Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Piano Teachers Forum What happened creative exchange of ideas here?

I think I'm being said to, "Here's your hat, what's your hurry."

I am somehow totally out of line because I think something that says "Piano Teachers Forum" might actually mean a forum for, now this is the difficult part, for piano teachers.

As far as running something exactly as I think it ought to be run, I have no desire to "run" anything other than my business which for 38 years has been my occupation - piano teaching.

What is antiethical to me is posting on a forum specified for piano teachers when that is not your work area or knowledge area. It is primarily for piano teacher use and interest is it not?

So what does being dissatisfied with something get me here? It feels like caveman tactics of being clobbered with a club because my view point is not popular with yours.

So much for openness and transparency.

Let me say that I appreciate Piano World Forum and Frank Baxter and having this vehicle to participate in. This is a creation for piano enthusiasts that we owe completely to Frank and his foresight and ambitions.

Originally posted by Betty Patnude:
I think I'm being said to, "Here's your hat, what's your hurry."
No, we're simply saying we don't agree with you.

I am somehow totally out of line because I think something that says "Piano Teachers Forum" might actually mean a forum for, now this is the difficult part, for piano teachers.
And some of us are saying that though it is primarily for piano teachers it is not exclusively so because, amongst other reasons, even piano teachers can learn something from those who aren't, and many of us actually welcome the input.

As far as running something exactly as I think it ought to be run, I have no desire to "run" anything other than my business which for 38 years has been my occupation - piano teaching.
If you have no desire to run a forum you'll probably have to defer to those who do run it.

What is antiethical to me is posting on a forum specified for piano teachers when that is not your work area or knowledge area. It is primarily for piano teacher use and interest is it not?
As you say, primarily. But in the previous discussion it was determined that no-one be excluded. I believe that's still the rule (actually, having read Frank's post, I'm sure it is).

It feels like caveman tactics of being clobbered with a club because my view point is not popular with yours.
I think we all should be tolerant and accepting of differing viewpoints, don't you?

No. But are you sure you are not saying that to someone *else*?

People have many reasons for being here. I come here to share my experiences. I get hungry for contact with other musicians, because even my most advanced students (at least at this time) are not able to follow all the thoughts that are going through my brain. If I lose the hunger to continue investigating, I will lose something terribly important when I teach.

Some of the students I have met here, in this particular forum, are hungry for music in a way my own students are not. It thrills me to see this kind of passion. It thrills me to see students also teaching others, because the fact is that there are many people around the world who, believe it or not, can afford to continue a monthly charge to remain connected and who have a computer, but who don't have the resources for piano lessons. I wish some of these people lived in this area and had money for lessons and came to *me*, but they are scattered around the world. For the record, I could not afford myself now. Ironic…

Sure, there would be advantages to talking only with other teachers, although I'll mention once again that I could not stop someone from locking me out. What if membership in some teachers' group was demanded? Who gets to make the decision about who is worthy, and who is not?

And what about the other side: don't you see how dangerous it is when teachers *only* communicate with each other? Don't you see how easy it is to assume that what we teach is the best way because we are all in the same "ghetto"?

Here I use "ghetto" figuratively, not as someplace that is poor, but someplace that is restricted and "poor" in the sense of no longer fertile, through the thoughts of "outsiders".

If anyone was pushing you to leave, I'd fight for your right to be here. I think others would too.
Again, isn't the person with the "club" the person who is trying to drive other people out? Or exclude them? Or belittle them, because they know less, and take more words to describe what they know?

No one is asking you to leave. But when you insist that you would prefer to have people excluded, you are asking them to leave.

Gary

I can't think of many (if any) student contributions I've valued here but there have been plenty from teachers. I'd rather an additional 'Teachers and Student' forum for the two parties to interact. Though we're all learners, we're not all at the same starting position. Still, I realize I can vote with my eyes.

I think everyone is missing Gary point.
Gary is simply pointing out how useless is paralysis by analysis. People might get so stuck with the most irrelevant details or with the attempt to follow strict standards rather than finding their own way, that what is truly creative and thought-provoking gets ignored in favours of nit-picking over meaningless form.

