Episode 10: You Are A Professional Music Teacher
Professionalism isn't about qualifications, it's about how you conduct yourself and the standards you hold. This episode looks at what that means in practice for a self-employed music teacher.
In this episode:
What professionalism really means for a music teacher, and what it doesn't
Why qualifications and years of experience aren't the whole picture
How continuous professional development supports a professional mindset
How policies and systems either reinforce or undermine your professional identity
What a professionally run studio looks and feels like from a family's point of view
The small, everyday habits that signal to families that they're in good hands
Links mentioned:
Piano Planners - resource for child and adult students
If you find this episode useful, I’d be so grateful if you could leave a review on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to your podcasts: it goes a long way in helping other music teachers find my podcast!
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Part 1: The night I should never have been there
22nd December 2008
I remember it so vividly. It was 22nd December 2008, in Putney, at probably about eight o'clock in the evening, so at that time of year it was completely dark. I'd just finished teaching a lesson at a student's house, somewhere I never wanted to be teaching in the first place, and I was walking the fairly short walk from her house back to the tube station on my own.
Suddenly I wasn't walking forward any more. Someone had grabbed my bag from behind, which stopped me in my tracks. My arm was trapped and I couldn't get away, so I just started screaming and screaming, and no one came. I was all alone. Eventually, after I'd gone through many terrible scenarios in my head in what was a very short space of time, but felt like a long time, they let go and gave up, and I ran as fast as I could to the tube station.
That night has stayed with me for many reasons. One is that it was traumatic. But another is that it had a really big impact on me, because I never should have been walking that route at that time at all. I was in that situation because I'd said yes to something I didn't want to do, because I didn't yet believe I was allowed to say no.
How I ended up teaching at her house
When I first decided to start teaching part-time, I put an ad on Gumtree (I don't know if Gumtree is still around, but it was very useful). It said, "Piano teacher in training, looking for five students to teach piano to, £10 for 30 minutes." It was very successful. I was contacted straight away by several people and started booking them in.
One of them was a lovely student, an adult lady, and she came to my house for her lessons, as they all did. After a while, she explained that her young son got really distressed when she left the house, so much so that she and her husband had to put on a kind of masquerade, pretending she was just taking the bins out, so he didn't get upset, and then she'd come and have her piano lesson with me. This led to her asking me to come and teach at her house.
Teaching at other people's houses is something I never, ever intended to do. I'd taken the advice of my own childhood piano teacher, who said, "Make sure they come to you. Teach in your own home. It's a much better way to do it." And I absolutely agree, not just because of that one terrible experience, but because of other teachers I've spoken to who are so-called travelling teachers. Very few of them put their rates up enough to cover the cost of travel, the wear and tear on their car, and the extra time it takes to travel to and from the student's house.
Anyway, when she asked, I didn't even think I could say no. I was in full-blown people-pleasing mode, as I was back then, and because she was older than me (I was only 23, and she was probably in her mid-thirties, I think), I felt obliged to say yes. It was a sort of hierarchy thing, which doesn't really work, because I was the piano teacher. But the problem was that I didn't see myself as a piano teacher. I saw myself as someone who taught piano lessons on the side.
Once I got home after that horrible experience, I sent her a message explaining that I couldn't teach her at her house any more because of what had happened. She felt awful. She's a really lovely person. But I shouldn't have had to go through that experience to become strong enough to hold my boundaries. The decision wasn't really about safety at all. It was that I didn't respect my own boundaries enough at that point to hold them the first time they were tested.
This episode is all about what it means to be a professional music teacher, and how that identity shows up, or maybe doesn't, in the everyday running of your studio.
I'm Victoria. I started teaching piano part-time 18 years ago, alongside a career in pharmaceutical market research, and I made pretty much every mistake you can make when it comes to running a teaching business. But today I run a thriving studio from my home on the south coast of England, with students I love and a waiting list I'm proud of. I started this podcast because I want that for you too.
If you've ever said yes to a reschedule you really didn't want to do, felt your heart sink when your phone buzzed with another last minute cancellation, or found yourself putting off increasing your fees for another year because the timing never feels quite right, this is the podcast for you. I've been there and come out the other side with a teaching business that lights me up every single day, and I'm here to help you do the same.
"So what do you really do for a job?"
