A few months ago I was reading a post on SOTW that was making me particularly edgy. A high school student was planning on teaching sax this summer, rather than getting a regular part time job. He was asking for advice, since he didn’t know where to begin.
The information he was being given was mostly in short bits, and all, for the most part, was sound. He just wasn’t listening to it. I don’t know what he wanted to hear, but he wasn’t hearing it. He kept clarifying his position. The more he clarified, the more edgy I got.
The reason I’m quoting this in my blog, is that I think the overarching questions are salient to how we as instructors, work with our students.
The original poster asked:
So, basically, I’m going to start teaching lessons over the summer to make money (I need to make $1000 by the end of summer). I’m going to be teaching middle school kids, basically that have never had lessons before. They’ve played a bit in school band but don’t practice that much at home. I don’t know where to start or what to do. I need help!
Thanks.
He went on to say:
Thanks for the advice! However, I kinda don’t want to waste time. I have the feeling that if I’m not actively teaching them a lot (in 30 minutes), then they’ll be uninterested and quit classes, and I want them to stay because I need the money
.
After people responded to this he came back with:
It’s not completely about money, as I know some of these kids, and I want to teach them actually. It’s gonna be a lot better/funner than working a job. And, of course I’m not gonna like force Rascher philosphy on them, or anything silly like that. I might tell them to do some exercises out of the top tones book though 🙂 .
I couldn’t take it anymore. I had to say something. So finally I replied:
Have you ever taken lessons before? What did your teacher teach you? How did he or she teach you? Did it work for you? If yes why? If not, why not?Those are really good places to start when trying to figure out what & how to teach.
As as an aside, realistically, I haven’t met too many middle school (any?) students that would at the “top tones”, or other advanced techniques level such as multiphonics or altissimo. At best, an occasional student “might” be considered intermediate, but my money would be on flat-out beginners. Most will likely not even have learnt how to correctly form an embouchure, so any advanced techniques would not only be over their heads, but most like actually counter productive.
A number of experienced teachers have already pointed these things out in this thread, but I’ll mention them again: Most students you’ll meet will not have been taught how to put their reeds on right; put their horns correctly together, or really correctly position their saxes when playing. This should be lesson 1 or 2 at the latest!
You also have to ask yourself, why are you teaching. Yeah, you want to make $1000. You’ve said that. If your students pick up on this, and they will, you will have 0 credibility in their eyes, and they really won’t come back, and you won’t achieve your goal of making the money. So you have dig deep, and ask yourself: Do you have any other reasons? Why are they? Really, what are they?
Let me give you a real example from my life. I started teaching clarinet and saxophone when I was in grade 12, and had a clarinet student who week after week, despite ridiculous amounts of practice, couldn’t do anything beyond what she could do the week before. After about 2 months of feeling like I was doing nothing but this
. I called her mom and asked her what was going on. I expressed my concern and said that I was getting frustrated (I was only 18, so I really didn’t have a freakin’ clue what I was doing, and only had 1 way of approaching a topic. If a student didn’t get it, I couldn’t change my style and method to adapt.) and felt that perhaps the lessons were not helping, and were perhaps doing just the opposite: setting the kid back, because of my frustration. Then her mother told me that she knew that her daughter had no musical talent. She was sending her there because she needed to build her self esteem. The kid had epilepsy, and suffered from really bad seizures. All the girl wanted to do was play clarinet, it didn’t matter how badly. But even if the improvement was measured in baby steps over months, that would help her feel better about herself.
This little piece of information changed my outlook on teaching forever. It might sound obvious now, but until that moment, I had never thought about teaching music as being about anything other than teaching music. That conversation with that girl’s mom taught me that students come for different reasons, and not all of them are musical. Asking them why they’re taking lessons, isn’t always going to give you the answer you need or are looking for.
So when I say you have to ask yourself why you want to teach as opposed to say, working at McDonald’s this summer, I guess I’m getting at the bigger picture. Are you prepared, and I mean really prepared, be a role model for younger students? Are you mature enough to understand that not everyone is taking lessons because they want to be a musician? Are you prepared to give of yourself beyond the 30 minute lesson time alloted? Are you able and willing to be flexible in your approach to your students so that they get something tailor-made for them, rather than, a “box” that they have to be put in?
…I particularly like your example about one of your first teaching experiences with the clarinet student. Some of my most memorable students are those who are “differently-abled”.So many middle schoolers (and sadly some high schoolers) come to me with such fundamental flaws in their playing, that any sort of extended technique is the furthest thing from my mind. Starting notes with the tongue, playing phrases, correct breathing, stable and correct embouchure, counting and subdivision are all things that I have had to remedy in far too many students. My suspicion is that our original poster might grow frustrated with these types of students, particularly if he hasn’t built up a repertoire of solutions that he stores in his magic bag and has at the ready when the first seven things he tries to solve a problem don’t work.
The original poster, and all young people wishing to teach instrumental lessons, would do well to do some serious thinking on the rhetorical questions you pose in your final paragraph.
In my opinion, we need to be careful, and not just generalize this to youth. I have encountered a number of adult instructors in my time, luckily only a couple in music, that have been anything but mature & flexible.
In my mind, these are the worst kind of instructors, since they too model behaviour, just not the good kind. There is an insidiousness about them that permeates their environments, and their interactions with others, and works at undermining the self-worth and esteem of their students. I have seen it at work, and at one time or another have experienced it first hand. It is truly nasty business.
As teachers, we should never underestimate the influence, both intentional and unintentional, we may have over a student. A simple comment made in passing, or in jest, can have a ripple effect far beyond what we ever imagined.
Besides being a saxophone instructor, I also hold a Master of of Adult Education degree. A few years ago, I wrote a paper on learning. In it, I pointed out a number of simple truths that instructors need to keep in mind when working with learners. I’m just offering them up here for your consideration:
- As a teacher, it can be extremely easy to discourage students. A teacher’s job is to support and nurture students, not erode any self-confidence that they may have.
- We sometimes only have once chance at making a difference.
- Sometimes a simple comment made can have a consequence for the learner that is completely undermining.
- A learner’s self-esteem and self-worth may be more tied into what they are doing than we think.
- Being a teacher carries with it an enormous amount of power. It can be easy to manipulate a student’s thinking, either intentionally or unintentionally.
