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Episode 83:  Cheers to Relationships and Results (and why one begets the other)

Well hello there, music teacher friends!  Welcome to Episode number 83 of the Beyond Measure Podcast.  My name is Christina Whitlock, and I’m here help you feel as though you’ve had a nice chat with a piano teacher friend today.  Someone who knows at least a thing or two about the lifestyle you lead.  😊  Welcome one and welcome all!  Let’s dive in…

I think it’s clear by now I believe strongly that we learn more from our mistakes than we do our successes.  This is for two reasons, I believe:  One, it’s just harder to remember to take time to examine why things are great when you are not struggling.  Two, the lessons to be learned from success are just not as obvious as those we can learn from failure.

I’ve shared plenty of my shortcomings and lessons learned in the past 82 episodes of this podcast.  A younger version of myself would have rather done ANYTHING than share my past mistakes on the internet, but you are part of such a great audience who genuinely seems to appreciate the fact that I don’t show up here pretending like I have all the answers. Which is great, because I most definitely do not.  😊

I was thinking this week about what I would consider my biggest mistakes teaching.  If you listen to this show regularly, you already know several of them.  Of course, there’s the fact that I perpetually take on too many responsibilities and leave myself frustrated that I can’t give everything my best effort.  That’s a big one.  I’ve also talked about how my younger teacher self saw other teachers as competition, rather than colleagues.  After all, the other teachers in your community are likely going to be in your life FAR longer than any single student.  Be good to them, and let them be good to you.

Of course, there’s a whole heap of actual pedagogical things I’ve done wrong:  teaching notation moreso than teaching music.  Treating rhythm like it was some kind of math exercise.  Failing to understand how a child’s hand is built; thus expecting technique to look a way that is not at all natural.  That’s a list that could go on for quite awhile…

But the other day, as I pondered the question of big mistakes lurking in my teaching past, one bubbled up to the surface that I felt deserved an episode this week.

There was a time in my teaching career – not all that early on, but once I felt like a more “established” teacher – where I started to care more and more about the results my students were achieving.  Or, more accurately, I became obsessed with how OTHER PEOPLE viewed my students’ progress, and, thus, my teaching.  I wanted to have the competition winners. I wanted other teachers to envy the accomplishments of my students like I often did theirs.  I wanted my students to represent a very particular standard of excellence.

And – okay – that’s not entirely a bad thing.  In fact, there are many incredible teachers out there with those kinds of studios.  We cannot deny we are in a results-based business.  We are paid to deliver results.  Our students need to be on a forward trajectory of progress.  Otherwise, what are we doing?

But here’s the thing:  Progress is more than what you see on the stage during any given performance.  Results are not always evident to the outside observer.

Progress could be a timid child who learns to communicate with another adult in a safe studio atmosphere.

Progress can be an insecure student who begins to catch even the tiniest glimmer of self confidence, once realizing he can, indeed, make music.

Progress can be the student who realizes they now have a skill they can run to in difficult times.  A coping strategy for emotional regulation.  Many of us know about that.

So yes, progress CAN look like a gold medal, a first place finish, or advancing to the final spot on your teacher’s recital program.  That’s not to be discounted either.  I actually love the benefits of healthy competition that come from studying music.  Some students flourish in that environment, and I like keeping one foot on that side of things in our world.

But it took me a long time to realize THAT progress is not what fuels ME as a teacher.  I used to have this strange feeling come over me on the evenings after a local competition. Whether things went well for my students or not, I used to find myself restless, and incredibly insecure.  If students did well, imposter syndrome would rear up. Surely I just got lucky with this student, or surely I’m holding them back somehow.  If they didn’t do well, I would – of course –  convince myself it was all my fault and I clearly had no place in this profession.

There are MANY unhealthy aspects of the mindset I just described… and some of them are things I’m still very much working on today.

But, I’d say, somewhere in the neighborhood of a decade ago, I realized I could NEVER sustain myself in this profession if I let THOSE kinds of results fuel my sense of purpose.  I took a long look at what actually fueled my joy and my contentment in the world of studio teaching, and it all became SO clear. It’s the relationship.  It’s the small victories, week after week.

It’s the middle schooler who, after many years of answering questions about themselves, all of a sudden starts asking questions about YOU.

It’s the graduated senior who comes back to town and asks if they can stop by.

It’s the new student you’ve been told struggles so much in school but can’t begin to wipe the dopey smile off his face the ENTIRE LESSON because he is just having so. Much. Fun.

It’s the first time your 9-year old student plays and you realize they’re not just a “cute little kid” up there on stage anymore; they’re developing REAL artistry.

Maybe it’s YOU: going through a particularly difficult time in your life, and realizing just how strongly your studio families have your back.

I know I say this kind of stuff all the time.  Namely, because we need to be reminded of this often.

But also, because it all came together so clearly in my brain this week:

When we focus exclusively on performance results, the end of the story can go in a million different directions…

But when we focus on the RELATIONSHIP we have with our students, the story often finds a satisfying conclusion.

Any time I talk about prioritizing the relationship we have with our students, I always worry people are going to mistake me for a teacher who has no standards or who just lets her students talk their lessons away.  That’s definitely not me.  😊

But it’s kind of like that old saying we’ve heard a million times:  People don’t care what you know until they know how much you care.  Right?  My “secret sauce” to keeping teenagers in lessons despite their growing list of scheduling demands IS the relationships I build with them.  Same with adults students. I make sure my students KNOW the abilities I see in them.  Not just their potential for the future, but appreciation for what they can do TODAY, in this very moment.  And, when you have someone in your ear every week, validating the work you’re doing and telling you they SEE you… I mean, who is going to want to give that up?   Would YOU walk away from that kind of setting today?  I doubt it…

So, if nothing else, I hope today serves as a reminder of something you already knew:  Focus on the Relationship, and the Results will likely come.  That is a statement that does NOT work in reverse, of course.  Focusing on results exclusively MAY result in some kind of incidental relationship, but it won’t be anything as fulfilling as if you pour into the relationship first.

Let’s share a toast, shall we?

Music teacher friends from all over the world, today we remind ourselves that ours is a relationship business.  Granted, it’s one where we expect to see results… but we must remember those results are often different than what we might expect.   It should also be said that, like any relationship, we risk getting hurt when we invest so fully in another human being, but may those instances be few in number, and educational in their own rite.  I hope you can enjoy the human beings who enter your studio this week.  Familiarize yourself with their struggles – as well as their strengths.  As my friend Janna Williamson often says, become a student of your student. Teach them according to their own unique set of needs, and let them know you are in their corner regardless of what happens on the stage or in front of the audition panel.  I’m absolutely convinced the rewards you will reap will FAR outweigh those of having a student place in the next state competition (though, to be fair, that’s pretty fun, too).  Cheers to you, my increasingly-relationship-centered teacher friends.  Here, here!

That’s Episode 83, friends!  I hope you feel more motivated than ever to stay focused on the relationships you are building in the studio.  Many of you are wrapping up a performance-heavy portion of the year. There is much to learn from how your students represented your studio in public performance.  Pay attention to that.  But don’t let THOSE lessons overshadow the more important parts of how you are helping your musicians grow as people in this complicated world.

Here in a couple of days I’ll be sending out an email to those on my mailing list with several helpful tidbits… so if you have not already joined my mailing list, be sure to do so in the name of not missing out!  That link is in the shownotes, along with several others.  Be sure to check them out.

Thanks, all!  I’m looking forward to chatting again next week, but in the meantime, onward and upward.