You might be wondering why it even matters whether we think of ourselves as professionals. Surely it doesn't make much difference? But what I've realised, through my own experience and speaking to lots of other music teachers, is that it has a profound impact on everything to do with being a music teacher and running a music studio.
I'm sure you've experienced this stereotype yourself. I've had students' grandparents, and students themselves, ask at the end of their piano lesson, "So what do you really do for a job?" It always makes me laugh now. But I know there would have been a time, when I was feeling insecure or vulnerable and not quite sure of myself in this role, when that would really have stung. Now it just makes me laugh, because I am a professional piano teacher. That's the identity I live in.
The stereotype that teaching piano, or any instrument, is just a hobby on the side is very, very strong here in the UK. I'm not sure what it's like in other countries, or for other instruments, but I know that in the UK there's a really strong stereotype of piano teachers in particular: elderly ladies, grannies you might say, teaching piano on the side to supplement their pension. Of all the music teachers I've met, none of them really fit that description at all. I've met them at professional events, and we're a community of music teachers who come together to discuss all things music teaching, because we're engaged in our profession, and we are professionals.
The mindset shift
For me personally, going through this mindset shift (and it very much is a mindset shift), from "Oh, I teach piano after work" or "I teach piano in the evenings" to "I am a piano teacher", changed so much about my confidence in every area of piano teaching and running a business. It gave me more confidence in my teaching decisions, and in how I do my admin: creating invoices, setting up automated invoices and all of that side of things. And, more importantly, it gave me much more confidence in holding my boundaries.
With this mindset shift, the underlying feeling I have now is that I belong here as a piano teacher, and that I deserve to be paid for my time as a piano teacher. That's not a belief I used to have. My identity was very much, "I love music and I love the piano, and I do this job in pharmaceutical market research, but I want to teach piano on the side because I enjoy it and love it so much. You don't really have to pay me." Of course I asked for payment, because that's the bare minimum, but it didn't feel good asking for money for teaching piano, because I enjoyed it so much (and of course I still do).
It was very much "I'm here for you as my student", but in an apologetic way, which is why I automatically refunded or rescheduled every lesson a student missed. There was no real respect for my own time, or the value of my time, because I didn't have the mindset that I was a professional piano teacher.
Whatever stage you're at, I think you'll understand the damage that previous mindset can do. If you don't believe you're a professional, it can do so much damage without you even realising. If you don't think of yourself as a professional, no one else will, and so you won't be treated as one. It almost invites interactions with students and parents that say, "My time isn't worth anything. I do this because I love it; it's just a hobby on the side. If you miss the lesson, that's fine, we can reschedule, because I don't mind giving away loads more of my time."
I'm saying this having experienced it myself and then transitioned to the professional mindset, so I'm saying it with love, because it was a very natural place for me to be as a people pleaser. If you're at that stage, I want to help you shift into the professional mindset, because it improves everything you do: your self-belief and your confidence, not just in music teaching but in every area of your life.
What changes when you see yourself as a professional
When you have that confidence in yourself and your decisions, that's what your students see and feel. That's what your music families experience from you as a teacher: the confidence and professionalism that reassure them they've picked the right teacher. It has a knock-on effect. It reduces the number of questions from parents wanting to check on their child's progress and make sure things are going smoothly, because they trust you more as a teacher. This is a broad generalisation of what I've experienced, but I have no doubt it will be the same for you when you make this switch, if you haven't already. And if you're already in the professional mindset, you'll understand what I'm talking about.
When you treat yourself as a professional, you naturally feel more confident in every decision you make. You're no longer apologising for being anything less than anyone would expect, and your own expectations of yourself are raised. You also get fewer requests for reschedules, especially once you start reinforcing your boundaries. If you don't want to reschedule lessons, you stand by your boundaries, and you find it easier.
The thing about this mindset is that the very first time you draw a line in the sand and say, "From this point on, I'm not refunding lessons any more," or "I'm not rescheduling lessons any more," that's the hardest step. After that, your confidence grows, because you tested the water, put your boundary in place, and everyone didn't leave. That's the underlying fear, isn't it? That we'll put our boundaries in place and all our students will leave. And they don't. But you need to experience it to get that bolstering effect that makes you realise, "Oh, that's right. I can be a professional. I am a professional." It builds on itself, and you get more and more confident, until you become the teacher you always wanted to be, not living in fear of rejection or of losing your students, so you can concentrate on the bit you love, which is the music teaching.
