Episode 275: Cheers to Finding Middle Ground

Well hello there, Studio Teacher Friends!  Welcome to your weekly moment of solidarity, otherwise known as the Beyond Measure Podcast. Christina Whitlock here, your host and self-appointed Anytime Piano Teacher Friend. I’ve been teaching for more than 30 years and I’ve seen a lot of stuff. In today’s episode, we’re going to talk about the importance of finding the middle ground in studio teaching. We’ll look at why we’re so prone to extremes, and how to embrace a more tempered approach to expectations, our assumptions about what students understand, and the importance we put on our work. Sound like a plan?  It’s good stuff, I promise. Let’s get on with the show, friends!  Thanks for listening to episode 275 of the Beyond Measure Podcast.

Let’s call a spade a spade: Collectively, we’re a very passionate, expressive profession, aren’t we? We have a lot of feelings, which means we get really hyped about our work. I was kind of oblivious to this but it’s been pointed out to me that – when piano teachers get together – there is some very strong energy that bubbles up. There are LOTS of words getting spoken at rapid paces, often loudly. Lots of laughing, lots of ideas, lots of stories, lots of unfinished thoughts as we bounce from one topic to the next. I mean, it’s the stuff I *live* for, but of course, not everyone feels the same level of excitement about their work.

So, some of us (ahem) are very outwardly demonstrative. Our facial expressions broadcast everything we’re thinking and we can’t help but wave our arms around a lot as we talk. Others are more inwardly enthusiastic. I admire you, for the record. Either way, we wouldn’t be very good musicians if we didn’t feel strongly about Creativity and its role in self-expression. Furthermore, we wouldn’t be very good teachers if we didn’t hold deep convictions that our work matters. Music study benefits humanity. It’s true; you’ll never convince me otherwise.

So, all these feelings about music study often lead us to extreme approaches. In addition to those feelings, there are some other inevitable forces of human nature that come into play here. As adults, we are all prone to this belief that future generations should learn the way we learned. They should be as disciplined as we remember being. (psst: I chose my words intentionally there. We want students to be as disciplined as we REMEMBER being; not necessarily as disciplined as we were. It’s a noteworthy distinction).

We all have biases based on how we remember our upbringing. And we typically believe these remembrances are exactly how students “should” be taught. You know; “this is what my teacher did, therefore it’s what I should do.”  Of course, you know me – as soon as that “should” word appears on our radar, it’s time for some examination.

Don’t get me wrong: Some of these beliefs are terrific: they spawn TRADITIONS and the LEGACY of our work that I’m obsessed with. The beauty of being part of this work that passes wisdom and beauty from generation to generation is one of the great privileges of my life. At the same time, I’ve learned there are also things that sometimes need re-examining. There are MANY things about teaching I’ve reconsidered over time and I’m so glad I did.

All that to say – I think there are many valid reasons we are prone to extremes as teachers. We are a passionate people, tasked with carrying the torch of our work into the next generation. It’s no small matter. I mentioned a few episodes ago that, annoyingly, we do not get to choose what our students remember about music study, which means we HAVE TO go all-in on the things we hope they take away from lessons with us. It’s our only hope!

BUT – friends. If we don’t learn to embrace the middle ground, it is VERY unlikely we will last in this profession long-term. Or, maybe we will, but we will make ourselves miserable. And I don’t want that for you or for your students. We NEED teachers who are filled with enthusiasm for the work they do. And sometimes, the key to sustaining that enthusiasm is examining the things that are quietly draining us.

There are many aspects of Teacher Life that benefit from finding Middle Ground, and I’m going to focus on three of them today.

First up, let’s talk about expectations. There are two very-tempting extremes in the goals we set for our students. On one hand, if students don’t appear willing to put in the work, it’s easy to get apathetic and let them crawl along. We throw our hands up in the air and say, “I’m here doing my part, but until you’re doing yours, there’s nothing more I can do. Therefore, here you go: practice the same assignment you’ve had for the last four weeks.”  I’ve been there. It can be infuriating when you don’t feel like your efforts are being matched. The problem here is, students pick up on that resignation. If you are not expecting high standards from your students, they are most likely not expecting them from themselves, either. If the two of you BOTH believe they don’t have time to practice and therefore they can’t expect to get much out of lessons in this season? Yikes. You are both probably right.

I’ve said it a million times here, but one of my favorite adages is, “My teacher thought I was smarter than I was… and so I was.” It is so true; students rise to the quality of our standards.

However, like I said, there’s another extreme. On the other side of this notion that the teacher’s expectation sets the stage for progress lies the fact that our profession is riddled with teachers whose standards are not realistic for the students they are teaching. This leaves students in a perpetual state of feeling like they are disappointing their teacher. And what do students who constantly feel like disappointments do? They quit lessons. Our brains are wired to choose safety. It’s science. And if students feel guilty for not meeting our expectations, over and over again, they will find their way out of our studios. And then we’ve lost our opportunity to show them what’s possible at their instrument.

