Young Students Dropping Out
Found in: Musicality, Pedaling, Technique, Student Retention/Attrition
Carol P., Michigan
This week, after one month of lessons, two 7-year-old students dropped out. The one mother was very upset. She started by saying “We have some terrible news”. She even filled out the evaluation sheet even though the little girl only knew one song. It was a glowing review for me and for the method. She said “We just love you so much. Do you teach anything else?” She let the girl stop because she felt that she was pushing her too hard.
The other little girl is “high functioning autistic” (I think that’s how the mother categorized her). She was great. I loved working with her and wouldn’t have known that she was anything other than interesting. That mother left me a message saying that she thought her daughter wasn’t really ready, that she didn’t want to practice and they’d like to try again in the future. I’m currently having issues with bronchitis, laryngitis and ear stuff which is making teaching and communicating difficult on some days and impossible on others. For that reason I haven’t spoken with this mother yet.
Yesterday I spoke to the father of another new student who is almost 5. He wants to talk to me because he thinks she might not be ready. He said that he doesn’t think she understands the concept of practicing. When they ask her if she wants to do something other than piano she says “No”. She wants to keep doing piano.
I don’t have a lot of experience with the age group. I’m just not sure what’s going on here. These people have been supportive and demonstrated a high level of satisfaction with me and with the method. It seems to be boiling down to the practicing issue. I’m not sure where to go from here. Perhaps the 4 year old should be expected to spend less time practicing? She does understand what she’s being taught.
Any ideas?
Melinda L.
I deal with young children all the time, obviously, because I also teach Kindermusik. With piano and young children, I have found a few things, which in all honesty are completely obvious and you probably have thought of them, but it just seems to be the truth –
Truth no. 1: Some young children simply are not going to succeed the first time. I have had this happen and they have come back and have been successful the second time around – with a range of 6 months to almost one year and a half of time in between. Some kids are not mature enough to follow directions and have no desire yet to please in that way, so they won’t follow simple directions for the teacher or at home.
Truth no .2: Parents are so “key” in this process – at home they need to have a good working relationship with their child. If it is always a struggle – no one is happy. Some parents don’t have these skills and we have to be pretty careful about how we try and help them learn these skills without stepping on their toes and making an enemy instead of an advocate. Parents need to make music and learning fun at home when children are young and sometimes that is hard. If it isn’t happening at home, if there is a lot of stress and trouble between the parent and child. Suggest Kindermusik instead. Let the child learn that music is fun and joyous through a program such as Kindermusik before going into the daily routine of practicing.
Truth no. 3 – just unfolded in my last statement – learning to set aside time in anyone’s life to practice takes actually a lot of time and a lot of commitment. Parents really want – for the most part – for their child to just want to practice on their own. We all know that young children really aren’t ready for this and most will not succeed without that support. Once again – parent education – carefully stated – and reiterated. Because even though you say it in the foundation conversations, parents need to hear this often just like children need lots of repetition of activities to fully engage.
How can a parent make practicing fun? I would love to hear all of your ideas on this. I use the reward system – and talk with the parent about the possible ideas for rewards – ranging in stickers, skittles, a trip to the dollar store, a coupon for an ice cream cone, a special movie to be rented, time spent at a park etc. What does the child love and what is the child willing to work for? Obviously not all children need the reward system. Some find enough reward in learning a new song.
Getting in the habit of working and finding joy in the success of a new song mastered does not come easily for all students, especially young students. This is all new territory for them. I try and remind my students how special they are because they are learning and doing something that very few children have the opportunity to do and learn. I tell them what a great gift it is – and hope that the parents continue to tell them at home. I think all children want to succeed. It is a trial and error process in finding what helps them to do so.
I also cut the parents slack – when they often come to me and say they only practiced a little this week, or not at all this week – I say that everyone has off weeks, and not to beat themselves up over that. Life is busy and stressful. I want music lessons to take them away from that, not add to that. If the child is having a rough week, I might spend most of the lesson time teaching the parent something new, so they feel like someone is continuing to learn and then the parent has the necessary skills to help at home. If every week some little skill is improved on, or a new sentence is learned – or they simply enjoyed listening to and maybe began singing to the audio – that was a successful week. With all that goes on in families’ lives these days, I am actually amazed at the amount of success I do have with children and families learning at a steady pace and the commitment of most of the parents!
Sheri R., California
I seem to remember, either from seeing something on one of the teacher training videos or hearing directly from Neil (or both), that Neil does emphasize rhythm at the earliest stages. Even playing, no gaps, all of that. How many students rush into next sentence of Dreams before holding last note of previous sentence for four beats? First song and right away we can be emphasizing rhythm in all sorts of ways–clapping, patting students’ backs while they are playing, changing words, ie: “you are playing very even” for sentence one of Dreams, anything to get them connected to it. Rhythm instruments seem like they would fit right in and the more we do this at the beginning the smoother the Reading Rhythm program will unfold because they already get it and by then are just looking at what “it” looks like on the page.
I think, if we have students regularly clapping rhythms, adding a percussive instrument is just the same thing–after all our hands can be used as percussive instruments, no? Clapping, or hands hitting laps, or hands hitting each other’s backs (kids like this–in a shared lesson I ask them all to stand up from the “U” they are sitting in and turn to the right so each person is facing the next person’s back–the first person in line does it to my hands because my back is too far away–then we turn and do it in the other direction), or hands hitting the closed piano (I do that a lot) are just some ways of incorporating rhythm. Add some drums to the mix, or rhythm eggs, or those clacker things that belly dancers use.
Once Reading Rhythm starts, why not use drums? I haven’t, but if I had drums I’m sure I would. We are voicing the rhythm anyway–drumming is just an additional input that substitutes for clapping. I think we can be doing both to great advantage and though I never really thought of it before, reading your letter and now writing this one has made me want to buy a drum for my lessons!
I see better results than I used to with rhythm at the earliest stages because I have been emphasizing it more in the different ways I described. Once the mechanics of a song are known it’s time to get the rhythm right!