Part 2: What professionalism is, and what it isn't
It's not about qualifications
I think the next most important thing is to define what professionalism is, and also what it isn't. Technically, being a professional is doing something and being paid for it. But we're going far beyond that, because we're all paid for our music lessons. I hope. And if you're not being paid for your music lessons, please send me a message. We need to have a chat.
So the first myth I'd like to dispel is that professionalism is all about qualifications, letters after your name or years of experience. It's about how you conduct yourself and the standards you hold yourself to. All those things (qualifications, letters after your name, experience) are good, and they all go towards making you a better teacher, but they're not what makes you a professional. You could have been teaching for years and years, but if you stay in the mindset of "I just teach some lessons to some kids after school" rather than "I'm a professional music teacher", then you might have many years of experience making you a great teacher, but without the professional mindset, something is still holding you back from experiencing what comes with it.
I believe this matters a lot for music teachers specifically. Look at how many of us come to music teaching in informal ways. Lots of us start out part-time. We're generally self-taught on the business side, which might be a little or nothing at all, and we're all floundering and asking for help. Asking for help is a good thing, but we don't come ready-made with business acumen.
Lots of us don't come with a formal teaching qualification either. Here in the UK, it's well known that music education isn't regulated in the same way as, say, accountancy. But that doesn't mean you can't be a professional without a teaching qualification. There are a lot of really good courses out there. One is the Piano Teachers' Course, which runs several different courses. I did the CertPTC course a few years ago, and it enormously expanded my awareness of what else I'd like to, and need to, know about my teaching, my own professional development and my personal development as a musician. It just improved so many aspects of my teaching. We'll talk more about continuing professional development in a bit, but you don't need a formal teaching qualification to be a professional teacher.
It's a music studio, even if it's just you
The stereotype that teaching piano is a side hobby, "something I like to do in my spare time", is particularly strong in the UK. It says more about public perception of self-employment than about the reality of running a music studio. And when I say "music studio", I mean teaching from my home, and it's just me. I don't employ a bunch of teachers. But that's what it is: a piano teaching studio, because it's the place where my students come and I teach them. So don't be afraid to call it that.
Identity comes first
Thinking back to that first Gumtree ad, calling myself a piano teacher in training felt very safe, because I wasn't claiming to be anything I wasn't. I really was a piano teacher in training, and the training was the teaching itself, because you learn as you teach, especially in the beginning. My identity switched from that very beginning stage to a fully established professional, and it really was a mindset change first, before it was a practical one.
Professional identity is self-fulfilling. You get treated as a professional once you believe in it and behave as one, not the other way round. That can be hard to get your head around to start with, but believe me, it's well worth putting the time in to consider how you see yourself.
There's a lot available in podcasts and books about identity. I'm reading a book at the moment by James Clear called Atomic Habits. It's a wonderful book about how to build new habits and break bad ones. He makes the point that, in the context of our music teaching, if you say to yourself, "I teach piano lessons after work," versus "I am a piano teacher," they're two very different identities, and just saying them out loud affects how your brain accepts the information. It's a very strange phenomenon, and something I never used to understand.
That's where affirmations come from. If you've come across them and thought, "Well, that's a load of rubbish," it's all right; I thought that too. I don't walk around the house telling myself great things about myself. But there's a lot to be said for telling yourself things, ideally out loud, because if you say it in your own voice and your brain hears it, it makes it real. It's a very strange thing. It's like setting goals years ahead: "I'm going to host a recital" (that was one of my goals a few years back), or "I'm going to fill my studio with my ideal students", and so on. And it happened. I guarantee that if I hadn't taken those ideas on board, none of it would have happened. So give it some thought next time you come across someone talking about affirmations.
You don't need a music degree
I should probably touch on this here. For a very long time, I believed you needed a music degree to be a music teacher. It's not true. I've done a couple of posts on it, and it did raise some eyebrows, because some people worried I meant it doesn't matter how much you know about your instrument, which of course it does. For piano, at least, I know that as a minimum you need at least Grade 8 practical and Grade 5 theory, and that's where I sit. I didn't do a music degree; I did a biology degree, which doesn't really help with my music teaching, other than the analytical side of things.
