Becoming a Teacher

[swim4ever_22]

I've always sort of wondered... how good do you have to be in order to be a teacher?

[thalberg]

You can be terrible and be a teacher.  It's been done, trust me.

[nyonyo]

If one wants to be a teacher, one just needs confidence....
There are many kinds of students...Not all students are serious.
So every teacher can serve different kind of students.

[Bob]

You should be better than your students, for sure.  "You can't teach what you don't know."  Although I think it's possible to some extent...

A teacher is focused on getting the students to develop and learn.  You don't have to be the best in the world to do that.

I'm agreeing with the above poster comments.  I'm not great for sure, but I can teach beginners.  Hopefully, I'm doing an ok job with that.

I have wonder if you just met with someone, even if they knew nothing about music, if you might be very similar results.  Someone to just check in with, think about how things are going, and plan your next move.  Makes me wonder sometimes.

And then at the risk of offended people... There is a saying... "Those who can't, teach."  Meaning those can't make it as a performer can teach instead.  In college, I was told over and over that that saying isn't true, but when I look around, what do I see?  The people that aren't making it as a performer start teaching so they have that income.  There are plenty of people who go in with the mindset of becoming a teacher straightoff though.  Except, even then I wonder... Did they just start off deciding they weren't going to be good enough to perform?

But teachers also do things like motivate and inspire.  I don't think they can really teach that anyway.  Maybe you can't even learn it.  It's just an engrained personality trait.

So if you want to teach, then teach.  See if you like it or not.  Then you'll know.  But like anything, the more you do it and thoughtful improve things, the better you get at it.  At some point, you just have to dive into it.  Even with all the training in the world, at some point you are on your own and have to figure it out yourself. 

Good luck.

[swim4ever_22]

Well... I am by no means able to teach yet. I'm still a beginner myself... but if I get my degree in Music Education with an emphasis in Piano Pedagogy, then hopefully by then I would be good enough to teach.

[Bob]

Ah.... You'll be good enough to get a beginning job.  You still have to learn from there.  And when you take that job, you'll realize how much you still have to learn.   They can't teach you everything in college.  That's just the general pattern.  Schooling, starter job, better job if you improve.  Something like that.

[swim4ever_22]

What can I do with a degree in Music Education with an emphasis in Piano, aside from teach? Unfortunate though it may be, but in the united states, teachers don't exactly make much, and if the educational system decides to start cutting programs, the arts are going to be the first to go. 

[Bob]

Not a whole lot.  That's what the degree is for, teaching.  You do get music skills and knowledge along with it.  That's not useless.

Teachers don't make much, yes.  But it's still music.

Arts goes first.  The visual art teacher.  They can always hire someone in for a certain number of sessions.  They can usually cut back on the school librarian, have someone else check in/out books.  Then PE.  A regular classroom teacher can have the kids run laps and play kickball.  Then music.  I wouldn't say music is the first to go -- Just because not just anyone can walk in and teach it and a lot of the general classroom teachers I've met are reeeeally against attempting to teach music (They might have to sing in front of their class).  Schools are supposed to have "highly qualified" teachers teaching music though.  Not too many parents are going to have a hissy fit if the PE teacher isn't highly qualified.  Music seems to be a little tougher to fill the position and music (or some art) is required.  That's the general order for cutting things I've noticed.  I've even seen general classroom teacher things squished together before they cut back on music.  The admin will combine jobs together when two people leave.  That's how you sometimes end up with a music/PE job or music/visual arts.  Sure, we can do it. 

[Bob]

But if you're doing piano ped, I'm guessing you're looking at college teaching?  Teaching higher level students?  Usually piano goes along with general music or choral from the colleges I've seen, but there are many variations.

College teaching.  Private teaching.  That's the direction I see the piano ped people going.

The music ed classes won't hurt that at all, esp if you end up doing something like group piano or working with young kids in groups.  The general music classroom technique courses cover young kid work well.

[swim4ever_22]

In all honesty, I have no idea what I want to do right now. I'm currently in college to be a nurse practitioner, and I think I would enjoy that, but sometimes I just want to pursue music. I haven't quite figured out what I want to do with my life yet. I'm just thinking things through.

[Bob]

Ah.  Cha-ching.  And a lot of demand. 

I would do whatever you want to though.  Go that direction.  Otherwise, you'll always wonder.  Or do both.  Might take longer for schooling, but why not?  Esp if the nursing thing pays well.  Teach part-time, or practice part-time, and do nursing part-time.

I would do what you feel like you want to do and let everything work out as it may.

[swim4ever_22]

That would take such a long time!  Well... to be a nurse practitioner, you have to get your degree in nursing, then work as an RN for at least one year, then you apply to grad school for nursing... It all depends on the intensity of the nursing program itself. My sister's an RN, and so is my mother. They both have told me that it's so intense, that you almost have no time for anything else. I suppose time will tell... but the thought of being separated from music for that period of time isn't something I'd be willing to do, I don't think...

[keypeg]

Might I chime in?  I am a former teacher and still tutor one on one, and I am also a music student.  It seems that in order to teach an instrument, the teacher must have expertise in the instrument and music, and so be "good enough".  He/she has overcome difficulties, learned how to play, and since the teacher knows how to play, that individual will also know what to teach.  But surely knowing how to teach has to come into the equation.  I am struck by the fact that in a question about teaching, nobody has yet addressed the question of teaching skills and teaching strategies.  It would be good to see that part addressed.

