Studio Management
Summer Scheduling Strategies
Dear Friends, This is going to be my first summer teaching SM. I would like to see if any of you could share with us your strategies on handling summer scheduling. It would be very big help to those of us who are still puzzling what…
Some Students’ Morale Declining
Dear Friends, I have been teaching SM for about 8 months. I have quite a few students who are losing interest playing the piano. They start out pretty good for the first 3 months but not quite keeping it up now. They lose their attention…
Playing for Peeps -Fun Easter Contest
This is a fun way to encourage students to play their songs for people in a causal way… to get low-stress performance experience, to feel more encouraged & motivated by their playing when new people hear them play, and as an extra by-product maybe even…
Master List of Projects
I’m finding I’m sporadic in assigning projects in all the streams, and in an effort to be more consistent I am trying to plan differently. For my lesson plans/tracking I’m going to use the columns idea someone shared recently with Date, Foundation, Accompaniment, Improv and…
Lesson plan with multiple streams
There’re so many great supplemental programs available even for Level 1 now. I start to feel that it is very tight during lessons to use some of those supplemental programs when we already have variations/arrangement, and composition/improvisation. I would really love to give the students…
Bullying Parent
This past week I had a horrid encounter. A parent, during class, was very rude, arrogant, and aggressive in his manner towards me and and SM program. He is usually in a group with other parents/kids, but this week he and his child were on…
Reading projects in the Development levels
I am about to start teaching level 10 to a group for the first time. (I taught up through level 10 in a private lesson to an adult woman who already had piano experience, so this was a completely different experience.) I am curious how…
Time Management
I have a non-music related question regarding how you manage your own time in your businesses. I’m a new teacher, but also a mom of 3 with lots of other responsibilities (as I’m sure all of you have as well). I experience a significant amount…
Electronic Devices in Class
I would like to know what fellow teachers think about the following: Due to a growing phenomenon, I am seriously considering requiring all parents (and students) to please turn off their electronics devises while in the classroom. The continued use of cell phones for e-mailing…
Requirement/Non-requirement based studios
I would like to ask a more philosophical, yet altogether practical question. At what point does a studio become a requirement or, non-requirement based studio. Where is the line? I would imagine every teacher would have their own set of requirements – many would be…