But for such a long time I thought you needed a music degree to be any kind of music teacher. Over the last five years or so, I've met so many music teachers from all different backgrounds, quite a few with music degrees, who have openly told me that having a degree doesn't help them with their music teaching. That really flips the idea on its head.
If you're someone who believes you need the qualifications before you can call yourself a music teacher, or think of yourself as one, it's a myth. It's just not true. There's so much more to teaching than knowing about music. You have so many other skills you probably don't realise you have: communicating and connecting, understanding what the person in front of you has taken on board, or maybe hasn't understood, and finding another way to explain that concept, skill or idea. There's so much more to teaching.
So if you've been feeling you need to go back to university and get a music degree before you can be a music teacher, please be aware that you don't need one. If you want to get one, that's fine, but it won't necessarily set you up as a music teacher. There's a whole lot of other stuff you'll learn as you go, on the job.
Continuing professional development
Now I want to touch on continuing professional development, or CPD. This is an area that used to frighten me, for several reasons. When people talked about CPD, my only experience of it, as I was beginning my early teaching alongside my corporate job, was training days. They were immersive, and they took the whole day, learning about this and that. But because of the nature of the topics, I wasn't enthralled by them, so I saw CPD as training days you had to get through. Did they really help in the long run? I'm not sure. Of course they did, but as a 22 or 23-year-old, I was thinking, "I don't want to be in this unfamiliar place, learning about these things with all these unfamiliar people." I think that was my social anxiety showing back then.
My perception of CPD has completely turned around, because I've done so much continuing professional development over the last six or seven years as a piano teacher. And because this is a job I have a lot of passion for, I love the training days and the courses. Everything I've invested in has been massively enjoyable and informative, and it has also moved my teaching and my awareness of the world of teaching forward in a very profound way.
My original view of professional development was, "You've got to pay for these things out of the limited income you're making from lessons, so I'm not going to get involved, because I'm trying to build up my income. Why would I waste my money on that?" That's not how I feel now, of course, but I believe it's a very common mindset, especially in the early days, when you haven't got much money to invest in professional development.
But there are lots of different ways to keep developing professionally by engaging with other music teachers. The easiest is in safe social media groups. There are quite a few unsafe groups: they're so large and so public that you get trolls, and people with very strong opinions that aren't helpful to anyone's development. I'm talking about the smaller, purpose-built groups that are carefully moderated and private, where you have to answer questions to join. I run one of these groups; my Facebook group is called Piano Teachers Tips and Support. It's a safe place to ask all the questions you feel silly asking, knowing you won't be berated or belittled by anyone in the group.
There's also the Curious Piano Teachers, which is very close to my heart. It's a membership run by Sally Cathcart and Sharon Mark-Teggart, and it's a wonderful community. It's where I've gained a lot of my confidence, supported by this wonderful group of piano teachers. Obviously, if you're not a piano teacher, it won't be as relevant, but if you are, it's a great place to start.
There's a whole handful of other groups online that let you start learning outside your own bubble, because nearly all of us teach the way we were taught. That's fine if all your students are like you, but I can guarantee they're not. When you come up against different learning styles, experiences and motivations, that's where we have to pivot and twist and turn to find things that fit our students, and that's where speaking to other music teachers gives you a wealth of information and a starting point for learning how to teach all these different people.
Once you get your head around the idea of continuing professional development and take it on as "I'm always learning; I'm learning more about my profession because I care about it and want to keep growing", that's the mindset that separates professionals from hobbyists.
Part 3: The signals that show you're a professional
Exams don't make you a professional
One point I'd like to make is about exams. Putting your students through exams is not what makes you a professional music teacher. They're completely separate topics. In my opinion, exams are there to validate skills that already exist, not to churn out pieces of paper to show parents that their child is winning at life. I'm sure we'll talk more about that in other episodes. But it can be a trap teachers fall into, especially before they've really embodied their own professional identity.
Parents may well ask, "When can they do their first exam?" Or, if they're not your ideal students and you have some pushy families, they might pressure you into putting students forward for exams before they're ready. Just because your students have taken exams, and hopefully passed, isn't a sign of professionalism. You may still be the teacher who's bending over backwards, refunding and rescheduling every missed lesson and not treating yourself as a professional, yet have students who've passed exams. It's a separate topic entirely. If exams aren't a big part of how you teach, there's no need to feel you're falling short of professionalism. The policies and systems in your studio are just as much a marker of professionalism as anything else.
