Exasperating

-
From time to time on Tuesdays, I will host a "piano class," rather than individual lessons. This is a time for all of my students to come at the same time, perform for each other, learn something together, and enjoy some treats. It gives them a chance to relax from the intensity of a one-on-one with me.

Yesterday was that day. As each student took her turn at the piano, I realized why this job is so stressful:

My teacher/student relationship with each one of them rests on my ability to determine just exactly how much disappointment is the right amount to show each week.

It's a tough balance, and I don't have it figured out. They want to be encouraged, but I can't encourage garbage. But if I show my true feelings about their lack of progress, they burst into tears. And then, on the very rare occasion when one of them does have a good week at the piano, I'm so over-the-top enthused that they think they've mollified me and can slack off for a few weeks.

It makes my head want to explode.

Comments

cool mum said…
ooh...sounds rough. I feel for you, and as a former slacker piano kid I can also relate! Piano lessons are just tough all around.

I was one of those weirdo kids that would be breaking into tears while playing a song I knew I hadn't practiced...that was without the piano teacher even saying one word or even showing that he cared that I hadn't practiced! Something about the idea of practicing was so repulsive as an elementary and middle schooler...even though I liked playing in general. It's a mystery to me.
March 19, 2008 at 5:13 PM
Amy said…
I think that's part of the frustration! I, too, was a piano slacker who, somewhere in high school, stopped living up to my "piano potential," and my teacher, who is now my daughter's teacher and a very dear friend, always let me know that I wasn't meeting her goals for me - which, in high school, did not line up with my goals for me.

So part of me wants to give these girls a break, and part of me wants to grab them by their Roxy girl pigtails and shake them.
March 19, 2008 at 8:46 PM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Gospel According to Daddy Warbucks

-
Image
Hooooow many times have I seen Annie? It must be a number in the hundreds. Add to that the number of times I've listened to or sung the music, seen the play...and, oh, yeah - there was that time I DIRECTED THE SHOW IN HIGH SCHOOL. Well, technically that was the sequel, but still, I was immersed in the story for like 4 straight months. So imagine my surprise when tonight, I'm just sitting here, minding my own business, being mom of the year by ordering pizza, cuddling up with the girls and having an Annie-watching pajama party - singing along with every single number and... what? Tears? What the...? Tonight, I saw a completely different story. See, there's this girl. An orphan. Let's call her...Annie. She's a pretty good kid, looks out for others, sings very sweetly. She's living in hell, but it's all she's ever known. She can imagine something better - she just doesn't know how to find it. She makes a couple of attempts at escape, but finds tha
Read more

Block the Door

-
Image
Philip Seymour Hoffman was found dead today, and I am heartbroken. He was found, they say, in his underwear, with a needle in his arm, on the bathroom floor. It's that part that gets me the most. I believed him to be a creative genius, capable of depth and believable on-camera-grit than most, and his talent will be missed. He leaves behind a successful career, an admiring public and a family who loved him. But the hardest part to process isn't the how or the why. It's the where . The bathroom floor. The dirtiest place in the home. It is not made to comfort a resting body. The bathroom floor is cold, hard and lonely. And yet at one point today for Philip, there were no offers more appealing than stretching out on the bathroom floor and calling it a day. Philip's death made headlines. But there are so many that don't. I am privileged to know a family who has been standing between their loved one and the bathroom floor for years. They are waging an insp
Read more

Where is Mister Rogers When You Need Him?

-
Image
It has been said that I am easily amused. Little things fascinate me. I like to know how things work. I like factory tours and behind-the-scenes stuff and those specials on Discovery Channel. I was definitely brought up this way: I remember my brother telling me about a conversation he'd recently had about "Jet Puffed Marshmallows." Topics covered were: What does "Jet-Puffed" mean? How big-a-jet are we talkin? What keeps the marshmallows from exploding when "jet puffed"? Several weeks ago, the girls and I caught an episode of the rarely aired Mister Rogers' Neighborhood. In that one episode, the inimitable Mr. R shed light on two very interesting processes when he visited a sleeping bag factory and a dollmaker's workshop. Have you ever thought about how a sleeping bag is assembled? Me neither, but now I know, and I am a better person for it. So here are a few jobs I would like to shadow for a day (or watch Mister Rogers shadow them), because ev
Read more