With a few months of teaching experience under my belt, I think it’s time to do a little reflecting on my experiences so far. Not only have I been teaching piano lessons, I am also in charge of the musical education of a group of sixth, seventh, and eighth grade students with wide ranging musical backgrounds. Teaching them has forced me to think about not only what I teach my students, but also HOW I teach them. As I learned from my undergraduate education classes, the instructional methods matter just as much as the lesson content. In my individual piano lessons, I can rely on method books to provide a reliable order for presenting material to beginning students. (I find myself appreciating more and more the piano teachers who design these method books.) However, even here, I end up making adjustments, and I am just working with one student at a time. When teaching in the classroom I also have a curriculum to work with, but it does not allow for differences in content knowledge and ability. So, what have I learned so far? Here are a few words of wisdom from the ever-growing knowledge base of Emma Veers, piano teacher:
Less is more, both in the classroom and in the piano studio. It is better to address one main point from a variety of angles than to try to address several points in one lesson. I still struggle with this when trying to work on a piece of music with a piano student, I want to fix all of the problems I see at once, but I often end up overwhelming the student. Not a good thing!
Too slow is better than too fast. While neither is great, it is better for a student to be confident and bored than totally lost. It is good to give students plenty of opportunity to practice a new concept, especially the idea of reading music. This works for individuals and group classes.
When working with a group class, introduce concepts in engaging ways. This way the students who already know the concepts will still enjoy the class, and they might even learn something new.
I am the teacher, and as such, I need to have confidence in my knowledge and my teaching abilities. If a student comes up to me and says, “I saw a boy playing piano on TV and he didn’t hold his hands the way you want me too,” this should NOT cause me to doubt my own methods. (True story, by the way.)
Slowly but surely, I am learning from my mistakes and gaining confidence in my abilities as a teacher. Just today I had a student come to her lesson full of enthusiasm because my practice technique of breaking the piece into small, two-measure pieces actually worked! It’s times like these that make me realize just how much I enjoy teaching . Stay tuned for more thoughts from this enthusiastic teacher over the next several months!