Gary is not claiming that we should find new topic to discuss, or that we should non-spontaneously force certain discussions to happen. He is not lamenting the lack of original posts. What he is lamenting is how the freedom to discover infinite different perspectives over the same arguments, are curtailed by a chronic attempt to lead everything to the same "proper" trails.

We've been taught a path to follow in the wood in order to find the way to home. This doesn't mean we must militarily remind everyone to follow the same path and must be horrified by the idea of setting a foot outside of it. We know how to find the way, should we miss it. Now it's time to freely explore the whole thing, the most secret and dark places, to go uphill and not just stay in the flatland, to wet our feet in order to cross the stream, to scratch our skin in order to pass through the rocks. Gary frustration, I believe, is with seeing a straigh queue of little obedient scouts who keep following the only limited path they have been taught to walk, repressing their innate curiosity and risk-taking instinct; which are the only things that can provide innovative and creative ideas and discoveries.

Creating a new forum is not going to change anything other than to make mods more busy.

I suggested that this summer, and it was roundly rejected by all. Rather than teacher and student, it would have reflected a place of exchange of the three parties that can be interacting: teacher, student, parent, which could be between all three or any two of the three.

There are two kinds of questions that come into this forum: students asking advice from teachers; things involving the interaction among any of the above.

I am posting only because this is an idea that I had once put forward.

I doubt mods would be a problem. heck, you could volunteer Gary.

I actually welcome the perspectives of parents and students on this forum.

Of the few things I learned from my university's Department of Education, I learned that I should always hold up a mirror to my own teaching. When teachers reflect upon the effectiveness of their teaching, they teach better! This forum provides a great place to test teaching ideas and get feedback from parents, students, and other teachers.

I'd rather be crucified!

Being a mod is a HARD job…

... and perhaps also a "Teacher and Parent" forum

... and a "Teacher and Pianist" forum

... and a "Teacher and Adult Student" forum

... and a "Conservatory Teacher" forum

... and a "Conservatory Teachers teach non-conservatory Teachers How to Teach" forum

....


Somehow, just a plain 'ol Teachers Forum seems to catch it all, and more. Much more. Cosmopolitanism seems more conducive to creativity than compartmentalization.

You hit the nail on the head.
How about a simple "Teaching Forum"?
After all even the description of the forum (discuss lesson plans, teaching techniques, etc), seems to suits a "Teachings Forum" more than a "Teachers Forum". It's about discussing teaching stuff not who teaches the teaching stuff.
As you point out the variations and shades could be infinite, "teaching" inglobes it all.

I think you might be too biased and preconceived to even recognize a good contribution from a student. I would do a boudle blind test where you must indicate contributions you value without knowing whether they come from teachers, students, children or guitarists. I bet you would suddenly choose many contributions that don't come from teachers. Besides you might as well failed to value many things that deserved to be valued. A lot of great ideas are rejected and ridiculed. Actually according to some, being rejected is the first stage of every great revolutionary idea.

Not to pick on kbk, but I would add that based on following this forum now for a while, what might be valued by one person one day might then be rejected by the same person the next, and sometimes all in the same thread. These subjective judgments have tended to shift over time (depending on whether you believe in that concept today) and/or follow the way the wind is blowing.

IMHO teachers who aren't open to listening to students or other (less experienced) teachers risk not learning themselves or not finding out how good or bad they really are.

I actually think that this is a pretty good teaching forum compared to some of the others out there where 95% of the threads seem to be devoted to contracts and locking students in a year in advance, student penalties for scheduling issues, setting and raising rates, moaning about terrible parents, lazy kids, etc. At least the piano and the learning process is mentioned if not detailed in a great many of the threads on this teaching forum.

Here the terrible parents can counterattack!

I chime in here occasionally when I think I have some experience/insight into a question. I don't teach piano, but I teach/have taught many other subjects, both in the classroom and one-on-one. (The idea that my teaching experience has no relevance if I don't teach piano *has* been floated in this forum, though, by one person. I don't agree, of course.)

