The theme of this post is how my approach as an instructor can make or break a learning moment with a student, and how every day is an opportunity to start over if I take it.

Having begun a new semester, many of the students I am now teaching are having their first experiences with me, and I with them. As a music teacher, I often establish a much more informal environment in my classroom and allow students more autonomy than they are accustomed to in traditional academic classes. I also develop a friendly, and mutually respectful rapport with students over the course of a semester. Sometimes the beginning of a new semester feels like I just switched horses in mid-stream. I often need to remind myself that the new students in front of me are not the same ones I’ve been watching learn and develop. I need to start from the beginning and be patient while a new class takes their first steps toward understanding how music works. Especially challenging is that I need to make known all over again what my expectations of students are and that, although music is ultimately a “fun” class, that there is a lot of earnest hard work involved in successfully learning to do it.

It’s easy to get caught in the trap that arises when someone in the class is reluctant to participate or acts out. Sometimes it takes every bit of cool I’ve ever learned to keep not to take sticky situations personally. When a teacher calls upon a student, it’s often the case that that student was either not paying attention, or doesn’t understand what is being asked of them. I usually choose whom to call upon based on who most needs help on that piece of the lesson. This technique usually functions to turn the kid’s focus back to the lesson; and is often, in fact, the moment he is brought to understanding. The exchange ends up providing a confidence boost of forward momentum for both parties. Unfortunately, the same moment can be a disaster for a teacher, and put a kid off the entire learning process. The difference for me has been to remember that whatever factors are contributing to that student’s behavior, I probably have very little to do with it other than performing the generic role of “teacher”.

I’m finding that if I can get past the tension of the initial stand off that arises when I don’t let someone off the hook; I can read the person I’m talking to, and consider what her experience might be. With a little insight it’s easy to see how choosing a different style of communicating might yield a different response. The hard part is remaining affable while trying to find an approach that hit’s home. It’s easy to get frustrated and impatient, especially when a kid becomes invested in getting the best of me. The upside is that even if I do let her off the hook and fail to teach her in that moment, I’ve still established some kind of rapport. I’m discovering that if I revisit the situation one on one, I can usually redefine the dynamic. If I acknowledge that the exchange went badly, and approach her with a renewed commitment and attitude; most of the time, a resistant student will open up and express some genuine interest in learning something very much like what I had been trying to teach her.

I had an experience with a young woman in my class this week that was a textbook example of how not to interact with a student, but also how to turn the relationship around and achieve a positive result. This young woman is very shy, and prefers not to be called upon to answer questions. In all of our previous exchanges, I had successfully helped her arrive at the correct answer and the way to find it out. This time, however, she was determined to not answer the question or ultimately even respond to me at all. I moved on, but reprimanded her, feeling frustrated by her resolve. I thought about it overnight and came to realize that I should have had no expectation of eliciting the response I wanted from her by creating a negative precedent. The next day, I took her aside at the beginning of class and explained my perspective and offered a mea culpa, asking that she give me a chance to work with her individually on a song of her choosing. Remarkably, she had already had a song in mind, and was eager to learn it on the piano. I showed her the chords and wrote down the notes for each hand, and she sat diligently for about forty minutes practicing the fingerings I showed her. During the following class, I had the drum set out, and got a percussion jam going. While I was not looking, the same student was playing an improvised melody in time with the drums, and with encouragement continued to play and make up new parts, all very musical and rhythmically appropriate. I look forward to teaching her more of the song on the piano tomorrow.

For now, good night