As a teacher how often do you feel totally drained after having put in 150% effort with a student to be rewarded with a 10% effort from them in return?
How can you give inspiring lessons week after week when your student does virtually no personal practice between lessons?
How many times have you said to your students “I can’t learn your scales for you – you just have to get on and learn them yourself”?
How many times in the last week have you secretly hoped that at least one of your students would be away sick?
Over the years I must have taught hundreds of students who only had a passing and superficial interest in playing the clarinet and saxophone. Out of necessity, I developed strategies to cope with these teaching negatives. I came up with four golden depressing probabilities and I found that by starting from a despondent standpoint anything positive my students achieved was a bonus beyond belief.
Probability 1
My student would never practise between lessons.
Probability 2
My student would forget their lesson.
Probability 3
My student would arrive late for their next lesson and then announce that they wanted to give up.
Probability 4
My student would forget either their music or instrument every lesson.
Interestingly these four probabilities are in stark contrast to the scenario we as teachers dream about:
Dream 1
The student will practise five or six times each week and maybe do a double practice on the weekend.
Dream 2
The student will arrive at their next lesson requesting to be given an hour lesson in the future instead of a thirty minute lesson so they can cover everything in more detail that they have practised.
Dream 3
The student will tell you every lesson that you are their favourite teacher ever and a great role model and when they grow up they want to become a music teacher just like you.
Dream 4
They never forget any of their music and they give you copious amounts of chocolate at the end of every term.
I found that by abandoning the normal teacher dreams and adopting a more realistic approach it was much easier to take delight in my student’s progress even if it was limited. It is so easy to forget that even the most lazy students deep down feel guilty for their lack of practice and progress. If you can get rid of this guilt in the lessons, music suddenly becomes fun. Even when a student hasn’t practised there are so many interesting things you can do in the lesson that just might make your student spark.
Something else that helps me to understand my students is to make myself learn a demanding study. Despite my best intentions I can’t always guarantee to have it learnt up to a standard that I could play to anyone within a week. For some students this task is equivalent to learning to play G major scale from memory.
The really inspired teachers see every lesson as a new challenge and yes I think teaching is a wonderfully rewarding occupation.
Mark Walton
Musical Director Christchurch School of Music