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Episode 226: Summertime Conversation Reflections (pt. 2)

Hey, studio teacher friends!  Christina Whitlock here, your host and self-appointed Anytime Piano Teacher Friend. Welcome to the Beyond Measure Podcast!  This is your place to grab a boost of teacher solidarity on your own schedule. No judgement here, no superiority vibes… just the voice of someone who understands the nuance of what you do each day. TODAY we continue what we started last week: I’m offering up reflections on the second half of the Summertime Conversation Series, and I’ve got some GOOD thoughts for you to chew on today. Let’s get to it, friends!  Thanks for listening to episode 226 of Beyond Measure.

Quick recap for anyone new here: Beyond Measure is a solo show. Most of the time, you can expect to hear my voice and only my voice on this podcast. However, in the summer months, I like to mix things up and record conversations with some of my teacher friends. Last week, I offered up some reflections from my conversations with Leila Viss, Jason Sifford, and Florence Phillips. Today, we’ll be looking back on my conversations with Janna Williamson, Elizabeth Davis-Everhart, and Diane Hidy.  Each of these conversations left me with multiple nagging thoughts to obsess over, so today I’m sharing some of them with you.

Let’s start with Episode 222, which featured a chat with my pal Janna Williamson and our mutual fixation with PROACTIVE vs. REACTIVE teaching. Our conversation highlighted the fact that, yes, there ARE aspects of teaching that need to be reactive. But there are also SO MANY TIMES when it would be beneficial to use a more PROACTIVE approach. I keep thinking of the number of times in my life where I’ve put a new piece in front of my student and said something to the effect of, “Let’s give this a try and see how it goes.” That right there sets us up for REACTIVE teaching, right? We’re basically telling our student to fumble around in the dark, and THEN we’ll go back and tell them the things they missed.

I keep thinking about why this approach bothers me so much, and I think I’ve finally put my finger on it.  I have an older episode – it’s number 164 – where I talk about three emotions that cause students to think they hate practicing. It’s a riff on a quote from mathematician Larry Martinek, who once said, “Kids don’t hate math: they hate feeling confused, intimidated, and embarrassed by math.”  Again, I talk all about that in episode 164, but I do think those three emotions poison the water more than anything else in the lesson experience.

Here’s the reality: WE know what the lesson experience is supposed to look like. WE know we’re going to introduce our students to new concepts and new ideas. WE know they’re going to struggle at first, and WE know they’re ultimately going to get it. WE know that’s what education looks like: Introduction – Struggle – Understanding – Mastery.

But our students DON’T know that. Even with the emphasis schools are placing on GROWTH MINDSET and all the times we TELL our students it’s okay not to know something right away… it’s pretty universal that any student at any age does not want to try something and then be told they did it wrong. It’s those three emotions: Confusion, Intimidation, and Embarrassment.

And THAT’S WHY proactive teaching matters. I hear it from teachers all the time: my students hate making mistakes. How do I get them more comfortable with being less than perfect?  This is (obviously) a complex problem… but I’ll tell you what really helps: Setting students up for success BEFORE you have to jump into corrective mode.

I went to this great session at NCKP, given by Janet Tschida, where she reminded us that the difference between good teachers and great teachers is that good teachers will teach a concept in 3 steps, whereas great teachers will teach the same concept in 20 steps.

If you can introduce a concept in small enough steps that a student feels success, success, success… that is going to go a LONG WAY to helping eliminate those nasty three emotions of Confusion, Intimidation, and Embarrassment.

Let me be clear: can we eliminate those feelings altogether? Of course not. We don’t even WANT to. Students DO need to get comfortable being less than perfect. But, again, WE know how the trajectory of the student journey is going to go. WE KNOW they will eventually understand what we’re asking them to do. But from their perspective? They don’t know that. They just know in that moment they feel uncomfortable and incapable… and those are TOUGH emotions. Important emotions, yes… but we can all do better at tackling concepts up front before we ask our students to set themselves up for struggle.

Phew. Okay…before I get too worked up, I will say this: the MOST FUN thing about my conversation with Janna was the fact that we announced our first-ever Intermediate Piano Teaching Cohort for this fall. I’m excited to say our enrollment is close to being full already AND we’ve barely advertised it thus far.  As of this recording, we do still have a handful of spots left, but it’s exciting to know this cohort WILL sell out. We have a great list of teachers who have signed up and I can’t wait to get started and benefit from their brilliance. The link for more information is in today’s show notes, so check those out if you are curious for more details…. But HOORAY for more Teacher Camaraderie this fall.

Let’s move on to episode 223, when I talked with Elizabeth Davis Everhart about embracing neurodiversity in our studios.  Ah, that was a GREAT conversation with so many practical takeaways…

…but one thing really got stuck in my brain. Elizabeth mentioned that, sometimes, when faced with difficult behaviors from her students, she’ll check in with the parents and say, “Can you help me learn how to handle this situation?”  I think this is GREAT advice, whether we’re dealing with neurotypical students or those with exceptionalities.

For instance, let’s say you have a student who – every once in a while – will run to the opposite corner of your studio and refuse to come out.  I’ve been there, done that… and my younger teacher self would feel this irrational pressure to magically know how I should handle that situation. I thought – as the piano teacher – I was automatically supposed to know how to get the lesson back on track.

Which meant that, when the parent came to pick up their child from his lesson, I would feel like it was MY fault we didn’t use every moment of the lesson effectively, so when they asked how the lesson went, I’d throw a smile on my face and say, “IT WAS GREAT!”.

