What does it mean to teach?

[Bob]

This isn't a joke. 

I think my ideas about teaching are differnt than the real world.


But in a perfect world, what would teaching be?


The thing that keeps popping up in my mind, esp with music, is that there is so much that isn't known.  You don't know how the kid is thinking.  You may not really know what it means to have a piece of music prepared.

But that's how it is.

And then, how is this ideal different than reality?


I think Bernhard had a thread on this.  But in his, the teacher knew everything and student was supposed to whole heartedly follow the teacher's advice then.  Which is fine, IF the teacher knows their stuff.

In reality, it seems like teaching is more of just doing what everyone else is doing, doing some thinking on your own, having a few philosophies like Suzki or Orff, and then figuring out what to do with a lot of experience (and probably screwing up some kids alnog the way).

[Essyne]

What does it mean to YOU, Bob?

You said your opinions are different than what you perceive the "reality" of teaching to be, but you never elaborated - just told us what the "reality" of it all is to you. . . .

What do you think teaching is? In your "perfect world"? As you know, I'm terribly curious (erg!  lol  ).

[Bob]

The teacher apprentice relationship.  And that the teacher knows all.  The student just has to follow.

But I haven't met any teacher that knows everything.  And I haven't been able to do that myself as a teacher.

I suppose the answer is just to have clear as clear as you can get them, keep revising them as you understand more, and find a teacher who producing student results that match your goals.


I'm looking for a the wise old Gandolf wizard teacher who knows it all.  I don't think they exist though.

[hyrst]

In my 'pedagofical philosophy'  you need first of all to define learning. 

IMO learning is actively created within the student.  Therefore, the pressure i s not on the teacher to know and impart the world and everything - it is the teacher's role to provide a model, motivation, scaffolding and stimulus so that a student has access to iniformation that can be learnt and logically assimilated and the desire to do so.  A teacher is not going to be perfect, but a student is not an empty vessel waiting to be filled (with gold or anything less) - and there are few mistakes that cannot be undone (or compensated for) and few things learnt that cannot be reshaped if someone is willling. 

I think the only truly irreversible mistake with teaching is to make learning an seriously unpleasant experience  for the student.

[fermata_88]

lol the difficult thing in teaching music is, you are not only teaching the instrument but also teaching the student's intellectual ability.

[lostinidlewonder]

A piano teacher is like a coach to an athlete. You know how your student thinks, you know what they emotionally feel, you know how they deal with success and failure. As a teacher who deals with one on one tuition I feel this way pretty strongly, if any of this is missing I feel disconnected to the student and we cannot do as well.

A teacher learns more than the student. If it is the other way around then you are not doing your job. You have to constantly observe your student, you have to know their next move. I know when they will make a mistake and why they make that mistake and what they have to either physically act against or consciously tell themselves.

I think a good teacher thinks about their students even when they are not having a lesson with them. I am always putting music aside for students who I believe would benefit from learning the material, I am always thinking about past,present and future problems my students face and determining how I will help them solve it. I think this is why I can charge more than most teachers because I give a better service I am always thinking about my students and how to improve them, I am personally interested in their own musical journey.

I find I am better at teaching adults than younger children because I tend to befriend all my students and treat them like friends. Little children take advantage of that and like to play up and talk to me instead of doing piano, but I think a good teacher also knows how to control their students attention. As a friend you can control adult students easier than an authorative figure who critiques all you do. Usually I set up the situation where the student and me are on one side and the problem we are facing is on the other. I work as if I am solving the problem with them on their level, with their method of thinking. Like a coach we go through the process of learning music and I help them through a little, not too much to confuse their whole system of playing, but with enough change to make improvement to their method. I can feel this situation all the time with student I really sync with well.

At the end of each lesson both student and teacher should know exactly what needs to be done for the next lesson. I always list what needs to be done, what improvement exactly are being practiced, what exact practice routines within the score will be done. Also highlighting where we are going next and how the future work reflects current and past work.

I find most students need a lesson in consistency and motivation than a music lesson. Most adults have terrible life time habits with erratic efforts at the keyboard just like anything else in their life. I have a 50+ yr old who admitted to me the biggest regret in their life was being lazy, only doing things when they felt like it. I still get them ringing me up mid week canceling lessons because they don't feel like it. I make sure students know the difference between being passionate about music and passionate about learning music. Most young children are simply not mature enough to be consistent with their musical practice, I don't think it is my problem as a teacher to address this more the parents decision as to how to raise the child. For older students I think a lesson in organization, goal setting, motivation, consistency is invaluable. After all to study music you need to do it daily or your progress will never reflect your ability.

