If you’re not willing to bend… you may just break!
I spend a lot of time talking and listening to piano teachers and what I hear sounds a lot like a broken record…
“He just won’t practice!”
“She can’t memorize her pieces!”
“He’s completely unmotivated.”
“I think she’s just too young to learn the piano.”
“I’m going to tell her parents she needs to take a break.”
Catch the pattern? It’s always “he can’t” or “she won’t”. But what these piano teachers should really be saying is…
“I wonder how I can…”
If you tackle every piano teaching problem by first saying, “I wonder how I can…” your students and your studio will have earth-shattering success! However, if you insist that your students change the way they learn you will drive them away. Square pegs will never fit into round holes.
Instead, you MUST always make sure that YOU change your piano teaching approach to meet the needs of your different students. Don’t get frustrated by what a student can’t do! Identify what they can do and run with that.
Become a piano teaching chameleon, changing your style to suit the student, and you will be on the path to success!