I am also uneasy about any suggestion to start with beginners.  The framework for all future playing starts at the beginning.  If my children were not already adults,  and if I were looking for a teacher for one of them as a beginner, I would look for a very experienced teacher.  That would be so whether it is for serious reasons or pleasure, because there is no pleasure in struggling against faulty or totally unlearned technique and trying to make music in a state of ignorance.

Since I am not a musician, I hope that it's ok to post.

[hyrst]

I agree so much with the foundations being so important.  I have had quite a few students who have transferred to me at a low intermediate, or advanced beginner stage.  Nearly every one has a poor technical foundation, and it takes even longer to correct these students than it does any of my beginners to learn it.  Also, those who have played very little besides exam pieces are painfully slow readers, so slow with learning new pieces, and then very tentative when they play what they have worked on for ages.  They show fear when I try to t ake them through a steady supply of new pieces - even just finger studies.  I end up wishing I  had them from the start and could wind back time on their foundations. 

It is possible that I have transfer students who were encouraged to leave by teachers who found these particular students comparatively slow and hard to work with.  However, it makes one wonder!

[popdog]

I've always sort of wondered... how good do you have to be in order to be a teacher?

To give you some idea - I am beginning my first piano teaching job with my last exam being Gde 6 AMEB (roughly equivalent to ARBSM I think), although I play at about Gde 8 level.   

So you don't have to "be that good" to begin teaching.  Whether or not you area a good teacher is a different question...

On another note I have noticed that many teaching organisations delegate the most inexperienced teachers to beginning students which seems like the wrong approach to me. 

Regards,
popdog.

[m19834]

On another note I have noticed that many teaching organisations delegate the most inexperienced teachers to beginning students which seems like the wrong approach to me.

Yeah, this is a good point.  When I first came out of University I didn't have any sort of actual teaching experience through my degree program, as I went to a school that focuses largely on performance.  I was resourceful with what I could be and since all of us pianomites had a studio class together once a week, I would sit there trying to figure out what I would have to say to each individual should that be my responsibility after they were done playing.  In my first year some discussion did take place, but each term of each year seemed to become more and more quiet and from my perspective most discussion actually seemed to stop.  Then I graduated and unfortunately most of that kind of "critique" was basically non-applicable to the kind of students I was getting to begin with.  I will never forget my very first lesson with my very first student ... I actually had pretty much no idea what in the world to do !

Thankfully, I had gained quite a bit of experience working with people through various other avenues, so at least all hope of me being a teacher was not lost (and a good friend of mine who had been teaching for years was kind enough to give me a crash course on what to do in the first lesson, so I at least had *somewhere* to start).  I probably was considered by some people to have been a fairly decent pianist, yet there I was with no idea how to teach somebody how to actually 'get' musical concepts !  The idea of taking a musical concept and putting it into some form that would allow a very beginner how to understand it and use it, well, that was an amazingly mysterious task to me. 

Through lots of trial and error and loads of research, I eventually started developing some ways to teach certain, basic concepts to people, which seemed to work for everybody that stepped through my door (no matter what age).  At that point, what mattered most was that I was developing something that actually worked for others, despite whatever my own personal skill seemed to be.  Also, I will note that I developed this AFTER my own formal training in school, through experience with teaching people how to learn.

At this point, I am convinced that a person needs only to be as good (at whatever they are doing) as the circumstances are demanding of the person to be.  The sky is the limit though.  While I may have figured out certain things about teaching beginners how to read, for example, that was not quite good enough for me.  Learning how to read (and hear what is on the page), for example, while important and helpful, is certainly not the be all and end all of piano playing.  Therefore, I am embarking on a new (for me) approach in certain aspects.  Once again, this new approach has very little to do with how well I personally play but more to do with my concept of teaching.

Sure, it is inevitable that my concept of teaching is tied to certain aspects of my concept of playing, but only in the respect that a big part of how I approach beginner students is from a standpoint of how I would have *liked* to have been trained myself, as well as my love for people in general.  I have learned a lot through the process of teaching and, my own personal skills have developed as I have thoughtfully addressed certain issues that have arisen for my students (and I don't expect that to end).

Okay, so the point is that there are particular aspects to be addressed with playing/reading in general.  Basically, a teacher must be good at knowing how to recognize what the issues are and address them appropriately with each student.  The degree of need in particular areas of study will be varying for each individual, however, it is my personal (current) conviction that most "problems" arise from a lack in foundational training.  All of the shoulder-rubbing expereince in the world with "advanced" pianists won't help a bit in teaching a 4 yr. old from scratch how to develop a working knowledge of the most fundamental aspects of music, unless the teacher is a conscious thinker and knows how to translate that kind of knowledge to the individual sitting at the piano (and that takes pretty much every kind of "trick" a person has got).  I could've played an entire Liszt recital with two encores and three standing ovations just the night before, but if I can't relate with an individual on *their level* then I am robbing them of their time and of their money .

[pianochick93]

Gde 6 AMEB (roughly equivalent to ARBSM I think

I think so, either that or Grd 6 AMEB is Gd 7 ABRSM

[hyrst]

Awesome post, Karli!  Thank you! :-)

[m19834]

Happy you liked it, you're welcome .