Students Leaving Because of ‘Too Much Homework”
Found in: Practicing & Playlists, Student Retention/Attrition, Teen Students
Carrie L., Michigan
I’ve had a couple students lately ‘take a break’ because their homework load has gotten to be too much, or so they say. I’m not sure what to think of this as it seems to be recurring. The students do often come back a couple months later, but it still isn’t good for them to have a lapse in playing.
Is there is a conversation that I can have to help prevent this? Perhaps something about piano can help them with their other aspects of life like homework?
Sheri R., California
I’ve had this happen before too, although usually it’s permanent so I tend to think it’s just too much on their plate. Just this week a dad wrote confidentially letting me know that recently his wife and daughter had recently been having struggles–a precocious 7 year old who had gone from loving it to feeling too pressured to fit it all in. She is a very busy little girl but at her next lesson she was quite relieved to know that since she is at the beginning of level 3 she doesn’t have to play every song every day. I also told her I wouldn’t give her as much to work on–she is a private student. I told her how she and her mom needed to stay on top of the playlist but how it could be managed without daily practice of the older songs. Maybe that is a conversation that needs to occur somewhere in level two to help circumvent this problem.
I’ve also told students when they say they have too much homework that piano is homework too. When they say they don’t have enough time I ask them if and how often they watched tv this week. It usually turns out that there is plenty of tv, so it’s clear they can find time to play piano even if it means cutting into tv time.
Another thing I ask a lot when I have someone play some new fragment 5 times in a row is how often they practice that way. Too frequently students say never, even though I reiterate and reinforce it plenty in the lesson. They come back after a week of practice with struggles and then within a couple of minutes know it better than they knew it with all the practice the previous week. This always seems to impress them! I show them how the quality of their practice is more important than the quantity and try to get them to see that–I often ask the rhetorical question of “would you rather practice for 1 minute and know something or play through the whole song every day and never really get that problem spot taken care of” or “would you rather practice they way you’ve been practicing with the results you’ve been getting or the way you just practiced which has you really knowing something and much more quickly?”
I think if they see how little effort it really requires to learn a new song relative to how much time it can take them if they practice without using all the tools and strategies it could go a long way to helping them stay on top of their piano homework as well as their school homework.
I share your frustration though as this has happened in my studio as well and I hope that teaching students that we are learning a way of learning rubs off more and more so they have more of a chance of fitting it all in.