Pet Peeves of Substitute Music Teachers

From Piano Slave:

G'day, RHU!

I'm writing in with tales of being a substitute music teacher for a local piano school. 

Background:  I took lessons at this piano school for 10+ years.  I'm now in college, but during the summer, I'll fill in for full-time teachers when they go on vacation.  Since I took lessons for so long, I know a lot of the students already.  Sometimes we took lessons before or after each other, or we competed together, etc.  Even if I don't know them, sometimes they know me anyway from having seen me play at recitals and stuff. 

This is a public service announcement for parents/students on how NOT to make your time worthwhile.  This first part involves children who clearly haven't practiced but have decided to try to pretend they have.

This piano studio is not generally made for music majors.  Sure, we've got some really stellar kids in high school, but mostly, it's just kids who are pretty good but enjoy piano as a hobby only.  We're not deadset on having every single kid practice for an hour a day or something.  Especially since it's summer.  If you were on vacation, it's cool.  Just tell us!  If you're in some sort of camp and didn't have time to practice this week, fine!  Just tell me.  But don't try to pretend you've practiced when you really haven't.  It's a waste of both of our time and usually the lesson ends up not being very fun for either of us.

"But Teacher," you may say,"kids all learn at different paces!  Just because they cannot play the song perfectly doesn't mean they haven't practiced!"  And I agree with you completely.  Making a mistake isn't necessarily a signal to me that the child isn't prepared.  But if they can't remember what song in the book they're supposed to have practiced all week, are struggling with playing songs much easier than other things they've played for me without difficulty, and can't tell me what about the song is difficult for them when I ask, it ususally means they haven't looked since their last lesson. 

Sometimes, if it's just one song that they haven't looked at, it's not a big deal.  I move on, tell them that they need to practice it this week, and go back to stuff I can tell they've worked on.  But when they haven't done anything at all to prepare, it usually just ends up with me internally facepalming while they sit down and try to figure out what key they're in, which is something they should be doing AT HOME.  It's a waste of time, because it's stuff they know how to do already, when we could be working with other aspects of music that they might not know yet.  Parents, if this is your child a lot of the time, you have wasted your money (and your teacher's time) on lessons!!!

My second pet peeve deals with people who don't show up and don't call to tell me. 

I can't even get into some of the communication disasters I've had.  There are just too many.  My favorite are the parents who make a list of every lesson for the month basically saying that they "might" be able to do lessons.  What the hell does that even mean?!  The community is about 2 hours from the shore, so taking an unexpected beach trip here and there is not entirely unheard of, since the weather varies.  But your child's lesson occurs for only half an hour, one day out of the week.  Can you make it a prority enough so that you show up MOST of the time?  You brought your child/teen here to give them a hobby that promotes a lot of self-discipline and responsibilitiy, motivation and many other traits of high-functioning people.  That's why you said you're paying us $70/month.  When you just bail constantly, you're allowing them to think that commitments can be broken without warning, that taking frequent (and sometimes extended) breaks from practicing is okay, and that you don't need to communicate with your teacher.  It's not a good example and it undoes a lot of the work I've done when teaching. 

And aside from that, I think I've earned a little damned respect!  How would you like it if you showed up to work one day and the office was empty and you couldn't do anything but you still had to stay there for a shift because your boss didn't bother calling you?  That's what it's like for the abandoned musician.  I don't live at the studio, so when people cancel without telling me, I've wasted gas and time driving there to not do my job.  Pick up the phone and call the teacher if you're going somewhere or are otherwise engaged.  Chances are, we can even reschedule you!

Most of the time, I love my temp job.  It pays well and it's different every day.  If you show up and know what you're doing at least a little bit, we'll have a great time and you'll probably learn something new!  But please, work with me a little here. 

--Piano Slave

Comments

[The Last Archimedean]

I understand not being able to make it in to a scheduled lesson. But there's absolutely no excuse for not communicationg with the school.

[BookBitch]

Yup, yup, yup, yup, aaaaand YUP. After 10 years of teaching, my kids (and their parents) are mostly pretty well trained, but holy hell does it take a lot of effort with some of them! Now, I'll confess that I spent one year of middle school not practicing, but since I was suicidally depressed that was not the biggest problem at the time, y'know? I do make my families pre-pay though - at least then if they do a bunk it's THEIR money they're wasting, not mine. :-D

[susan]

I feel your pain. I teach horseback riding, just this weekend I had this situation occur.

Saturday, staff brought in a horse, cleaned it, tacked it, all ready to go, student didn't show up, no call, nothing. Yesterday, same student shows up unscheduled, and expects a horse waiting. I didn't have one in the barn because, you know, she wasn't scheduled.

Mom couldn't understand that we don't just keep them all in the hot barn waiting just in case. She also didn't get why I was upset she didn't show up when scheduled the day before.

She said she'd been told she could come to any lesson of the appropriate level. Which is true, IF you schedule it. I didn't mince words when I told her she needed to call and let us know ahead of time if her plans change.

[Lab Rat]

I wish I could tell you that not all teachers have this problem, but it seems that no one is spared. My dad works at a research institute and one of his jobs is to teach people how to use the cell sorter and the confocal microscope and several other pieces of complex equipment. You would not believe the number of stories he has. One of his clients' favorite tricks is to show up half an hour or an hour late or not even show up at all. Sometimes it's unavoidable- he's had people cancel their cell sorts because their mice aren't pregnant or because the experiment didn't work, but some are just no-call-no-shows. And these people have doctorates! You would think that they could at least call to say they aren't coming. And it's a pain for my dad, because it takes a couple hours to get the cell sorter up and running. That's a huge chunk of time. Some people. D:

[Queer Geek]

I agree with Susan on the prepaying idea. Basically, it's the parents money if their kids don't want to show up for school. At least you got paid for the day.

As a former substitute teacher, I've dealt with all grade levels of nonsense from the oblivious parents to the kids who can care less about their education and to the chool sdistricts with their heads so far up their behinds they have no idea what they're doing.

It's sad how education in this country is so disrespected. The government is arguing about education reform while the majority of the population chooses to remain complacent and use the blame game.

I see a sad future where kids are getting dumber and dumber.

[angie]

And that, Queer Geek, is why my education degree will probably never be put to use.

[TechTiger]

" How would you like it if you showed up to work one day and the office was empty and you couldn't do anything but you still had to stay there for a shift because your boss didn't bother calling you?"

I've had that happen. Someone decided to put poweron passwords on all the computers... and didn't tell the night shift. So I call our support, and get asked 'What do you expect me to do about it?' Um...possibly your job? So I sat there and read a book all night.

Two weeks later, someone decides that having all the poweron passwords be the same wasn't secure enough, so they changed them. Without telling the night shift... So, I sat there and read a book all night. Not my fault they took my ability to do my job away.