners, it is a generalization for sure. Still it is probably true that most who start as teens are less likely to stick around. There will be exceptions of course.

For keyboards though, I cannot agree. I have many students who only have keyboards and have never had a student stop because of that. If they are enjoying the process and the music, the action and number of keys won't be the game changer.
Of course many families will want to start with a cheap keyboard first to see if the child will stick with it before investing in a piano. It's not ideal but I get it. And the sad truth is some parents cannot afford, or will not take the lessons seriously enough to buy a piano ever. Still I have done a lot of gigs playing "piano" on my old Korg m1 synth. As long as the keys are full sized, there is a reasonable number of them, they have some degree of touch and can sound more or less like a piano, it is workable.
Let's keep in mind that people are learning to play for enjoyment. Very few will ever have any sort of career in music.

Lastly on parental involvement. I find there are three kinds of parent:
1. Very involved "stage parent"
2. normal level of involvement
3. "What? my kid takes piano lessons???.......I have a kid?!?!?!?!?"

Honestly the one I hate the most is the first one. I hate when they decide they know better than me what the child should be practicing and how. I hate when I get frequent calls outside of lesson time to discuss their little darlings feelings or how terribly "gifted" they are (and in most cases they are not "gifted" at all).

The biggest issue with the absentee parents is sometimes getting payment can be a challenge, and obviously if the support is not there to re-enforce the need for practice, and so on, it is going to be a tougher road to success for the student.
I am finding less and less parental involvement over the years. Part of this is because in many many cases now, the parents are not together and the child splits time in different homes (then you have to hope both parents at least have some sort of instrument!).
Secondly, I remember reading somewhere that convenient location rates right up there with lesson fee rates as a top priority in choosing a music teacher....well above the teachers qualifications.
Many of my students live within walking distance (I also live between two elementary schools) so if the parent doesn't have to deliver or pick up the child, you will see them less.
With most long term students of mine, the level of parental involvement decreases over time, and honestly I would say about 70% of my student parents I see in September, maybe before Xmas break, and then at the year end concert.
I'm very ok with that.

For the first phone conversation, she consulted her mother for a decision. Here's roughly what she said, " I'll ask my mom first..." So, there was some parental involvement.

She seems quite 'independent'. I expected her to come to lessons with her mother as I believe some or most parents would be interested to find out whether their child is studying at a conducive and safe environment. (Especially when she had to ask for her mother's permission the first time round.) However, she came alone and paid the fees. The fees are most likely given by her parents as she is still studying.

Well, I only gave her 1 phone call and only decided to give her one. I have not much time or don't see the point calling her the 2nd time because I respect my time and her time. Who likes a repeated phone call from someone? I don't like neither do I think she likes.

In this case, if there was any problems with her, that phone call can also be a point of negotiation since I made the first move. That point of negotiation could be in a few dimensions.. One possibility is... If she had financial difficulties, I can lower the
fees. If she had problems with her schedule, other time arrangements could be made.

I have decided to give her case a closure. I took a little longer than usual...Not 5 minutes like what some of you mentioned. One day to decide that this case is a 'no-point'. Just that, I see a lot of posts on this forum that fueled my curiosity. After all I have to admit, it's better to not inject too much emotional involvement in a case like this which absolutely doesn't need that. This girl was pure 'business' I have decided. No feelings attached. Just a learning point.

Yep, I agree that every student that signs up at one point will quit.

Thanks!

I found that really depressing that all students will quit at some point and have therefore resolved never to quit - until the day I die. We'll see how that goes.

Glad you have come to a personal resolution on it pianolism. I don't think you should give it another thought.

I thought of this topic last night when I watched a repeat of "How I met your mother" about people who say "I can't be with you... right now" and keep you dangling on a hook. I thought about the message: "I want to stop piano lessons... for the time being" which is the same sort of thing - keeping the door open for the future.

I work with young people in my job (as a counsellor - not a piano teacher) - and a very large majority communicate via text message only - some only communicate via facebook. To them - it's not avoidance - it is the way they communicate. We might not like the way communication has evolved and it might feel cold and dismissive to receive an SMS instead of a phone call - but they do not hold those same beliefs.

We can try to change those beliefs and have them communicate with us in ways that are more 'acceptable' or in ways we are more comfortable - or we can can accept that technology has changed the way communication happens and young people know no other way! I agree with the posters who suggested the fact that she communicated at all was a bonus and sign of some maturity.

Would it be snarky of me to point out that we recently had a thread about piano teachers reading texts while teaching lessons? And that not everybody agreed it was a bad idea?

Commitment tends to come from one of two factors:

1. Parents who are committed to their child recieving a quality musical education, and who gently but firmly guide them through periods of difficulty and frustration and see this as a valuable part of the experience. This type of parent certainly wouldn't be of the impression that playing piano might be "fun" - they realise there is some effort involved and that piano can't be mastered in 30 minutes a week. They build designated practice times into their weekly schedule and stick to them unwaveringly.

2. Students who are very musical, optomistic, confident, competitive and self driven who want to play for any audience they can muster and enjoy playing through not only the pieces you assign but other pieces they find online, their old repertoire, their friends reportoire, picking out the songs they are learning in school music etc.

I am yet to have a strong combination of those two factors in one student, but the ones who stick at it and do well fall into one of those categories.

I actually have sign up in my studio saying "No Texting or use of cell phones during band classes"
If a student wants to pay me to sit there while they text, cool (but the parents will be informed). But when I have 4 or 5 students in a band class, it is not fair for them if one student is wasting time texting.
It hasn't been a big problem though. I had one drummer (17 yr old girl) who was the reason I put up the sign, and she smartened up right away, and I had one vocalist (again teen girl) who was constantly checking it, but she was a pretty short term student.

For myself, I don't even have a cell phone. I have an ipod touch which I can text with, but I almost never do. And yes if I need to contact a student facebook is generally the best way unless it is time sensitive. Absolutely texting and fb are the primary means of communication for this generation, and that's fine.
I do take phone calls during lessons because most times if I get a call during teaching hours it is a student calling in sick or something. I don't engage in any conversation longer than a minute though.

Still I cannot help but think that the student choosing to not say anything at her last lesson, but sending a text and then not answering a subsequent phone call has some measure of avoidance written all over it. I don't blame her though. No one likes to deliver news that might hurt someone's feelings, and when you are young and delivering such news to an adult, it will be even more awkward and intimidating.

There are missionaries and Peace Corp members working with groups where “a very large majority” have malaria. I am not quite certain that a plurality is justification for not attempting to treat the disease. I am even less sure that they should simply let the disease spread so that everyone has it.


No, technology has not changed anything. Surpluses of microchips, mass-marketing of fantasy, and the huge profitability in selling distractions, are what combined to change the way kids spend their time. “Texting”, “messaging”, “eMailing” (and various other nouns turned into gerunds) are a few of the ways they choose to waste their time now.

Admittedly, I do not know you. However, it would seem to me that, in your profession, you might be perfectly poised to help reverse those trends - and certainly not by considering them normal, and an inevitable course of evolution.

Ed

I do not know about "snarky", Tim. To me it is just a very sad, sad commentary. . .

*snicker*