Why are beginners hard to teach?

[kittenyarn]

Hii everyone! I have heard beginners are hard to teach, or that you should not teach beginners unless you are an experienced teacher. Why is that? I'm not very advanced so it seems to me that when you teach me you just have to teach me the basics. Why is that difficult?

[mjames]

Adult learners think they know more than they actually do, which makes them a pain to teach I'm assuming.

[timothy42b]

Beginners should start out being taught as correctly as possible, or they will learn bad habits that are hard to undo later.

Beginning teachers aren't always as good at teaching those correct habits. 

[keypeg]

Hii everyone! I have heard beginners are hard to teach, or that you should not teach beginners unless you are an experienced teacher. Why is that? I'm not very advanced so it seems to me that when you teach me you just have to teach me the basics. Why is that difficult?

You might be referring to what I wrote in another thread.

A beginner is getting the foundations.  It is not just a matter of easy music and then harder music.  It is how to sit, how to move, how to practice effectively, how to learn so as to build your skills.  A good teacher should know how what is taught today will affect what is done 5 or 8 levels higher up.  If those foundations are wobbly, it will bite you in the rear later on.  The piano is a trap in particular, because in the beginning it is so "easy".

"Beginning" teaching can also use shortcuts for instant results.  For example, there is the infamous "C position" with or without finger numbers. The student can produce music from notation rather quickly.   Then later suddenly there is music where G is played with the 2nd finger or thumb (RH) instead of the pinky, and the student is lost, because s/he was given a crutch or a trick.  Or a host of other things.

[keypeg]

Adult learners think they know more than they actually do, which makes them a pain to teach I'm assuming.

A lot of beginners are not adults.  (?)

A particular and common "pain" is that adult learners can be rushed along by teachers.  They may be accelerated through basic levels because it is thought this is what adult wants, and a few "adult" method books seem to have this philosophy. Another trap is if the adult already plays another instrument, or started on their own, so it is assumed that they "already know" things.  A flutist or trumpeter has not acquired the ability to be expressive using their hands: they do it with their breath.  It is dumb to make that assumption about "preexisting abilities" but it is done.

The result is that a few levels up, the adult starts being in trouble but typically doesn't know why.  It's due to a lack of foundations.  The adult will in fact be able to produce the right sounding simple piece, up to the expected level, but ends up not having gotten the other skills that should have been gotten.  This then becomes a "difficult" student.

[timothy42b]

I forgot there are two similar threads.  I'm going to back away a bit from my position in my post here, but I'll return to that other thread also.

Yes, beginners should get a sound basis in the fundamentals early, or they will eventually be frustrated when they progress to advanced levels and find that bad habits are much harder to unlearn, or find that necessary skills have been skipped.  On this I am in agreement with keypeg.

On the other hand, the percentage of beginners that will ever proceed to those levels is very small, and the percentage that practice enough to actually engrain any habits is also small.  Many students are sent by their parents for enrichment or resume padding, and for them this doesn't matter as much.  An enthusiastic beginning teacher may not have all the skills to start out the prospective conservatory candidate, but might teach a little piano along with a little fun and a lifelong love for music to everybody else, and over time will hone their teaching skills. 

[lostinidlewonder]

Beginners can cause new teachers all sorts of problems especially when something that is seemingly simple has a vast amount of baby steps required before understanding is established. I don’t find hard working talented beginners difficult at all to teach. Many beginners can learn easy pieces quite fast but as we increase the challenges the work load increases, this can  demoralise beginners and they can constantly feel like they are at the “bottom of the ladder” each time they try something new. The process can all feel like a very slow learning curve with lots of effort inputted with little return.

Motivating beginners is one of the most important issues and often it can be the main factor for them to maintain their study with piano. Those with experience know the grind that occurs in piano studies and can manage it, they also know more clearly what excites them and what motivates them with the piano, beginners might have some idea of what is exciting but these can die and if they are not helped to find new resource for inspiration and motivation and goal setting in piano then it becomes impossible to teach them.

[kittenyarn]

You might be referring to what I wrote in another thread.

A beginner is getting the foundations.  It is not just a matter of easy music and then harder music.  It is how to sit, how to move, how to practice effectively, how to learn so as to build your skills.  A good teacher should know how what is taught today will affect what is done 5 or 8 levels higher up.  If those foundations are wobbly, it will bite you in the rear later on.  The piano is a trap in particular, because in the beginning it is so "easy".

"Beginning" teaching can also use shortcuts for instant results.  For example, there is the infamous "C position" with or without finger numbers. The student can produce music from notation rather quickly.   Then later suddenly there is music where G is played with the 2nd finger or thumb (RH) instead of the pinky, and the student is lost, because s/he was given a crutch or a trick.  Or a host of other things.

Yea I thought it was better to make a new thread than to hijack the other one.

This is all fascinating. I don't know much about what these foundations are... what are the bad habits you can learn with the wrong teacher?

[lelle]

Yea I thought it was better to make a new thread than to hijack the other one.

This is all fascinating. I don't know much about what these foundations are... what are the bad habits you can learn with the wrong teacher?

A lot of it has to do with tension in the hands, arms and shoulders, which makes it harder to play, well, everything. It's common to tense up if you are trying to do a movement that you find difficult, which pressing the piano keys might feel at first. It's hard to notice yourself when you are a beginner, or realize that it is a problem, or know how to correct it yourself. That's when the help of a teacher can be very valuable.

[anacrusis]

I was kind of thrown into a situation where I had to teach beginners without being prepared for it. It was HARD. There is a lot that goes into teaching the many basic building blocks of playing the piano in the right order and at the right time, adapted to suit each particular student's inherent strengths and weaknesses. Though I have been a beginner at one time and can remember what my teachers did with me, I found that their approach did not necessarily work well with other students. I was taught notation quite early, but some students I found that I needed to work much more on playing without notes first, as just one example. I think you really need a ton of experience and be a bit of a teaching artist to teach beginners well, and that almost requires that you really enjoy it. Just my 2 cents.