When a student leaves
So, beyond feeling and believing you're a professional, there are outward signals that can help confirm that belief. When a student decides they don't want lessons any more, for whatever reason, because I have all my policies in place, the adult student or the parent will usually send me an email. Sometimes it's a message, but most of the time it's an email, which again is a more professional way of communicating about things like starting or stopping lessons. They'll email to confirm they're giving one month's notice, which is the notice period in our agreement.
I'll reply, obviously expressing my sadness or whatever's relevant to the situation. It's not always sadness; if they've finished and they're moving away, there's still sadness, but it's not that they're giving up on piano. So I respond with something relevant to the situation, and I always confirm that they've given one month's notice, confirm the final day of lessons, and calculate the number of lessons available to them and what's been paid on account so far, so they have a final invoice to pay before finishing. That gives a winding-up period, rather than an abrupt end where you receive an email or a text saying, "I'm not coming back," and never see them again.
That's what used to happen before I had my policies in place. If someone wanted to stop lessons, there wasn't the same mutual respect. It was a much more casual set-up, I suppose. From their perspective, there was no requirement to give any notice, or they forgot about the notice period, because they had a policy agreement but I didn't reinforce it enough.
The difference between those two experiences is quite big. When a student leaves me now, it's not a knee-jerk reaction; it's calm and thought out, and I can plan some things for the final lessons. We part ways knowing I'm still a piano teacher, and if they ever change their mind and want to come back, they're always welcome. That's always how things finish.
But being ghosted, I suppose, when people just don't come back after the summer, is not a nice feeling. If it's ever happened to you, I'm sorry you've experienced it. It's not uncommon, and it's quite undermining. It feels like you've been used and discarded: they needed a teacher, and now they don't. That's so far from being treated with respect, and from how a clear ending process feels now. This is the way a professional business runs. Everything is communicated, expectations are aligned, and there are no scary surprises. That's how my policies work, and how they help reinforce my professional identity.
Piano planners
Another part of it is the piano planners I created for my students. If you aren't already aware, I've got three different types. There's the Academic Year Piano Planner, which I designed for children, and then two planners designed for adults: the Weekly Detail edition and the Weekly Overview edition. The main difference is that the children's one is based on term times, with lots of reassuring little statements on each page, and it's designed for children rather than adults.
I provide all my students with these planners free of charge, because I want them to engage with their practice. They're a good way not just to keep track of practice, but to set goals and maintain enthusiasm and motivation. We can also track the repertoire they've completed, and there's a whole bunch of really useful theory pages in the back.
Being able to provide this for my students gives me a big boost in my sense of professionalism, because it's a physical object they can hold, use and see every day, designed purely to help them with learning the piano. I'm not saying you have to go out and design piano planners for all your students. This was a project I did over a summer a couple of years ago. I've realised how much I love creating over the last few years, so I really enjoyed it. But it was to solve a problem I was experiencing in my studio, which was a lack of engagement with practice, and in the designing it went far beyond that, because it covered lots of other things I wanted a physical book to keep track of for all my students.
From parents' perspectives, it shows I'm not someone who just turns up and teaches. I've thought things through, I care about their child's progress in learning to play the piano, and we're not blindly ploughing through books and hoping for the best. There are goals in sight, and it's a really good way of showing piano parents (or music parents, whatever instrument you teach) that it's about more than "Let's hear what you've practised".
So you don't have to use a planner. You could encourage students to set goals that you keep track of, or write their goals in their notebook, so they have something to work towards each term. Maybe they have trouble with certain rhythms, like counting the dotted crotchet-quaver rhythm, or they want to learn a particular piece by the end of term, or perform a piece in their school assembly. Goals are very useful, and it's a very easy, small gesture to include in your lessons that shows music parents you care beyond the lesson itself. They probably already know that, but it goes one step further in showing that you take this job seriously and that you're a professional.
Recitals and feedback forms
Looking at professionalism fully from the family's point of view, there are lots of things you can do to help your music families see that you're a professional. Lots of little signals; it doesn't have to be one enormous gesture.