So, what are we to do, friends? Middle ground here is TRICKY, but finding it comes with time, experience, and intentional reflection. You want your expectations to find that “Goldilocks” sweet spot. Not too high, not too low, but something JUST RIGHT. There are lots of ways to evaluate this dynamic in your studio, but the easiest thing to consider is your weekly practice assignments.  If your student is consistently falling short on what you assign, you need to consider your expectations. Is their music too difficult? Are you assigning too many things? Do you need to communicate better with parents and/or the student themselves?  Try hard to find the weak link in that chain and then begin addressing it.

On the contrary, if your student is ALWAYS meeting their assignment expectations, feel free to start pushing a little more. Assign one small additional assignment and see what happens. I’ve been very surprised with this in my Teacher Life. Most of us have a few of those Goldren Students who consistently bring their assignments back in terrific condition. It’s easy to sit there and pat ourselves on our backs and tell our student how wonderful they are (as we should!). BUT: it can also be indicative of a student who’s ready to be pushed a little more.

As you know if you’ve listened to this show for any length of time, I’m very leery of formulaic assignments. I have yet to find a system of “assign X number of pieces in the following genres” that works for every student. I don’t think that exists. I mean, those systems exist… but I don’t think they work. That’s why I believe in studying our students’ assignment execution and using that information as a guide to future assignments.

It’s important to note this is not a set-it-and-forget-it kind of thing. This type of evaluation is ongoing. Your highest standard students might not ALWAYS be so. AND – even better – those students who you gently nudge to higher standards may very well increase their thresholds for work over time. Never give up, friends. I’ve seen some mind-blowing turnarounds in my day. To be fair, I’ve also had plenty of students who never seem to rise to the occasion… but nonetheless, I never regret trying. Never.

Okay. Suffice to say, it’s important to find middle ground when establishing goals for our students.

Here’s another “Goldilocks”-applicable area of teaching: The assumptions we make about what our students know. I think it’s very dangerous to assume our students know too much, but also limiting to assume they know too little.

If you listened to last week’s episode about The Moments that Made Beyond Measure, you likely noticed a common theme in my musical upbringing: I studied with teachers who trusted me to know a lot. They weren’t waiting on me to prove myself; I felt like a musician from very early on in my music study.

I think this is why I loved graduate school so much. I distinctly remember sitting in my first day of grad school, in a notoriously-intense Chamber Music Literature course, and I was hit with this overwhelming feeling of joy that we were EXPECTED to know things already. There was no more starting at the most basic level. No simple definitions or introductory material. We just hit the ground running with an assumed understanding that we were all on the same page. I, for one, loved that.

Of course, this is a great illustration of my point because not everyone enjoyed that part. You know what happens when we assume. (Ahem)

I think it’s important to note that we WANT to instill a sense of responsibility in our students to know their material. So, yes, there is a point at which we SHOULD expect them to remember the primary chords in any given key. On the other hand, that point might not be the first week after learning about those concepts. Maybe, but also maybe not. Chord functions, in my experience, seem to be one of those things that students need to hear about and experience quite a bit before they can fluently talk about them and use them properly in context. We can’t assume students know things just because we’ve said them once or twice. Telling isn’t teaching. That’s a Frances Clark gem I cling to. Telling isn’t teaching.

I guess I’m bringing this up because it’s one of my weak points as a teacher. When I was teaching collegiate piano pedagogy courses, I was CONSTANTLY finding myself assuming my students knew things they didn’t. I didn’t want to patronize them or to waste time on concepts that I assumed were “too basic” to give time to. But, time and time again, I found myself needing to build their understanding from the ground up.

I’ve had some really terrific transfer students come my way, and I’ve been guilty of assuming they knew more than they actually did.

At the same time, I keep thinking back to my musical upbringing, and even though my teacher’s overestimation of my knowledge DID sometimes produce gaps in my understanding, their confidence in me also made me feel capable and respected. Those are POWERFUL emotions for a young person to feel coming from an adult. So, I do think there’s something to giving our students room to prove their knowledge. Let them talk about artists and musicians they are into. Don’t use their words as teaching moments, but as moments of meaningful connection. Listen to their ideas.

Ask your students to replace the four chord with the minor six chord in their piece and trust them to work it out without spelling out every detail for them. Give them a rhythmic challenge they are capable of doing and give them room to work it out. As the kids say today, “Let me cook”. LET YOUR STUDENTS COOK. Giving them room to process their own solutions will communicate capability and respect and I can’t think of two things more beneficial for your students to feel than that. THOSE are the students who will keep coming back, and THOSE are the students whose lives you are most changing for the better.