[keypeg]

Usually I set up the situation where the student and me are on one side and the problem we are facing is on the other.

Lostinidlewonder, I like what you wrote in general, and I feel especially good about your attitude toward adult students.  I see a real rolling up of sleeves, and none of the "keep them happy doing what they want" attitude that I have seen too often and which I find personally demoralizing.

At this point I don't think motivation, consistency or goal setting are problems.  The dilemma is more that of fitting everything in.  There are things that my teacher wants to teach me.  Meanwhile in the course of the week so much can grow out of a week of practicing, discoveries of various kinds that want to take off, that one is almost pulled in two directions.  I don't mean discoveries of various kinds, but rather one or two things that begin to grow and take on a life of their own. 

So generally I'm coming in bubbling with things that have come from practicing, while my teacher also has a sequence of things to bring forward.  It's hard sometimes to know whether to hold off with my stuff until the end, and risk losing them, or not doing anything with them, or ask about them at the beginning and then throwing the lesson off on a tangent (which it often does).

It's something I've wondered about often.  I always read about what the teacher wants to do with a student, but I never hear about what happens when a student comes in burning with new stuff that came during the practice.  Lately I've thought of just asking for an occasional extra lesson to deal with those things so that my regular lessons can stay on track with what my teacher had planned.

I have read only one teacher who wrote about his adult students being so enthusiastic that he wonders which is the teacher - that risks getting off track and I don't want that to happen.

[lostinidlewonder]

.....It's hard sometimes to know whether to hold off with my stuff until the end, and risk losing them, or not doing anything with them, or ask about them at the beginning and then throwing the lesson off on a tangent (which it often does).

Always take stock of your own discoveries and questions. Keep a journal where you write your ideas, challenges and goals. I ask all my students to do this (not that they all oblige!) because it is a good habit to have when you are studying by yourself. Given you see your teacher only a small part of the week in comparison to the time you spend by yoruself studying your music, it seems silly not to take note of ideas that pop in your head while studying. If you simply keep these ideas in your head you may indeed forget about them, so write them out. I have always believed that "What gets written gets done."

Sharing your ideas and questions with your teacher might tangent your lesson, this is a real problem that the teacher must deal with not the student. However a good teacher knows how to solve the problem, give the student confidence to work on it with a method briefly explored in the lesson. Some teachers however get very distracted, almost as if they cannot answer your problem so spend a big part of the lesson trying to make sure that you understand it thus neglecting what the teacher has set out to teach you.

Sometimes I get problems asked which require more procedure than simply directly trying to solve the problem itself. Like how to make the expression better, how to make technical movements more effortless relaxed etc etc. Sometimes the solution to these problems should not be tackled immediately because of the inefficiency created trying to solve it. I almost think about riding a bicycle with gears. They are trying to ride in the highest gear without starting with the lower ones first.

Then as a teacher I tend to direct the student a little further back to where their ability works best at. I do have many very musical students who are technically incapable of always producing what they wish they could. It is best to move on not lament on small things, the more you move on and experience the better you simply become.

I find humans learn better with many musical ideas somewhat controlled in many pieces rather than "perfecting" a small number of ideas in few pieces. So if you find your questioning to your teacher is pulling the lesson to a hault maybe it highlights a deficiency in your ability to satisfy your wishes (given that the teacher is a capable teacher).

Your problems asked to your teacher should not confuse the lesson with an able teacher. They will either 1) give you the advice for the method for you to work on yourself. 2) Highlight the fact that you are trying to do too much in one step. I usually demonstrate that the student is trying to do too much by giving them the solution to their question and watching them struggle and drown in its difficulty for them. Sometimes they realise that they can do it but the progress is very slow and I encourage them to leave it for now and tackle other things which will make this task easier in the future.

....I always read about what the teacher wants to do with a student, but I never hear about what happens when a student comes in burning with new stuff that came during the practice.  Lately I've thought of just asking for an occasional extra lesson to deal with those things so that my regular lessons can stay on track with what my teacher had planned.

I have three students of all my students who totally control the content of the lesson. This is only because they are very interested in studying the piano so generate a lot of questions themselves every week. Two of them are professional educators themselves so really do know the ins and outs of the path of learning. I find most students simply do not generate enough relevant questions themselves to control the direction of a lesson which would best suit their learning rate. But getting questions from students is always very much welcome. I am excited when they come up with questions much more so than when they just sit there like a quiet sponge.

