Clueless Teachers! Options

[petrat]

This week I have had two requests to help piano students who are with other teachers and have exams looming and are in a mess! I know that it is totally incorrect to listen to , and offer advice to other teacher's pupils but I did so anyway. (The other teachers were not offering to give extra lessons or any additional help so I do not feel very guilty about it, and I made no charge for hearing them play.)

The first child was working for London College grade one piano. She had been told by her teacher to learn both the scales and arpeggion AND the study. This should have been a one-or-the-other option. I wondered if the teacher had asked her to work at both so that she could choose which option to go for, but no! She had been told that she had to perform both. She had done no aural work at all and her pieces were full of errors. I helped her with the aural tests and explained to the parent about the option. I did nothing to correct the pieces.

The second child was working at grade three piano. She was really poor at her scales and pieces and when I looked at her book I was shocked to see every name written under the bass notes!!!!!!
She told me that she had never had to learn them, and that she could not sight read anything. She is also one of the top three pupils in her school year so is a bright kid. These two were the result of nothing but poor and totally incompetent teaching by teachers who should have been put out of a job years ago.
When will parents realise that there are good and bad teachers out there and not keep paying for the unqualified and clueless ones?

I have not offered to see them again before their exams take place, but have told the parents that I wil try to fit them in for lessons next year if they want to change teachers.

GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!

[kentmusiclady]

As a Teacher myself, I am willing to help all my students to whatever degree to help them pass their Exams. Extra lessons etc, Mock Exams. Studying Scales, Pieces and Aural, some Teachers do not provide Aural Training for examinations, but I personally believe, that this is all part of learning and progressing to the next level.

The Teacher you are describing sounds like one who does not 'care' about how well their Students will perform/do in their grading. It is a shame really. These Students sounds like they are poorly guided and if this the case, they may never achieve their true potential.

[petrat]

Alas these were pupils from two different teachers! Not one rogue one. The grade one girl had not even been told that she had to do aural tests. There was no option of taking aural lessons from someone else.

[kentmusiclady]

Poor things. You can only imagine how utterly bewildered that they would be, turning up to an Examination and being asked to 'sing as an echo' or tap the pulse/beat, when they have no knowledge of it at all being in the Exam. Not a particularly good start to a music career. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

[boogiecat]

It does sound that the children are a little confused...however, it might not be JUST the teachers. I have students coming to me from other teachers within the same organisation, who tell me that they absolutely HAVE NOT learned x, y or z. I'll go ask the teacher or better still look in notebook where at least 9 times out of 10 it will be written down.

Saying that, it does make my skin crawl the 1 time out of 10 when you see idiotic things written in their notebooks. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/ill.gif)

[skylark]

When will parents realise that there are good and bad teachers out there and not keep paying for the unqualified and clueless ones?

Because they/we (adults) don't know any different.... When I was pre-G2 (and pre-forum), I used to go to a group class in addition to my 1-2-1 class. It was held at a music college (not the one I'm at now) so you assumed that the teaching would be a good standard. The rest of the class were going to take G3, and one of them still wrote letter names on her book. I never saw the teacher get up off her chair to come round looking at our books to see whether anybody had written in them. My 1-2-1 teacher had stopped me doing that right from Day 1, so I knew it wasn't right, but nobody else knew that because they hadn't been told. Also it was getting closer and closer to the exam and the teacher had never done any aural, which again I knew from my own individual lessons, wasn't right. And she only ever just listened to our playing and said "very good", even though I knew it wasn't. She very rarely gave us advice on how to improve - we were more help to each other. Occasionally the group got an inkling that the teaching should be better if the teacher was off sick and we had a stand-in. But generally you think that what you've got is the norm because you don't know what a good teacher is supposed to be like.

A few weeks ago I suggested that the AB could put something on their web site about finding a good teacher, and draw attention to their web site on the mark sheet and certificate....

And teachers themselves need to be less modest about their achievements and practices! Only one of my teachers has ever volunteered information about her qualifications, and even then, it didn't mean anything to me at the time. She didn't dwell on how good they were. And so few teachers have their own web site - if more teachers had a web site, on which they clearly set out their credentials and teaching practices, it would soon show up the teachers who are less competent. We (adults) just don't know what questions to ask, so at least a comprehensive web site would tell us everything we need to know, without the onus being on us to ask the right questions in order to get the right answers.

At least your two parents have now realised that something is amiss because they have now come to you for advice, but many parents or adult learners will continue to believe that the "quality" of their teacher is the norm because they don't know what else to look for in a good teacher. Hope you get the children eventually and that you can retrieve their development (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

[maggiemay]

I had a request a couple of weeks ago from someone who had family coming from overseas to take exams (a brother and sister). Their uncle was wanting extra help for them in the (one) week left before the exam.

I'm afraid I declined. I don't think it was a scam (although I did think coming over in order to take an exam was a bit unusual ?!) - but I felt that potentially it was a bit of a minefield.