So, yeah: when it comes to your assumptions over what students know – and what they don’t – find that middle ground, friends.  Be like Goldilocks: don’t assume too much, don’t assume too little… find the middle ground that is JUST RIGHT.

Lastly, I want to circle back to my first thoughts today about how seriously we take our work. I’ve talked multiple times here about Elizabeth Gilbert’s book, Big Magic – I consider it a must-read, by the way. I’ll link it in today’s shownotes. But there’s this moment in Big Magic where Gilbert introduces what she calls the Creative Paradox. She basically says that, in order to be an effective in our Creative work, we have to hold two truths simultaneously: We have to believe our work is of the utmost importance, while also believing it doesn’t matter at all.

Now, obviously… I’m never going to say our work doesn’t matter. Ha! But there IS something to keeping perspective on what a single piano lesson is, and what it isn’t.

I used to believe I had a professional obligation to NEVER cancel or reschedule lessons. My early years as a mother were spent feeling like this was my work, and my family had to work their way around it. I don’t feel that way anymore.

THIS is a place for middle ground. I still consider it professional behavior to do everything possible to avoid altering my teaching schedule. I don’t cancel or ask families to reschedule on a whim.  But, I’ve also learned that if my kids have a school activity that I want to go to, there is no harm in asking for occasional reschedules. Yes, even though I don’t offer rescheduled lessons for my students’ conflicts. If you’re caught up thinking that is not FAIR, I have an episode for you; it’s linked in today’s shownotes.

But yeah – when it comes to how seriously we take our work, there is a GREAT need for us to channel our inner-Goldilocks.

No single piano lesson holds that much weight, friends. If you feel like you did a terrible job explaining the circle of fifths to your student yesterday, there is always next week. If a family is driving you crazy, it does not mean you are failing at your job. If you need to miss a lesson because your kid is in a play, you can miss the lesson. At the end of the school year, is your student going to be any less proficient because you canceled one lesson? Nope. And that’s a thought that really helped me make peace with my extreme tendencies to prioritize work over everything else.

Our work absolutely matters, in a BIG way. You know I believe that. But individual lessons? We’re allowed to have days where we don’t teach our best.  Where our words fail us. Where our energy is low. That’s normal. We’re allowed to prioritize things in our life above lessons. We should, in fact, do that.

Many of you know we buried my  mom last week. That woman WORKED, friends. She grew up on the farm, she went onto a career in nursing that left her working 70+ hours a week and landed her constantly on the phone when she wasn’t physically in the building. And she did make an important impact on her patients and staff. I know she did. But standing by her graveside last week, those people weren’t there. It was her family. I hate to be a downer here on my happy little podcast, but really, friends. If YOU struggle with letting your Teacher Life overshadow your Human Life, I hope you can release that and find some middle ground this week. Don’t let your feelings about your work or your enrollment or your education distract you from what really matters.  Okay? Okay.

Let’s wrap up today with a toast:

Studio teacher friends, today we raise our glasses in a collective pledge to find more middle ground. I get it! I am a woman of extremes. I’m a very all-or-nothing kind of person. It *does* make me good at my job, but it also has a tendency to throw me off-course when it comes to things that matter most in life. May we move forward today with the assurance that our work matters in BIG ways, but that individual lessons don’t carry much weight at all. Cheers to showing up with the best we have for today, and knowing that’s enough, my friends!  Hear, hear.

Thanks for listening to Episode 275 of the Beyond Measure Podcast, friends!  Today’s episode danced around A LOT of previous episodes, which I’m linking in today’s shownotes. Head over to ChristinaWhitlock.com/episode275 to listen to more; including that episode about re-thinking “fair” studio policies. Quick heads-up, for SuperFriends over on Patreon, our next session of Teachers Teaching Teachers is coming up on October 30^th, and we’re doing something a little different this month! We’re going to host our first-ever Favorite Teacher Things session, where everyone brings one THING they don’t want to teach without. We’ve done Teacher Show-and-Tell sessions for music in the past, but this is the first time we’re doing OTHER STUFF. So, SuperFriends, start thinking about your favorite Teacher Thing you want to share, and we’ll see you on October 30^th at 11am eastern!  If you are NOT a SuperFriend on Patreon, then this is a REALLY good month to join. You’ll get access to all kinds of bonus material AND this month’s Teachers Teaching Teachers. Yes, there will be a replay, and yes, I will put together a nice little list at the end of the meeting to share with everyone.  Join any time at ChristinaWhitlock.com/superfriends, or check out today’s shownotes.

That’s a wrap for today, friends!  Thanks for being the best teachers AND the best teacher FRIENDS out there. Onward and upward, indeed!