Managing Poor Practice
Found in: Claiming Territory, Practicing & Playlists, Studio Policies
Whitney M.
I have been reading through the various chats and posts in Simpedia and am (finally) realizing I have been doing both my students and myself a great disservice by not taking a firm stance on practice. I am now wondering if anyone has a systematic way of addressing a lack of practice. In other words, if students come back having not marked the playlist that week, or they did not meet the minimum practice requirement, what is your response? My first thought is to ask them to stay after class, make sure they understand what was expected, and then explain if they do not follow the instructions again this week that we will be done with piano.
Unfortunately it has taken me a full year to get to this place of being ready to hold students accountable, which means this will be a change for some students. (oops Whitney). I want to approach this in a fair and reasonable way, and am not exactly sure how much I need to explain. Do you have students sign something that outlines your studio requirements? Do you just talk about it? If I call a student up to play say, Minuet in G, and they cannot, I want to make sure I check Minuet the next week. My feeling is if that after another week of unsuccessfully being able to do Minuet, it is time to part ways. Am I being unreasonable? I understand that off weeks happen, and I am completely okay with that. But, how much time do you spend on review?
My other concern is students who pull it together for a month or 6 weeks and then start to fall back into spotty practice habits. How do you address that issue?
Sheri R., California
What I do if someone doesn’t know the song is to have them call my voicemail at least 2 days before their next lesson and play it. I tell them they need to do this in order to be allowed to come to their next lesson! It’s their passport. Sometimes this means they have to double up their homework for the week because we may be getting something new as well. If it’s a small class sometimes I have one student teach another student, but a much quicker overview than what I initially gave, so the prepared student doesn’t feel like he’s being held back. I don’t always do this–it depends on the situation.
If playlist isn’t marked, I talk to them and parents about it and also have them, to the best of their ability, take time out of their class (while others are working with me) to mark it. Parents get better at helping kids mark when they see I’m using some of the paid lesson time to have their kid do something they should have done at home. Get promises from them for the following week, have them look at you while they say what they’re going to do.
I’ve never told someone that lessons will be terminated if the playlist isn’t marked. The problem usually goes away by doing the above, and if it doesn’t I just keep talking about it and taking up their precious lesson time (easier to do in a private setting) until it’s resolved. I’m getting better at it as I gain more experience and so will you.
In a private lesson I tell students I can’t go forward because I don’t know what they did all week since they didn’t mark their playlist, so we need to review. That gets old fast and students will start marking if you stop the forward momentum.
I remember once hearing Neil say that if a student didn’t do his homework (video, audio recordings, checks, etc.) he would just send them home without their lesson (although that is a very powerful lesson, no?!) and of course never had a problem after that. If you can be that confident then I would go that route.
Also, find out what their practice time is and ask them to really commit to doing it for one week. If they do it, be effusive with the praise and ask them how they feel about such a great success. When students see good results they are more apt to be regular in their practice.
It’s an ongoing challenge but I find that the clearer I am about the expectations and the more I communicate them to the students, the more students tow the line.