You may not hold recitals in your studio yet, or plan to, but for me this is an area that has helped reinforce my sense of being a professional. I run an official summer recital every year, and for the last two recitals I've started collecting feedback using forms I hand out to everybody.
Feedback forms signal quite a few things. They make it more official. They also say, "I care what you all think and what you experienced at the recital. I'd like to make it better, and I need your feedback to know what I can improve, what you enjoyed and what we can do more of." I got lots of wonderful feedback from the last recital, with families reflecting on how wonderful it is to see the children's progress year on year, and for them to have the chance to perform and all come together and witness it.
Collecting this feedback isn't only a really good confidence boost that you're doing the right thing. It also shows you care what they think, and that you didn't just hold a recital for the sake of it. Of course, no one would do a recital just to say they've done one, because so much work goes into it. And when you experience your first student recital, if you haven't already, it's the most wonderful day. Yes, there's stress and anxiety involved, but seeing your students perform is one of the highlights of my year. So if you haven't done one yet, or aren't sure how to get started, I have some free materials you can get hold of on my website, but more about that later.
Start and end of term emails
Another way I reinforce my professional identity is by sending end of term and start of term emails to all my students and parents, really just to keep everyone in the loop. I update them on what's happening that term or what has finished. Whether or not they read every one doesn't really matter, because I'm putting the information out there for all my student families.
It's a way of showing that this is a real teaching studio: we've got this many students, some have been doing festival performances, this many performed in the recital, some have done exams, and some have achieved their biggest goals this term, that sort of thing. It's also a good place to revisit any policies if you've been having some pushback. It's quite a good way of reminding everybody how things work if they're not all on the same page yet.
Music festivals
Music festivals are another one. We have the Portsmouth Festival for Performing Arts, previously known as the Portsmouth Music Festival. A couple of years ago, I started entering my students in it, and it's quite a big one. It's another visible marker to families that your studio is operating at a professional level.
It's no different from preparing a student to perform in your recital or in a school assembly; it's preparing them for a performance. It's just in a venue, with adjudication. They get more value from it because they hear others of similar ages and abilities play, which might add pieces to the list of things they really want to learn, and it helps them understand where they can progress to. So it does far more than say, "I'm a professional music teacher." It says, "This is where you can go," which helps families understand where their child can progress to as well. That's infinitely useful.
Your student families' sense of your professionalism doesn't come from a big label saying "I'm a professional". It comes from all these small, visible moments, not from a certificate on the wall saying you have a music degree or a teaching qualification. Those things don't mean much to parents and families at all. What they see is the real progress their child makes, and how engaged they are with learning their instrument.
Everyday habits and systems
There are a number of small everyday habits and systems I have that also show a professional approach to running my studio.
The first is that all my piano lessons are scheduled in my Google Calendar, colour coded. They're all put in as lavender, and I change them to blueberry if the student cancelled, or to graphite (the dark grey) if I cancelled. That way I can see cancellation patterns across my studio at a glance. The knock-on professional touch is that when I update a calendar event, for example when a student misses a lesson for whatever reason, I change the colour to blueberry and also change the event title, adding "(cancelled)" at the end. So it says "Henry's piano lesson (cancelled)". They then get an email update confirming that the lesson has been marked as cancelled, so it's logged and everyone's on the same page.
When I get WhatsApp messages or texts from parents or adult students, I keep my responses short and professional. That took some work in the beginning, not to over-explain, especially since most replies to these sorts of messages are reinforcing my policies. I don't get many of these now, if any, because everyone's on the same page. But in the earlier days of reinforcing my boundaries (not rescheduling missed lessons, and not carrying lessons over to the next term when I billed termly), I'd get a message like, "So-and-so can't come to their lesson because they have a school trip." They'd either leave it at that, or ask, "Can we reschedule for later in the week?" or "Can they have a double lesson next week?"
It's very tempting, first of all, to read that message and get a horrible twisting feeling in your stomach as you work out how to reply in a way that's professional but doesn't over-explain. So if they've asked to reschedule to the next week, I've got it down to quite a simple message, something like: "Hi X, thank you for letting me know Y won't be at their lesson this week. It will be counted as a missed lesson. I look forward to seeing them next week." That's very clear and states the facts. There's no apology, and no over-explaining.
