Biggest mistake you see other teachers make?

[anacrusis]

I'm curious what those of you on Piano Street who teach think is the biggest mistake other teachers make. Let's say you get a transfer student (I mean just somebody who had another teacher before you), what is the most common problem you see that could have been easily corrected by the previous teacher had they just known to do so?

[lostinidlewonder]

I like to think students had a good teacher before me and I am not thinking how terrible those teachers were if these students learn lots of ideas from me for the first time. There are many ideas in the way I teach which I don't expect other teachers to go through.

If there are holes or errors in a students skill set I wont wonder how bad their other teacher might have been since I have no idea how this student learned early on or how much the other teacher actually built them up. In fact if there are holes in the students ability it is no problems at all, the other teacher then made these more obvious for us to improve upon and it is easy to excite these students as the progress much faster using tools they didn't know they needed.

I feel it is important to consider in our mind as a teacher that all transfer students past lessons was beneficial in some way. You do not want these students to feel like they wasted their time in the past it starts them off "on the wrong foot" and you don't want to make decisions based on what you think the other teachers missed out on or got wrong.

I've thought pacing in one student was way off but then I had to rethink. I had one student who played lower grade music. In our first lesson I asked him to choose something he really would like to play, it was many grades higher than what he had ever gone through. I went through it with him and astonishingly he did it very quickly. It made me wonder why his previous teacher didn't notice this and kept him at such low grade. But then again, perhaps all those low grades helped build his learning tools! So who knows.

[ignomike]

Certainly every teacher will have a unique style with different priorities but I'm not sure I can be as generous as lostinidlewonder. To be honest I feel like a 'bad' teacher (the last few students were taught only by their parents) can do a lot of harm but I will try not to let students feel that way in future so thanks for the tip!

The main issue I have is that most students I pick up were only taught by rote in a strict 'do exactly what I say and do' fashion and were given no opportunity to be creative, choose pieces, offer opinions on phrasing or have any input at all in their lessons.

I feel music lessons should encourage the student to bring out their personality both with their instrument and the teacher. As I teach mostly younger students I really want them to explore their potential on the instrument but also gain confidence and enjoy the process as much as possible.

Runner-up's would be lack/absence of ear training and not learning enough pieces.

[quantum]

Cookie cutter teachers.  The ones that constrain all their students to follow the exact same plan of study.  Playing the same pieces, the same way, with the same fingering, etc.  These teachers do not recognize the individuality of each student, and their unique musical and artistic interests.  They have difficulty when a student brings in some music of interest, especially if such music is not a regular part of their studio routine. 

Sadly these teachers may have students that are capable of much more, but they are not provided fertile ground to artistically flourish. 

[dogperson]

I am only a student, but here is a thought:  it seems most students take one lesson per week at a duration between 30 min and 1 hour.  How then can ear training, theory and s number of repertoire pieces be expected by any teacher?  Not enough time means choices must be made, doesn’t it?  I don’t think a prior teacher should not be seriously judged when teaching conditions are less than optimal. 

[quantum]

I am only a student, but here is a thought:  it seems most students take one lesson per week at a duration between 30 min and 1 hour.  How then can ear training, theory and s number of repertoire pieces be expected by any teacher?  Not enough time means choices must be made, doesn’t it?  I don’t think a prior teacher should not be seriously judged when teaching conditions are less than optimal.

It is a lot to do, especially for those students learning musicianship foundations such as scales,  ear training, sight reading, theory, etc.  However, it is also a teaching point.  We do not always have all the time we desire to complete a task, so how do we complete work successfully in the time we have.  It is a lot more than simply going home to mindlessly practice, but rather a teacher equipping a student with a practice strategy. 

At least in my experience, I felt the 30 to 60 mins of individualized music instruction per week from piano lessons was a far more effective learning experience, than individualized time I received in a public school system from a similar period of time. 

[lostinidlewonder]

Certainly every teacher will have a unique style with different priorities but I'm not sure I can be as generous as lostinidlewonder. To be honest I feel like a 'bad' teacher (the last few students were taught only by their parents) can do a lot of harm but I will try not to let students feel that way in future so thanks for the tip!

I feel that elevating the standard of our teaching by comparison to other teachers is not something we as teachers should express to our students, we can think about it as much as we like ourselves though. The comparison is ultimately done by the students on their own. It is much better to have a student say to you something is working so much better than they ever experienced without you prompting that what they learned before was not the best. Students tend to trust your teaching a great deal more if you don't critisize directly and simply line them up in the correct direction. Correctives don't need to be so direct and I've found sometimes it can produce a nervous student who is worried about the next corrective you are going to shoot at them. So starting off the student/teacher relationship by direct revealing their poor initial education doesn't help anyone. It is naturally revealed if you show them better ways so just do that, it is much stronger evidence and a positive experience because now they have something they know is better than what they had before.  It is all quite subtle but makes a large psychological difference in most students.

[brogers70]

Students tend to trust your teaching a great deal more if you don't critisize directly and simply line them up in the correct direction. Correctives don't need to be so direct and I've found sometimes it can produce a nervous student who is worried about the next corrective you are going to shoot at them.

