My Student CALLED ME OUT.

Piano Teacher Confessions: Christina Whitlock

Today, I Confess: My student called me out last week.

Over the years, I’ve stood on my soapbox countless times reminding you to teach the student in front of you… even if it means deviating from your lesson plan.

This is one of my most fundamental Teacher Truths. Even the most predictable students have difficult days that require you to throw your plans out the window.

…but sometimes we can be stubborn to loosen our grip on our agendas.

Last week, I had a student working through a piece she is preparing for a local festival. Our progress has been slower than I’d hoped, so I was ON A MISSION to get the rest of the piece in her fingers during our time together.

I’ll admit; I was feeling less-than-my-best self that day: Distracted, impatient, and a little irritable. (It happens 🤷🏻‍♀️)

I could tell she was getting frustrated as we drilled an awkward series of chords, but I was eager to keep working. In an attempted to move forward, I flippantly said, “Look! You’ve got it! Let’s move on…“

Much to my surprise, this soft-spoken student looked at me and boldly said, “But I DON’T have it!“.

I had to check myself immediately. 🫥

The truth was: she didn’t have it. She wasn’t ready to move on. I was just preoccupied with the clock and a mounting list of things that needed to happen in the next 20 minutes. My expectations needed revising.

I’m sharing this story because we all fall into this trap from time to time. We have things we need/want to accomplish and, if it’s not happening in the lesson, we send students home and hope for the best.

After all, as long as we’ve talked about it, we’ve done our part. The rest is up to them to go home and figure out, right? 🤣

Well, maybe. Sometimes.

But I can assure you, in this case? We needed to keep working on those chords. I needed to make a new plan because sending her home with that passage in its current state was not going to result in anything fruitful.

I seem to keep coming back to Episode 164 lately. In that episode, I introduce the emotions of Confusion, Embarrassment, and Intimidation as the Primary Enemies of music teachers.

One of our highest priorities should be to send students home feeling equipped to do the work we’ve assigned. It doesn’t matter what we’ve said; telling isn’t teaching.

(Thanks for that gem, Frances Clark!) 👑

This interaction with my student reminded me NOT to use words as a veiled attempt to convince a student they feel differently than they actually do.

Students who don’t feel equipped to tackle their assignments have an enormous amount of mental baggage to work through before they even sit at the instrument. They have to push through those feelings of insecurity and confusion before they even get to the bench.

Yes, learning to work in the face of those emotions is important, but we’re not getting anywhere if our students don’t sit down to practice because they already feel defeated.

I hope this confession helps you slow down this week. Take a breath. Accomplishing fewer things really well will yield better results than hurriedly pushing through. After all, there’s always next week. 😊

We cannot manifest confidence for our students by declaring “You’ve got this!“.

Plus – above all else – our students want to be seen and known. Dismissing their feelings in an attempt to be their cheerleader is not the move we sometimes think it is.

🥂 Cheers to us as we balance our visions of excellence with the realities of the human condition. 🥂

When was the last time YOU felt called out by a student? Leave a comment and give me the juicy details! 😊

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