I haven't mentioned it a whole lot, but since July, I have been teaching piano to a 13 year old boy. There is no way I can tell you why or how I got into this because even I don't know. Either way, it's been another cool experience.
It seems like such a long time ago now, but for about three(maybe four? - my memory fails me) years before I left for school, I'd taught guitar to 5 or 6 kids. In my eyes, it was a failed experiment. I came to the conclusion that I wasted their time and money. While the majority of the parents who had approached me about it mostly wanted for their kids to get some outside interactions in, I wanted to give them the opportunity to take something valuable away from it. If you asked me today whether or not the kids still play the guitar, I'd probably say no.
So, why, then did I agree to teach piano? Great question! Like I said, I have no idea. I think I was just too nice to say no, and that the mom really wanted me to do it.
Teaching piano has been a little different because I'm mostly teaching just to see if the kid would do better with me, in terms of his interest for the skill. I don't think he's particularly amazing at piano, but he has the ability to pick things up quickly.
So this is where my frustration comes in: I know exactly what it's like on both sides now. I was pretty good at piano, not the best, but I did well. And my teachers probably knew that I could be very good too. The only problem was how much I hated it, and I knew very well how frustrated my teachers had gotten because I would never practice; or when I did, it was very sloppy practice. So now that I am seeing it from the teacher's side, I am sorry for all the grief that I've caused my piano teachers. Haha. I don't want to go so far to say that it's a waste of time when the student shows up for his/her lesson and they obviously didn't practice very much, but it's bordering that. Since about the beginning of October, I have been working on the same things with my student. I wanted to throw in a 3rd song for him to play, but his progress on the 2 just doesn't allow me to.
It's tough as a teacher because you often wonder if it's something you can do to help your students be more interested in what they're doing. Am I picking the right songs? Am I making things clear enough? Is the work load too much? The list goes on.
When I leave, Joshua will be going back to his old teacher, and I hope that she will have seen at least a bit of change in his approach to playing piano. I find that the way I teach is probably not very interesting to people. I almost always go back to the fundamentals, things that include posture, hand and arm positions, warm up routines, etc. I hated doing these things when I learned my stuff, but I knew that they pay off. These things are pretty boring and tedious, but they're just so necessary in building your core for almost any skill or trait. If it came down to it in music, I'd honestly teach all my students theory before they even touched the instrument.
But that's just me.
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