advise on my piano teachers methods Options

[limh]

yup, sorry, I didn't have natural criers in mind (which is weird, because despite being male, I can burst into tears at the wrong moment very easily). I'm afraid I had in mind the old-fashioned knuckle-rapping teacher. The main points I wanted to make are (a) music has little relevance except for the fun it makes, so if it becomes so un-fun that you give up, something has gone disastrously wrong; (b) everyone has different aims in mind, and the teacher who applies one standard to all of their pupils is making a mistake (unless they are lucky enough to be able to select only those pupils whose aims exactly match their own ideals). Some people want to get really good, others just want to have a lot of fun. There's no rights or wrongs about it.

It's important to be compatible with your teacher. Sometimes that means having identical, comfortable aims. Sometimes it means swapping freedom for the excitement or useful consequences of being taken outside your comfort zone and forced to do something different(ly).

[corenfa]

...

I had a pupil who would cry almost every lesson. I looked for ways to tell her what she needed to improve without sounding critical at all, but no matter how gentle I was she would become tearful very easily. She gave up after Grade 3.
I spoke to her mother several times, and she said she was like that with everything, and not to worry about it.

It makes you feel sorry for the child; how on earth is she going to get through lifes ups and downs unless she can toughen up? She made me feel like crying in sympathy very often!

She might just grow out of it - I was a child like that once! I don't cry over evreything now.

[RoseRodent]

I had a pupil who would cry almost every lesson. I looked for ways to tell her what she needed to improve without sounding critical at all, but no matter how gentle I was she would become tearful very easily.[...] how on earth is she going to get through lifes ups and downs unless she can toughen up?

I think it's a common misconception that people who cry more easily are less tough. It's not so much that we are deeply and horribly affected by what people say, just that it comes out of our eyes more easily than it does with some others. I can cry about things which don't bother me at all. I take a lot of hormone treatment for a genetic disorder and it makes me like a pregnant woman - crying because I lost my slippers, crying because there is an Andrex ad on the TV, crying because... just because OK? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/mad.gif) It's absolutely maddening, but it's unrelated to how worried or bothered I am by something. It's a bit like equating how fast someone runs away from something to how scared they are, if they are not a fast runner, or are a 95 year old on a walking frame then they will run less fast, but it's not an indication of how they feel inside, maybe the person who stood rooted to the spot was totally paralysed by fear. People who only cry when they are severely upset just assume that another person crying means they are extremely upset, but crying is my go to place for when my emotions can't quite work out what to do, if someone shouts at me I cry out of surprise, not a deep sense of hurt. In actual fact, I know I am really upset when I find I cannot cry.

It's better than my other gut reaction which is to laugh if I don't know what to say or how to feel. Someone tells me their grandad died and I have to cover my face because I just know I am going to laugh out loud. Stupid, stupid body! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/mad.gif) (IMG:style_emoticons/default/mad.gif) (IMG:style_emoticons/default/mad.gif)

[Norway]

I've done silmilar things RoseRodent, by not listening to a conversation properly. If someone starts off telling me a funny story and then rapidly switches to "oh by the way my dog died this morning", I'm still laughing and grinning on auto pilot - oh dear!

[limh]

I know I care about something (or someone) when I cry. It usually surprises me drastically.