My biggest mistake as a piano teacher happened a long time ago, when I had only been teaching for a few years. I had this piano student around 10 years old and I taught her at her home. For the sake of the story I will call her Sally (which is not her real name). Sally had been learning the piano for about two years before I took her on as a piano student. She had certainly made decent progress in those first two years where she took lessons from another teacher. So naturally I took over where she had finished up with her previous teacher.
After a few months, her mother (who had never played the piano) told me that she loved the piano piece by Beethoven called ‘Fur Elise’ and that she wanted to learn to play it. I explained that to tackle the original version (not a simplified version) she would need approximately 3-4 years before she should tackle it. About a month later, the issue gets raised again by the mother and shows me that she has already bought the sheet music and it is the full original version. The next week, the mother is becoming more insistent that I teach Sally the ‘Fur Elise’. I reluctantly agreed but made It clear that I would only teach her the simpler sections (which also happen to be the most memorable parts) and that she needed to continue with the other music I was teaching her because it was gradually building her piano skills.
To cut the long story a bit shorter, this did not happen. It was my first experience of dealing with a pushy parent (and it didn’t help that I was teaching in Sally’s home where her mother could interrupt and interfere at any time). Over the following months, the mother became more insistent that Sally learn more of ‘Fur Elise’, including the sections that were entirely too advanced for Sally’s current skill level and the mother was also micro-managing Sally’s lessons. This meant Sally was doing less and less of the music I wanted her to learn (which was to help build up her piano skills) until there was no time in the lesson to do anything but the ‘Fur Elise’. The other consequence was that Sally was floundering with that piece of music that was too hard for her at the time and therefore her progress was very, very slow. After a few months of this, Sally quit piano lessons all because her mother thought she should have made much quicker progress.
My mistake was that I should have been firm with the mother and at least try to prevent ‘Fur Elise’ being played for a few more years. I have come to realize that, through my subsequent experiences of pushy parents, that some parents do like to dictate and control what music their child learns. I understand that I might not have been able to change the outcome of Sally quitting, but I did owe her trying to communicate better with her mother about what the best course of action was for Sally.
I have learned from my mistake and have been firmer with pushy parents. Also as a parent with kids learning other instruments, I have made sure that I have allowed my kids’ instrument teachers to be the expert that they are and teach my kids the best way they know how.
The benefit of the story of my biggest mistake as a piano teacher, is that if you are having piano lessons, allow your teacher to determine the best path to your goals. Please don’t be like Sally’s pushy mother and tell your piano teacher what you are going to learn and when. Communicate with them and let them know what your goals are. If you want to be able to play ‘Fur Elise’ then give your teacher that information, so they can build your skill level to the point where you can eventually play it.
Piano lessons have certainly changed over the years. Piano teachers once dictated everything and allowed no personal preferences in anything the student played. These days, piano students, whether they are adults or kids, are given choices in what they want to learn. Let’s not allow the proverbial pendulum swing the other way and have the student (or parent of student) dictate to the piano teacher what is going to be learned and when.