Managing students with different levels of experience
Found in: Adult Students, Student Management, Students with Prior Experience
I’m potentially facing first experience of students with drastically different levels of experience and ability in the same class together and I’d like to ask for some advice from teachers who’ve been through this before. I realize that I could get many different responses to this question; rest assured all are welcomed! I started a class with 3 women of similar ages (60′s), two of whom have a fair amount of traditional training. The third class member was a dancer in her youth but has never played piano before. After about 5 classes, it’s apparent to me that the student with no experience is a slower learner than the other two and does not possess the same dexterity/intuition with her fingers on the piano as her two classmates (no surprise there). So far their class has gone great since a playing-based method is so foreign to all 3 of these women, and the class camaraderie/vibe is excellent – in short, they’re all having a great time together. Over time, I’m anticipating that the playing gap could widen, however, and I may have to split them up. Two weeks ago I started another student named Matt with prior experience with the intention of placing him in the aforementioned class. After one lesson, he came back to class playing DCT in all the keys and improvising on it in all sorts of ways, and then he started improvising on the fly when I taught him Jackson Blues at the second lesson. This man is clearly very experienced in a variety of genres already and has no problem composing or improvising way beyond my own level of ability to play at this point in time. He is a delight to teach and listen to, and we had great fun together in the first two lessons, though I’m not entirely sure *what* I’m going to be able to teach him since he already knows how to read fairly well too! I’m planning to have a conversation with Matt in the next few days to get clearer about what he’d like to accomplish through his lessons with me. Needless to say, I’m also having major doubts about placing him in the class with the 3 women like I’d originally intended. It feels to me like if he comes in, the least experienced student will need to move to another group fairly quickly because she will just not be able to keep up, or he will end up bored very quickly. It’s possible his presence would motivate the other two women who already have experience, but it could also intimidate them, so I’m not sure how that would work out, either. I don’t think I can give Matt enough supplemental material to keep him busy and learning new things with all 4 of them in the class together. The part I don’t like about moving the slower-learning student out is that she is clearly enjoying her classmates… and the switch could be bad for them, too. My alternative is to keep Matt in private lessons and see if other students show up somewhere along the way to form a class with him. I know he prefers to be in a class (precisely because I’ve talked it up so much!), but I’m really not sure what to do here. What are your ideas and suggestions?Rebecca G., Colorado
Irene S., Canada
I had a similar experience with an adult. He was retired, and had lots of time to devote to the piano. He as well had prior experience. He wanted to be in a group though.
So I put him in a group that was playing the same level of Foundation that he was in.
I told him that we would try it for a month, and if it seemed like the gap of speed of learning was too great, we would have to look at private, since he had previous experience and lots of time to devote to his piano.
At the end of the month, I asked him what he wanted to do. He said he would prefer private, as he felt like the class was holding him back.
So that is what we did.
Kym N. California
I heard from some teacher that you can still include those students in groups but giving them the Elizabeth’s Duet assignments and he can play accompany others have the fun of group lesson.
Robin Keehn, Washington
Hi Rebecca,
As much as I love teaching groups and find it very beneficial for everyone, it can be a challenge when you have students with various abilities, commitment, practice time, etc. The fact is that practice time has a huge impact on how your students are doing. In your group of women, you may need to have a chat with them at some point about how practice time has a direct impact on progress. It seems obvious but I have found that pointing out that it takes 10,000 hours to master a skill (read Malcom Gladwell’s “Outliers” for more info), it is going to take a commitment to regular practice to play the pieces well. When an adult says, “I’m not happy with the way I play this”, I remind them of the 10,000 hours and ask them how many hours they played that particular song this week. It helps them with not being so hard on themselves and keeps it in perspective.
As to Matt, he may be an exception. He may not fit into the group. Best to keep him privately and challenge him rather than try to manage someone who is so different than your women’s group.
Yes, you can manage disparities in the group with accompaniment projects, arrangements, comp and improv, etc… but it does require a lot of juggling for you when you are trying to work with people who are so far apart.
Rebecca G., Colorado
Thanks, everyone, for your input on this situation. Late last week after I posted this, I came to the very same conclusion Robin just suggested in her response (and that Irene offered too), and I called Matt 2 days ago and told him that I wanted to keep him in private lessons until/unless someone better matched to his abilities showed up and could join him in a class. He was very amenable to this suggestion once I explained my reasons and is excited to move forward. He’s going to be enough of a challenge for this piano newbie without my having to juggle a class dynamic at the same time! I feel very happy with the way this has all worked out and know it’s the right solution for me and my students at this time. I also love the 10,000 hours reminder and think that many of my students will benefit from that information from time to time.