Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Piano Teachers Forum I am a bad teacher today!

ez,

I think that there are two separate issues here, and it might help to think of them separately. Or not, I've seen it work both ways. Since my cultural heritage is Viking, I'll proceed. <PS that's supposed to be humor>

One is that you tend to be pretty reactive when people (students, parents, forum members) don't meet the expectations you've set for them, whether they are realistic or not. (I know you believe them to be realistic, but sometimes I might disagree.) That's a personal issue, and what you do about it is to vent here, and that's probably the most healthy approach. Just don't be too offended if not everyone jumps to validate your reaction.

The other and completely separate issue is student behavior management. My perception is that you're a pretty skilled music teacher but lack some important tools when it comes to managing problem behavior. Most of your kids are going to be unusually well behaved, as piano is an extracurricular activity with some choice and affluent parents involved, but you're going to run into the occasional kid whose behavior is more average. The average classroom teacher would kill to have ANY kids who behave as well as your average. But that means you haven't had to develop the skills to keep them in line without causing yourself or them stress. This is an area you could easily improve. You don't have to change your personality, just pick up a few tips on teacher effectiveness and pay attention. Now, you can just dump any student you consider to be a problem, but often that isn't necessary, and the ones outside the norm can be very rewarding.

A well-thought out post. I especially agree with the behavior management part. Perhaps do some searches online for how teachers handle difficult students or certain behaviors? My studio and teaching is far from perfect, but I learned quite a bit from teaching Kindermusik and K-5 general music for a year that was very valuable to me.

I agree with both of you. I would add that in the end it maybe what we do with people who are "outside our comfort level" that probably says the most about how well we teach.

When I am teaching a student, I do not want parents interfering with discipline during the lesson.
You need to be in charge and teach the student how they should behave. If Mom or Dad keep having to interject, the student will never respect you.

I notice a lot of teachers talk about a student's bad behaviour when the parent was sitting in the next room. Well, what about you, the teacher? You were in the same room and allowing a student to misbehave.

Sometimes a lesson needs to be ended early if the child is able to learn anymore during that lesson.
More often, a change of activity is all that is needed.

Teaching piano is not just about the music. Our students are people too. So are their parents. And their parents are paying you to teach piano and be in control of the lesson.

If a lesson didn't go well due to poor behaviour, tell the parent about it. Even if they were sitting in the next room.

Please excuse my typo in the last entry - it should say the lesson might have to end early if the child ISN'T able to learn anymore.

Whoops!

How is that funny? Are you making a comment about the Viking culture??

How old is the student? How long has he been playing?

Monkey, you mean this student here that actually look at his note on the page or the one that gives me headache?

I thought you were comparing students with similar ages.

For students that can read English (or any language), this elementary note recondition phrase should pass fairly quickly, no? I understand students can be slow at reading, or make occasional mistakes, but not able to read at all?

I like the whole post, but the bolded part in particular. I think mainly this is a student management issue that the teacher needs to learn how to correct, starting with themselves. What things can I do as a teacher when the lesson isn't going the way I'd like it to? I think also perhaps things got this way over a period of time, and not the student suddenly showed up with an attitude. I could be wrong - especially if the student is of the middle school age, where they can be two different people sometimes .

Yes. Imagine this:
Student X did Y and I did Z to discipline him.
Then later he did Y again, then I did Zx2 to discipline him.
Then later he did Y again, then I did Zx3 to discipline him.
Then later he did Y again, then I did Zx4 to discipline him.
Then mom said my Zx4 are too mean to her child.

I am in the same room, no, I did not allow him to misbehave because I discipline him when he misbehave. But later he did continue his behavior anyway as if he all my Z, Zx2, Zx3 has any effective at all.

The problem is that I am kind of agree with this mom that Zx4 is too mean for a child, but somehow it leads to Zx4 from the basic Z. That is why my title of the thread is that I am a bad teacher!!

Most students return to well-behaving when I did Z. Sometimes I did variation of Z such as being silence, like Bard said, stop for 1 minute and say nothing. Sometimes I pick up my stress ball (I have one with on piano) and squeeze it and when I return after one minute, it was like a magic, the kid behave right away. Basically, not only these kids from this family is misbehave in my studio, many others too, it is just only these kids from this family did not stop even until now.

I'm sure all of us teachers have students that misbehave at one time or another. Here are some strategies that I use:

*Young kids love games. They also like to win games - especially against the teacher. If you want the student to find the next note, ask who will play it first - the student or the teacher. The teacher has to go over to her/his piano, take some time, and if the student has gotten it correct, maybe teacher can even get it wrong (sometimes).
Start with notes the student definitely knows, and the first person to play the 5 correct notes is the winner. I also shake hans at the end of my games and say "Good Game" like at a soccer or hockey game. This helps them to understand that they will sometimes win these games and sometimes lose, but being a good sport is important. A kid's temperament should be taken into consideration here.

*Young kids love humour. If they say something is too hard, use a bit of humour to help them along. "Too difficult for you? The person who is a C Major scale specialist???"

*If kids say something is too hard, sometimes they just need a jump start. Maybe they need to hear you play it once first, so they can remember what you are asking for. Sometimes you need to just tell them the answer - ask them if they'll remember that one note name or if they should write it in their music.

*Give choices - do you want to start with the G Major Scale or some Sight Reading today?

*Switch Gears - get off the piano bench and "walk" to the rhythm
-do 5 jumping jacks, stretch, sing a song

Those are just some things that I do with wiggly students, and students who are somewhat reluctant at times.

I had one of the best lesson today with kids!!!

Kids are...
--polite,
--not playing piano when I am talking,
--no more banging on piano,
--ask for permission when they want to do something that is not what I request(such as starting from the beginning when I said let's start from second measure)
--being up front they really do not understand the theory concepts
--responds to my instruction when I said it ONE time!! (no need to say 2 times or 3 times or "n" times)

Can you believe that??

However, I still cannot finish the materials I prepared for today, but I am not sad about this, I am actually okay with this because mom already told me her priority: Let them enjoy music and if possible, taking test is a bonus!!

That's awesome ezpiano!!

That's great!
I had a 'grocery list' moment with one of my autism kids today. *eye roll*

you mean the same kid?!?!?! If so then WOOOOWWW!

So no more Zx4, bravo!

Moral of the story, a conflict once for a while is not always a bad thing, it expose issues and solve issues, at least sometimes.

Cheers