Yes, yes, yes. I got fed up with my last teacher because after every lesson I'd have to translate a really negative critique "you can't make that line hold together," "you aren't paying attention to the important little details" into a positive opportunity - e.g. "there's lots more I can do to give that line an overall shape," or "there are all sorts of little things that can be made beautiful and interesting in this piece." It's not that her critiques were wrong or ultimately unhelpful,  it's just that after a while it's a drag to have to reframe everything from a negative assessment into an interesting opportunity to improve. And I'm an old guy with relatively thick skin; for a younger student that sort of thing could be very discouraging

[ranjit]

I feel that elevating the standard of our teaching by comparison to other teachers is not something we as teachers should express to our students, we can think about it as much as we like ourselves though. The comparison is ultimately done by the students on their own. It is much better to have a student say to you something is working so much better than they ever experienced without you prompting that what they learned before was not the best. Students tend to trust your teaching a great deal more if you don't critisize directly and simply line them up in the correct direction. Correctives don't need to be so direct and I've found sometimes it can produce a nervous student who is worried about the next corrective you are going to shoot at them. So starting off the student/teacher relationship by direct revealing their poor initial education doesn't help anyone. It is naturally revealed if you show them better ways so just do that, it is much stronger evidence and a positive experience because now they have something they know is better than what they had before.  It is all quite subtle but makes a large psychological difference in most students.

Absolutely. I think as a teacher, you need to implicitly trust your student in a certain manner. You need to trust that they will improve and observe their improvements, without being too pushy. Even better, you need to be able to get a sense of when a student understands they are improving and when they don't. Otherwise, you become that teacher who just has a tic where they repeat something ad infinitum which the student already understands.

[anacrusis]

Thank you everyone for your insightful replies. I did not mean for this to be a "sh*t on other teachers thread" but I realize it comes across a bit like that. One particular thing I had in mind was that a few years ago when I took over about 15 students from a teacher they all had rather tense hands and poor hand position. I felt a bit frustrated with the previous teacher having neglected that when it was possible to make a great improvement in the students in a few months and quite important to get right early or you set the students up for years of frustration when trying to correct it later.

[lostinidlewonder]

Yes, yes, yes. I got fed up with my last teacher because after every lesson I'd have to translate a really negative critique "you can't make that line hold together," "you aren't paying attention to the important little details" into a positive opportunity - e.g. "there's lots more I can do to give that line an overall shape," or "there are all sorts of little things that can be made beautiful and interesting in this piece." It's not that her critiques were wrong or ultimately unhelpful,  it's just that after a while it's a drag to have to reframe everything from a negative assessment into an interesting opportunity to improve. And I'm an old guy with relatively thick skin; for a younger student that sort of thing could be very discouraging

I think some teachers simply need to record their lessons and listen back to themselves. I'm sure many would find out they sound like a nagging goat and make some changes to that! Like you have explained clearly here, critique can be packages in a much better way than simply pointing out an error or a deficiency. I think all teachers should study motivational speaking because really "a glass half full" or "a glass half empty" perspective really makes a huge difference and especially when so many instances like that are constantly occuring.

My very first piano teacher as a young child was a negative old witch, after a few months she made me quit piano lessons and it was because of her not the piano. I avoided teachers for a few years after that. Friends of mine who studied with my old teacher told me she spoke poorly about me (because I performed in schools often I was known to be a piano player I came up in discussion).  It was fun beating her students in competitions and seeing her face when I collected 1st prize. I'm sure she could have been a study for mistakes a piano teacher can make, shes long gone now though.

[lostinidlewonder]

Absolutely. I think as a teacher, you need to implicitly trust your student in a certain manner. You need to trust that they will improve and observe their improvements, without being too pushy. Even better, you need to be able to get a sense of when a student understands they are improving and when they don't. Otherwise, you become that teacher who just has a tic where they repeat something ad infinitum which the student already understands.

I think if you become a pushy teacher who monitors everything and anything and jumps on everything that is not going right, you are going to make most students somewhat dread lessons rather than look forward to it. Some teachers may disagree with me but I really think that having a relaxed student is the number one priority for an effective lesson. The student should be excited to have the lessons, they should feel like it is a cozy space for them and the teacher to do some work in and debate ideas in. A teacher may never witness how a student really functions if the student is not relaxed.

Developing self efficacy in people who lack it, children especially, is one of the most challenging parts of education for a teacher since much of that is influenced by how one has been brought up. It certainly is not helped if you hound your students, they never will naturally develop a responsbility for their work and always work in fear they will dissapoint someone if they don't do well. Instead of hounding the students you try to excite them and get them to create their own bounds as to how much work they put into their practice. I have had to go so simple as to make students do non piano activities every day just to practice the idea of fitting an activity into the daily routine. A star jump when you wake up every day or something else crazy. I've even gone as simple as asking that a single bar of music is totally mastered for the next week. These may seem ridiculously simple but it does make changes to those who really need to start out taking responsbility successfully and somewhere as basic as it gets.

I like to see people fish for themselves but there are those who you are always dragging through the course. It can take years before there is a change you need a lot of patience as a teacher. Too many teachers are too impatient in this approach, if the student fails it's the students fault for not working hard enough or following the teachers directions. But how do you as a teacher make your students into more responsible creatures who care about their musical education? A students failure is totally the teachers fault, a students success is ultimately their own! That's harsh but we are servants being teachers, we should have no glory.