What you don't want is to fall into the trap of: "Oh, I'm really sorry they can't make their lesson this week because they're on a school trip. I realise that's not your fault, so you shouldn't have to pay for a lesson you've missed because of something out of your control. Would you like to come for a double lesson next week? Or I can refund you, or take it off the next invoice." None of that, because all it does is communicate, loud and clear, that you don't value your time, that your time is expendable. It opens the door to all sorts of things that will eat up your time and reduce your income. I go into that in a lot more detail in other episodes. But responding to messages like that succinctly and professionally maintains the professional perception of your studio.
Part 4: Investing in yourself, objections and one thing to try
Make CPD a habit
Now, continuing professional development. I've mentioned it already. If you can, build it into your year as a habit, not a one-off ("I did a course five years ago, and that's enough for now"). It doesn't have to cost a lot of money. You can keep it going almost for free by getting involved with teaching groups, having meet-ups, or just chatting to other music teachers of your own instrument. You naturally talk about your students (anonymously, of course), the things you've come across, and problems you've struggled with or found solutions for. It's a very natural thing. So just spending time with other music teachers is the minimum level of continuing professional development I'd recommend, but it's still a very valuable one.
You can also attend events like conferences. EPTA UK holds its conference once a year, in Birmingham most years, around late August or September. I went to my first EPTA conference last year, and it was great, because so many of the people I'd met through the Piano Teachers' Course and the Curious Piano Teachers were there, as well as lots of other people I got to know. You're learning new things for your profession at the same time as meeting new people who are all pretty much in the same boat as you, so it's a great way to interact.
I'm saying this as someone with social anxiety, especially in large groups; I'm much better one-to-one. But there's so much value in making connections, even simple ones, with other music teachers. I'm not saying you have to go to these events and do networking or anything like that. We're far, far from corporate life, and we don't need any of that. But just joining in some conversations, or starting one with another music teacher, will always benefit both of you.
Investing in courses
I've already mentioned the Piano Teachers' Course I invested in. That was a 10-month course, the CertPTC. It had been on my radar for a number of years, but I'd never decided to go ahead and sign up, because it's just short of £3,000. You get some discounts if you're part of the Curious Piano Teachers, and you can get other discounts for it too. But when you consider the amount of face-to-face time you get with the tutors, and the value the qualification brings to your teaching, it's well worth the money. And because it spans 10 months, you make some really lovely friendships with the people on the course.
So it's a great way to kick-start your teaching if you've been feeling stuck in a rut, aren't sure where to go next, or don't know what you don't know, which is something we all experience. The courses the Piano Teachers' Course UK runs are always well worth the money, so they're worth checking out if you'd like to invest in something more substantial.
When you invest in your own professional development, you're reinforcing the idea that you're running a profession worth investing in. It's not, "Oh, I know everything I need to know, so I'll just teach, and that's that." You probably wouldn't be listening to this podcast if you thought like that, because that would very quickly get boring. And music teaching should be anything but boring. The moment you're bored while teaching is the moment you need to either stop teaching, or re-evaluate how you teach and find something that sparks your passion again. I guarantee speaking to other music teachers is the quickest way to do that.
"I haven't got a music degree"
I mentioned earlier that not having a music degree was a big barrier for me to becoming a professional piano teacher. I'd tell myself, "I can't really call myself a professional piano teacher, because I don't have a music degree." I'm sure I'm not the only one who believes this. So think of professionalism as the way you conduct yourself and the standards you hold yourself to, not the certificates on your wall. I'm sure there are plenty of highly qualified teachers who run deeply unprofessional studios, and vice versa. It's not determined by your certificates; it's how you run your studio.
"It feels arrogant"
Another objection I've heard from piano teachers is that it feels arrogant or big-headed to call themselves a professional. If that's how you've been feeling every time I've used that word (which is a lot in this episode), I want to reassure you that you're not boasting when you call yourself a professional. You're naming what you are accurately.
And when you make the shift to the mindset of a professional music teacher, it's the families in your studio who benefit, when you believe it enough to act on it. As I said at the beginning, when you believe you're a professional music teacher, your whole perception of yourself and your beliefs change, and everything improves. You benefit, but so do your students and their families. They all benefit from you being a more confident, more professional teacher, on the outside and on the inside.