When it comes to ANY student, neurodiverse or otherwise, I just want you to know: YOU are not expected to be a behavioral expert on every student who enters your studio. A lot of us are pretty good at reading people… and we’re pretty good at redirection… but if a student is exhibiting challenging behavior, this is NOT a reflection of you.

THE VERY BEST THING you can do is to get curious, and be willing to experiment. Embrace trial and error. Oh man… it’s starting to sound a lot like the things we tell our students, right?! 😊

One of the BEST ways to get curious about your student is to check in with mom or dad and say, “Hey… Johnny seems to be enjoying his lessons, and I LOVE working with him. But could I pick your brain for a  second?  There have been a handful of times where he runs to this corner of my studio and I’m not sure how to get him to come back out.  Do you have any thoughts as to what could be triggering this behavior? Or how to re-engage him in the lesson at that point?”

Parents love to be asked about their children. It’s actually quite refreshing because not a lot of teachers do it.

I will say, it’s important to do this in a way that doesn’t put parents on edge… like, you don’t want them to think you are frustrated or annoyed or complaining… or anything of the like. I STRONGLY recommend doing this in a verbal conversation, NOT in the presence of your student…

But, again, when I think back on some of my early days of teaching, I thought I had to have a handle on every single moment of the lesson and that included keeping my students engaged 100% of the time. And when I would get a student with challenging behaviors, I automatically assumed I should know what to do.

Friends, let’s normalize asking parents if they have any suggestions as to how to better engage their children. Please understand that expecting yourself to be an expert on every wacky behavior that presents itself inside your studio walls is NOT reasonable.

Curiosity is key here.

In fact, curiosity was this unintended theme that came up in almost every episode of the summer conversation series. When I talked to Diane Hidy in episode 224, she credited CURIOSITY as being the thing that prompted all these great discoveries she made about piano teaching.

You all know I value Humility. It’s one of the core values of everything I create for teachers. And I just have to point out, there’s a direct link between curiosity and humility. Arrogance leaves very little room for curiosity, right?  And I’ve lived arrogant seasons of piano teaching. I’ve thought I had it all figured out. But I wasn’t curious in those seasons. You don’t NEED to be curious if you already know it all, right?  Well, no surprise to any of you listening… when I learned to embrace the fact that I would NEVER know it all, I stumbled upon the superpower that is CURIOSITY.

Curiosity about music, about the instrument, and MOST IMPORTANTLY: Curiosity about the student in front of you.

In my conversation with Diane Hidy, she mentioned one tiny little phrase near the end of our conversation that has permanently set up residence in my brain. She was talking about her Smart Scales resource and she said that material helps turn the teacher from the Corrector to the Collaborator.

From Corrector to Collaborator.

And – yes – this totally goes back to my first point today about proactive and reactive teaching. We’re coming full circle today, friends.

But the idea of viewing yourself as a collaborator in this musical experience with your students… not the corrector… that is SUCH a game-changer, friends!

If you’re on my email list, you know I’ve been obsessing over research on the Science of Play this summer. I’ve put together this resource for teachers called The Paradox of Play and one of the things I say in that material is that teachers need to view themselves more like playmates for their students and less like task-masters.

I know that initially rubs some of us the wrong way. We’re the professionals… the authority figures… the leaders of this experience… and that’s ABSOLUTELY true. But that doesn’t mean we can’t still PLAY with our students.

There is a tangible difference in the energy of a space when you – the teacher – are standing over your student, giving directions… vs. when you are sitting at the piano next to them PLAYING along.

I keep thinking back to how Marvin Blickenstaff says the best way to teach a ritardando is to play along with your student, gradually slowing your tempo down, letting them follow your lead.

Friends. That is SO MUCH MORE EFFECTIVE and ENJOYABLE than simply telling your students that ritardando means to slow down little by little. It doesn’t matter how many visuals or analogies you create to explain a ritardando to your students; NOTHING will be as effective as playing one alongside them.

Fun Fact: They’ll remember it better, too. Because we learn best through PLAY.

And Diane’s statement about being the COLLABORATOR and not the CORRECTOR is spot. On. With the science of play.

So, friends, that was basically the lightning-round recap of my summertime conversations with Janna Williamson, Elizabeth Davis-Everhart, and Diane Hidy.  I’ll tell you how much I’ve enjoyed those conversations: Editing conversations is a beast unto itself. It’s incredibly time-consuming, and by the time I’m done editing a conversation episode, I have heard every single word more times than I can count.

And yet. I’ve still found myself listening to these conversations in their entirety once again after they’ve been published because I think they’re THAT GOOD. The amount of time I’ve spent with my six summertime guests’ voices in my ears this summer is kind of comical, but I’m definitely proud of the results of these conversations.

I hope today’s episode has helped light a fire under you to explore more proactive teaching strategies, ask parents for help with behavioral challenges, and embrace your role as a collaborator and playmate of your students.

Next week, we’re back to regular programming here on Beyond Measure!  I’ve got some HIGHLY relevant ideas on tap for upcoming episodes, so stay tuned for more encouragement, designed to make you think big thoughts about the important work we do as studio music teachers.

Let’s wrap up with a toast, friends!

Studio Music Teachers from all over the world: Today we raise our glasses for the collective wisdom of our profession. May we continue to share with one another in the spirit of humility and curiosity. Here, here!

That’s all for today, my friends!  Onward and upward as we travel this winding road together.