Students
How Much Parental Support Is Really Needed?
The following is a series of responses to a question that, in one way or another, comes up for us all. I have included some different perspectives, all from different teachers, so that you can get a sense of how challenging it can be to…
Parent disappointment Issues – Discontinuing Lessons
Sometimes I want to vent all over Facebook or wherever else how disappointing some parents/students can be, but I dare not say anything, because it seems likely to only work against success in cultivating business. Here, though, seems a safe place for me to vent…
Frustrated Parent
I have a student (female, age 10) who is about to start FL3. She plays well and beautifully. However, for a while now, her parents have been struggling to get her to practice. Actually, it has been so bad that her mom emailed me that she wasn’t…
Teaching Simply Music Full Time
I have been teaching for just a couple of months now (and having a great time at it). I currently have seven students, with another two families signed up for a FIS this week. I am considering expanding my studio in order to teach fulltime…
Parents Concerned the Reading Hasn’t Been Introduced
I’ve noticed sort of a trend, or maybe just a tendency, crop up around level 4 – 5. Parents start getting really antsy about reading, and worried about all the money they have invested in piano lessons. It’s been over a year, and their kid…
Coaching Parents Through the Valleys
We had a one week school break this month and, predictably, several families came back from Cancun or Bora Bora having decided to quit piano. In at least a couple more cases the parents called to say the child WANTED to quit piano, refused to…
Recital Cost
Greetings all – how do you cover the costs of your recitals (I am primarily thinking of facility rental costs)? As a parent, we have had a music teacher who asked parents of students participating in the recital to contribute $10 as well as snacks,…
Handling it When Students Leave
For various reasons, I have only been available to teach a fairly small number of students one-on-one (an average of about eight) since beginning teaching Simply Music just over a year ago. Fortunately it has been enough to become experienced which has been great. I…
Attrition Questions and Solutions
We are concerned about reported high attrition rates and we would like to hear from experienced teachers on this issue so that we can identify patterns and issues and then develop strategies to reduce attrition. We’re referring to yearly attrition rates, not monthly. Here are…
Territory and Teaching Experience
I had an interesting conversation with a student today and I wonder if anyone has any thoughts… It started because I had a comment on an evaluation form that Simply Music lessons are overpriced. I realized that the student hadn’t attended an FIS and thus…