If students do not ask me questions I usually ask them questions instead, trying to get them to actually ask themselves the question, yeah well how do I solve this problem actually, what do I think about the method required to solve this problem? I think a big part of teaching is how to teach to ask the right questions. If I don't have students asking me questions during a lesson I really feel that I have failed on some part because I am not making the student feel encouraged to investigate and test things with trial and error and get frustrated with difficulties and vent those frustrations to me in their questionings.

Usually I throw the student into the "deep end" asking them to solve a new or trouble passage on their own and letting me be an observer as they demonstrate their problem solving skills. If I see them completely flounder I try to get them to think about the right questions as to why they are not progressing as fast as they wished. All I usually have to say is  "Do you think that part was right? What didn't you like about it? What  do you think you did wrong? Then get them to ask me what they think might be their problems and I either confirm this or ask them to think again. So through constant questioning the student solves the problem themselves. Of course they required me to coach them through making the right focus on their questioning but this benefits the student a lot more than simply parrot teaching them with answers. It also allows the teacher to gain more insight into how the student thinks and how they deal with problems. You really get to know the thinking pattern of each student individually.

[pianowelsh]

there is really quite  a distinction between 'teaching' and 'coaching'. I would say I 'coach' a performance but I 'teach' concepts. Teaching as far as I am concerned is disseminating knowledge in a clear and concise way so that the student understands. Predominantly I like to do this by planting questions in the students mind which lead them to a process of self discovery. In this way the student has the sudden realisation that they have grasped a new concept for themselves. This means they are more likely to remember it! One needs to then encourage them to apply these principals in the various exercises they are involved in be they theoretical or practical in nature.  Coaching is really a mentoring position whereby the teacher stands back and with the benefit of experience can give an objective view on what they have heard/observed.   To me a good lesson should include both..so the student learns some new concept or idea...at the same time they have things which are nearing 'performance' level and require coaching - but have become largely now self directed.

[keypeg]

Going back to Bob's initial post, and some subsequent comments in terms of creating motivation and such.  I don't care much to be "motivated" as in the sense of a passive object that must be moved through another's enthusiasm.  I will also not be moved because a teacher enjoys music or playing the instrument.  I'm happy for him, maybe.  Glad he's doing what he loves, and that's as far as it goes.  I am in the studio because I want to be there, and I already love music and love playing this instrument partly in a future sense.  If I don't have that, then I probably don't have any business being there.

The teacher is my guide.  He has to have expert knowledge of the instrument, how you play it, what is involved in music in order to get me there, and some inkling about the learning process.  From that the teacher has a rough plan or path to get me there.  He might ask me to do something today which will lead me to achieving something or realizing something which will serve me in three years.  This is probably Bernard's statement of following the teacher.  If you don't do the thing you're asked to do in the manner that it's asked, you're not going to discover what it's hoped you will discover.  But we must be a very active and engaged partner in that process.  We are, in a sense, "self-teaching".  This is a balance that I have struggled to understand since I started.  I went from spontaneous but unaware, to trying to be an empty marionette, to .... wherever I am now.

A teacher cannot know everything.  The possibilities of music seem infinite.  The variations in the human mind and spirit seem almost infinite.  I would almost be suspicious of someone who has a rigid set of concepts and procedures and says this is all there is, and this is the only way to know and do.  But he/she also has to have a broad enough knowledge and understanding.

Motivation comes from being in competent hands so that you can let go to the process and work with it.  If you are guided into the things that allow you to come into control of the different things, then that is a pleasure which motivates.  It does not lie in playing fancy pieces so you can impress friends and family.  It lies in playing music well, and being able to hear new things for the first time which constitute that "wellness".  I hate quick tricks that make you think you have achieved more than you have without giving you the skills. They are empty, and in a sense I would feel cheated.

Might it be safe to say that with good teaching the teacher is already looking toward the future and where you will one day be, and is always working toward that?

[Bob]

I'm thinking... and it's disappointing... that my ideal about teaching doesn't really exist in the real world, and probably can't exist.  Or if it does it's very rare.

So in other words, there is always going to be loads of garbage you have to deal with that is not that 'ideal' of teaching and isn't really teaching, but it's glahmed onto the teaching situation, in reality.

(Anyone know how to spell 'glahm?')

[keypeg]

I wouldn't want to go back to classroom teaching, but one on one can rock.