[petrat]

It does sound that the children are a little confused...however, it might not be JUST the teachers. I have students coming to me from other teachers within the same organisation, who tell me that they absolutely HAVE NOT learned x, y or z. I'll go ask the teacher or better still look in notebook where at least 9 times out of 10 it will be written down.

Saying that, it does make my skin crawl the 1 time out of 10 when you see idiotic things written in their notebooks. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/ill.gif)

Yes, I agree but in both of these cases the teachers did not use notebooks. There were some scribblings on the book of the grade one candidate and nothing apart from those dreaded note names on the grade three pupil's book. I feel very sorry for them both. They will be dropping so many marks because they are not prepared properly.

[boogiecat]

The poor things, how can they be expected to remember what they did in the lesson without a notebook.

Well done you for stepping in. I don't think there's anything wrong with that at all if the other teacher is unprepared or unable to take the lesson - I would be happy for any of my students to have a couple of extra lessons if I was away for the weeks before the exam - not that this would happen.

[Dulciana]

This could resurrect that old chestnut about whether there should be some sort of regulating body for private instrumental teachers. Personally I don't think so - because it might exclude lots of excellent teachers for the wrong reasons, but part of the problem here is that parents don't know what they're getting until it's too late. Maybe everyone who is starting out should have some sort of seal of approval from their own teacher, who's record should be stated as part of their own credentials until they can establish a reputation if their own..?

Any time I've taken on pupils from a teacher who has obviously been less than wonderful, it has taken at least two grades before their exam results have risen significantly. It's hard to eradicate bad habits, and demoralising for them to back-track, so I usually just motor ahead, whilst trying to set things right at the same time. But some experiences have put me off taking pupils from other teachers at all. I'm wary.

Not that I'm without flaws myself, either, I'm sure! And a new teacher after a break, sometimes, can give a child a new lease of life - and the old teacher will inevitably be blamed for lack of progress at that time - when it may well be the case that the pupil was so disinterested that the teacher was prepared to resort to anything to get them through - like writing in note names! For this reason, if a pupil is making no effort, I've starting telling them that I'm not prepared to be their teacher any more, though they're welcome to get in touch in the future if they suddenly become keen to learn! A teacher has his/her own reputation to think about if pupils aren't working as they should. And it can take a while for the new teacher to ascertain whether the problem has actually been the previous teacher or in fact the child!

Though that's no excuse for getting the syllabus wrong - or not doing aural tsts.... (IMG:style_emoticons/default/ill.gif)

[sarah-flute]

This could resurrect that old chestnut about whether there should be some sort of regulating body for private instrumental teachers. Personally I don't think so - because it might exclude lots of excellent teachers for the wrong reasons, but part of the problem here is that parents don't know what they're getting until it's too late. Maybe everyone who is starting out should have some sort of seal of approval from their own teacher, who's record should be stated as part of their own credentials until they can establish a reputation if their own..?

Not sure how that would work but it would seem a good compromise.

I think one of the issues is honesty... I don't have the qualifications, but people keep asking me to teach them (IMG:style_emoticons/default/ph34r.gif) it used to bother me, but my teacher took it as read that I was capable of teaching, so I'm just honest with people and let them decide. Then it's up to them. I don't advertise, because I am not capable of teaching full time anyway, but the few students I've had seem to enjoy my teaching and to progress.

[Alder]

It's almost impossible to know in advance who is clueless and who isn't.

I had a very experienced, academically well qualified teacher, who really shouldn't have been allowed near children...I was sick every Wednesday night before my Thursday lesson, she petrified me so much. I wanted to give up, but my dad cajoled me into lasting the first year, then she decided to put me in for exams and that gave me the incentive to keep going. (I'd had lessons when I was about six, gave up, and then taught myself aged 10/12, so when she got me at 13 I had plenty of bad habits -"curl your fingers!!!" - to eradicate, but she was still scary!).

I did grades 4 & 5 and then had a gap while I did Standard Grade and Higher music.
She then decided to skip me two grades to grade 8.
In the intervening two years I'd done no scales, no sight reading and no aural.
As a teacher now I realise this was crazy, but at the time I had no idea, and went from a high merit at grade 5 to a spectacular fail at grade 8. (Passed it later with another teacher, but my confidence was all over the place...sight reading has never really recovered...)
I had no scale books before grade 8, nor sight reading books - I've no idea how I got through 4&5!!! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/blink.gif)

I now make sure all my pupils start scales and sight reading early, and try to have them playing at a level slightly ahead of their exam pieces. I love all the resources from the AB and only wish I'd known about them when I was learning.....

Sorry that this post is gigantic.

[Violinia]

I know a fantastic teacher who works at a private school near me; a few of her students just don't practise hence don't progress at all. You can hardly blame the teacher for this! She has every credential in the book and some of her students go on and do amazingly well - the ones who take her advice and practise.

It's the teachers whose pupils practise a lot but still don't progress, or who develop untreatable bad habits - they're the ones you want to worry about.