"I'm only part-time"
This next objection is one I was stuck in for a long time. I taught part-time from the beginning, and only switched to full-time in 2019. Until I was teaching full-time, I really didn't count myself as a professional, which explains why I didn't hold up any of my policies, and had all those early non-professional mindsets, apologising for taking money from people to teach them this wonderful instrument I love so much. I really didn't feel like a professional the whole time I was teaching part-time.
But when I look back, I realise I already was one. I just wasn't treating myself as one. I was giving away my time by rescheduling every cancelled lesson. I wasn't charging enough. I didn't show anyone I was a professional, because I didn't have things like invoicing in place. I used to write in a little receipt book with carbon copy paper: the name, the date, "one piano lesson at" whatever I was charging (what was it, £15?). Then I'd tear it off and hand it to the student, and they'd pay me on the day of the lesson. It was a completely different way of existing as a piano teacher. Or rather, I wasn't existing as a piano teacher; I was a person teaching piano lessons after work.
It wasn't until I made the switch to full-time teaching that I really let myself say, "I am a piano teacher." When people asked, "Oh, what do you do?", it felt weird the first few times I said, "I'm a piano teacher." I used to say it apologetically, with a bit of a shrug. But once that shift had happened, I was, and I still am, proud to be a piano teacher.
When you're introducing yourself to new people and they understand what your job is, it's quite a relief. The number of times I've been introduced to people who tell me what they do, and I've no clue what it means in any tangible way, and they know I've no clue, but it's not interesting enough for them to describe! Whereas when you say, "I'm a piano teacher," or a violin teacher, or a harp teacher, or whatever you teach, it's very clear what the job is. They might not know all the ins and outs of running a studio, but it's an easy thing to hold on to in a conversation, and being proud of being a music teacher is a really lovely feeling. I love being able to say I'm a piano teacher, because I never thought it would be my full profession, and it is, and I love it.
"Policies feel too formal"
Another objection I've heard, particularly from piano teachers, is that systems and policies feel too formal for what is essentially a friendly, personal relationship with families. Yes, we're friendly and personal with our students and their families, but that doesn't mean you can't be professional at the same time. Warmth and professionalism are not opposites. Things like my recital feedback and end of term emails show that you can hold both at once. You can be warm and professional; it's not one or the other.
Having systems and policies isn't going to turn families away. It's going to reassure them that you're a professional. Flip it around: imagine you're looking for a teacher for yourself, in something you're not accomplished in, or, if you have children, a teacher for an instrument for your child. If they didn't have any policies, that would probably start ringing alarm bells, even if you weren't conscious of it, because every service and business we deal with these days has some kind of terms and conditions to sign. If that doesn't exist, it communicates an absence of professionalism, not the other way round.
So if having systems and policies feels a bit stuffy, think about the alternative. I think you'll agree it's better to have policies, be respected as a professional, and know you can still have lovely, warm relationships with your students and families. It's not one or the other.
Say it out loud
As we usually do at the end of an episode, I'd like to give you one small thing to take away and do, so you can start to change how you see yourself as a professional. I was trying to think of the one thing that would help most people, and I think the simplest is the affirmation-style activity. Even if you feel silly (just make sure no one else is around), say it out loud with your instrument. I'll use piano, because that's what I teach: "I am a piano teacher."
If that's the first time you've said it out loud, it's going to feel weird. Or whatever you teach: if you teach harp, "I am a harp teacher." If that feels comfortable, you could move on to "I am a professional harp teacher." Saying it out loud has a significant impact on your sense of professional identity, even though it won't feel like it. If you do it every morning when you wake up ("I am a professional piano teacher"), just say it to yourself and get on with your day, it seeps into your sense of identity, and over time you believe what you're saying.
So if you don't feel like a professional yet, and you still introduce yourself as someone who teaches piano lessons on the side or in your spare time, this is the sort of thing that will help you shift into seeing yourself as the professional you already are. It will help your teaching and your families in many ways.
Please do visit the show notes for more information and links to the resources I've mentioned in this episode. Thank you very much for listening. I hope this episode has helped you consider something that may have been at the back of your mind, or helped you realise that you didn't really think of yourself as a professional, so it can help you on your way to becoming the professional you are. See you next time.
