Our guest blogger is Emma Veers. She graduated from Wisconsin Lutheran College, Milwaukee, WI, in May with a Bachelor of Science degree in Educational Studies and minors in piano pedagogy and mathematics. Following graduation, she moved to Golden, CO, with plans to pursue a Master’s degree in Piano Pedagogy. In the meantime, Emma has taken on the challenge of setting up a piano studio from scratch in an area where she has few connections. Readers in the greater Denver area, feel free to help her out!
Although I’ve taken piano lessons continuously for the past fifteen years, I never realized the amount of work my teachers put into my lessons until I attempted to take on the noble teaching profession myself. Even my piano pedagogy classes in college did not fully prepare me for setting up my own studio and taking on paying students. Here are a few examples where experience proved to be the best guide.
In my first piano pedagogy class, my professor required that we put together a potential “studio policy.” However, writing down rules that I thought I might want to include in my future policy differed greatly from actually putting a policy into practice. Before putting a policy into practice, the teacher needs to have a means of enforcing this policy. (Teaching reminds me of parenting in this respect; don’t make promises or threats if you have no means of following through!) For example, when it comes to paying for lessons, I state in my policy that payment is due at the beginning of the month for the entire month. However, if a parent says “oh, I’m sorry, I forgot to bring my checkbook this week, can I pay you next week?” I have to trust that this parent will pay me eventually unless I have a solution in place, such as a late payment fee.
Then there is the task of selecting method books to use. Unfortunately, this decision is complicated by the fact that many, many method books exist, each with slight differences that tend to trip up the unsuspecting rookie teacher. I learned this the hard way when I tried Hal Leonard’s new series “American Popular Piano” last year with a beginning eighth grade student. As I glanced through the series, I thought its hands on approach and use of popular sounding music would be perfect for motivating my student. Unfortunately, this series would have been easier to use as a supplementary series than a standalone series, and this made my lesson planning difficult. Oops!
Speaking of lesson planning, do experienced teachers actually write “lesson plans” for each of their students before each lesson? When I took piano lessons, it always seemed that my teachers would just open up to the next page in my lesson book and teach from that. However, now I need to write notes to myself before I teach each lesson, or I find myself blanking on what to say next.
These are just a few of the “surprises” I have encountered so far in my first year of teaching. Stay tuned for more as the year unfolds :)
