When a student is teaching before they are ready

[Anonymous]

There is, here in Brooklyn, a very enthusiastic music teacher for two of the nearby grammar schools.

[unknown-user]

I will post some more information about how it develops. I’m
approaching it by placing myself in my student’s shoes as best I can.
To view it this way I will use an example of a hobby I posses in which
I have no formal training and am not aware of harm I could cause others
by sharing it. I love to work with beads and make jewelry and do
produce results that I love. If I were using materials that contain
harmful substances like lead, or toxic clays and didn’t know how to
properly handle these, and was passing this bad information on to
others I would want to know. If I was taking a class from someone very
experienced and told them I was teaching, and they knew that I was
causing a problem, it would upset me if they didn’t share that
information with me. They would be allowing me to ruin my potential
credibility. If after more training I had the potential to do a good
job instructing others, but had established a reputation for giving bad
information, that doesn’t help me at all.

What would hurt my student is if I look down on her in my thoughts and
manner of communication, which I do not. I respect her very much. Her
conscientiousness in her own practice tells me that she likes to do
well at whatever she does. I will not be glib about talking to her
because she is too important and her feelings in both the short and
long term are too important.

[unknown-user]

I’ve decided how to handle this particular scenario. It is clear that
my student intends to continue teaching. I felt encouraged this week
with her hand position, but it will take more time for her to be
consistent. At least she has a desire to play correctly, so she can
pass that on to her student. Since we are in a city, I will direct both
her and her student to workshops and other presentations with expert
harpists.

It is important to say for anyone reading, that it does require
experience to teach beginners. Even though you do not deal with
musically complex issues regarding formal structure and stylistic
analysis, teaching beginners requires expert knowlege of the structure
and movement of the hand and learning styles. You are faced with many problems when a student struggles to
learn a concept. When communicating any information about technique it
is important to be able to explain why it is healthy to maintain a
certain hand position, thumb position, play relaxed,
which muscles are used, which ones are not, etc. Every hand is
different, so a deep understanding of the principles of healthy playing
are necessary to apply it to each student’s specific hand structure.

I have had many transfer students from inexperienced/self taught
teachers, come to me with tangled, tense, little fingers, which takes
much effort to help them untangle. Informed
guidance is important on all instruments, but especially harp
because
it requires the development and strenghtening of certain muscles. I
have a doctoral minor in piano pedagogy and a masters in harp. On piano
there are certainly
important, efficient ways of playing, but as long as you stay relaxed
and let gravity do much of the work, you aren’t going to get injured.
This is not the case with harp. It requires more tension to initially
pluck a string, it requires a learned hand position, and much care in
establishing correct posture while balancing the instrument correctly.
Minimizing
tension is a much bigger deal on harp, and the potential for physical
damage is greater. Anyone considering teaching harp please understand
that even though the concepts of half notes, quarter notes, and middle
C seem simplistic, the learning process is not.

[carl-swanson]

I feel like everybody on this thread is missing the forest because the trees are in the way.

[Briggsie B. Peawiggle]

I pretty much said the same thing you are saying — except for the charging double part.

[Calista Anne Koch]

I had this same situation a few years ago.

[unknown-user]

Wow Calista, what a good idea! I did not think of this. That is a very diplomatic way of approaching such a scenario. Thank you.

[unknown-user]

I think there are a lot of presumptions being made about the student teacher without knowing her.

[unknown-user]

Dear Jenny, thank you for your comments. It hadn’t occurred to me that
this could be upsetting to someone, so I will take your comments into
consideration. You are correct to say that there are a lot of presumptions being made about the student teacher without knowing her.
This is also true of our relationship. It is difficult to communicate
all the nuance about the situation, so this thread by nature has
limitations. I
appreciate your concern regarding the internet as a public place. I
teach a number of students, most of whom do not know one another, and would not have chosen to deal with this
issue online if I felt there was any
chance that anonymity would not be preserved. I would feel quite
mortified and shocked if I am somehow proved to be mistaken about this. My student
is a gifted, conscientious individual with a great deal to offer.

[Trista Hill]

Regarding the last post about a potential student not choosing to take lessons from the teacher who started this thread…

A teacher incessantly wrestles with how to authentically show up best for his/her students.

[carl-swanson]

Dearest Jenny- The fact that the student in question has been “taking lessons for several months’ completely outweighs any other consideration as to the qualifications of this woman to teach harp.

[Alicia D. Strange]

Jenny,

No.

[Author]

Posts