But I agree with those who say - if you don't want to answer questions from students - don't. If a particular thread seems irrelevant to you, don't read it. I take those responsibilites on myself, and expect that others are mature enough to do so.

I agree with those who prefer this to be an open forum, as are all the forums here. We don't keep teachers out of the ABF, or beginners out of the piano forum, or non-classical questions out of the piano forum. Sometimes posters are referred to another forum if it seems they will get more responses there. Pretty much it's self-regulating, and I like that. I learn from many many people, not just those I might *think* I can learn from.

And I, too, will reiterate - even if this were closed to comments from others, it is *read* all over the world. Google your user name. If you don't want prospective students who are internet savvy to read what you have to say here, then don't say it here. If you want a non-public readable forum so you can say whatever you want without repercussions, and you want to regulate in some way I can't fathom who is on the forum, then you need a different vehicle than a teachers-only forum here. Perhaps, as someone suggested, a list-serve, or a yahoo group or something. Those options are available, but I like having PW as a group of open forums.

Thank you to all who have voiced support for open forums. We all learn from each other.

Cathy

Come on guys, we all know this is the best forum going. Don't mess with it.

I think everyone needs to relax a bit.......


H1

Jotur, I'll own that thought. (The idea that my teaching experience has no relevance if I don't teach piano *has* been floated in this forum, though, by one person. I don't agree, of course.)

There are several teachers of other subjects in the forums, I'm sure. I know of some.

The problem is that the piano needs both a physical and mental stimulation from a human in order to be played. The study of touches, techniques, histories of composers, their lives and the era they lived in, the quality of their instruments, the person you are teaching as an entity in a private lesson, in half of an hour to an hour each week, is supposed to make progress by showing or demonstrating their ability to perform back (the "test") of what is covered in lessons.

A piano teacher teaches physical movement as well as thinking skills, time management for the task, priority setting, in detail how to practice suggestions, helps the student stay motivated, the list is long and unfinished here.

Just knowing about a subject does not a teacher of it make. Having some experience in teaching yourself you feel that you know how to teach someone piano. Chances are you don't. You can teach only to the place that you can play, and then the success of that is not guaranteed. It really isn't.

I am a fine piano teacher or I wouldn't have students study with me for 8 years, parents paying a half year lessons fee or a year's in advance. I would not have lasted for 38 years of teaching is I could not produce.

Exactly why do you choose to pick on my teaching, or on my thoughts, philosophies, or most things I express.

My most severe critics in PWF are 1) a math teacher, self taught pianist and other instruments, I believe, 2)a psychology teacher, self taught pianist, new age, 3) a teacher with 2 years experience in the class room and then a change of careers, self employed, studied a different instument, learning piano by self teaching. I'm sure you are happy in the way you have become musicians and in what you do musically.

What IS the problem please. I am so tired of receiving come-uppances from these adult piano students who think their classroom experiences in one subject matter, transfers to discussing the teaching of a musical instrument. And, another source of amazement to me, is, people who play piano but do not teach either at all, or not much, very as verbal in the teaching forum as they are.

When there is lots of posting from people other than piano teachers, it changes the slant, the contents, the objectives, the outcome of a topic in development. Diversion. Staying on topic becomes hard to do.

Misinformation that will possibly harm another beginner in piano because they don't know what is good information and what is not, are impacted.

I don't think new forums are the answer, I think that knowing who you are and what you can do as a musician is more important, and if you post as freely as if you were a piano teacher, you should ask yourself why you post here with most of your topics here being to provoke me and put me in my place.

I think the term "Piano Teachers Forum" should be explicit enough to show that primary usage is for piano teachers.

I've said it clearly. This is the problem that I have been having. I'm not proud of having this problem, but it is surely about time the problem stopped. It feels like harrassment, it must be harrassment.

As people have been saying, if you don't like it, don't read it. I don't think that works very well either.

Out of ideas.

Betty