A good teacher for one student can be the wrong teacher for another. This episode looks at what shapes whether you're a good fit, beyond the numbers teachers usually reach for.
In this episode:
Why “good teacher” means something different for every student
The flawed metrics teachers reach for: student numbers, retention, exam results
What predicts whether you're a good fit for a student
The pull between wanting to be liked and needing to be respected
A personal story about a student who was never the right fit, and why losing her cost nothing
One small exercise to help you measure your own value more honestly
Links mentioned:
Episode 7: How I Built a 50-Person Waiting List
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 email that made me doubt myself
A cold drop in my stomach
I'm standing in my kitchen, reading an email on my phone from a parent, and I feel something drop, cold and heavy, right into the pit of my stomach. She's telling me I'm too expensive and too rigid, and that she isn't sure I have the skills to take her daughter through the grades. And she's framing it as a favour, letting me know before I lose more students, the way I'm about to lose her daughter as a student. For about 30 seconds, I believed every word of it.
Whenever I've received an email like that, the kind that feels like a punch in the gut, it makes me stop. I basically forget everything else I'm supposed to be doing, because it's clearly negative feedback that's come out of the blue, and I don't know what to do with it. In this particular instance, I'm sure I reread that email three, four, five times. It would have taken over all my conscious thoughts. I'm fairly certain I went to talk to my husband and ask his opinion, because when something like this comes out of nowhere, I need to make sure I'm not overreacting or completely off the mark. That normally helps ground me and make things a bit more rational.
But as soon as I read that email, it really did pick away at any self-doubt I had. My first thoughts were all, "Is she right? Have I got it all wrong? Am I too expensive? Am I too rigid with my scheduling? Do I really have the skills to take her daughter all the way through her grades?" Of course I do. I know I do. But it's interesting how easily all of that can be derailed by one unexpected email from a parent.
So if you've ever had a message like this land in your inbox, or by text, you'll know that feeling very well: the cold drop in your stomach, or the sudden spike in your heart rate, the bit where you start questioning everything you thought you knew about your own teaching. It's okay; it's a very normal reaction. And it doesn't mean that all those negative things are true.
This episode is about what makes a good music teacher. I'm here to tell you now that it's not a simple list of attributes. It's much more complex than that, as I'm sure you already know. The answer is different for every student, because what makes a good teacher for one student would make them not such a good teacher for another. In this episode, I'm going to talk about how to stop measuring your value against numbers that were never designed to capture it.
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.
Every teacher wonders
Nearly every music teacher wonders at some point whether they're any good at teaching, especially in the early years. You're measuring yourself against the teachers around you, or virtually around you in social media groups, trying to work out how good you are as a teacher. You'd assume those with lots and lots of experience know exactly where they stand, but this wondering doesn't fully go away with experience either.
I think it's such an important topic for us to think about as music teachers, because how we value ourselves, our skills and what we offer our students affects so much beyond that: how we present ourselves to our students and their families, the rates we charge, the image we project, and how much we value ourselves and our time. It's all tied up together.
I guarantee that if you scroll through any music teacher Facebook group, the conversation is almost always about troubleshooting: "I have a student who's struggling with X, Y or Z." "I have a family who continually pays me late." "I have a family insisting on reschedules even though it's not part of my policy." You read about it all the time. These are the things people post about in the groups, to ask for help, which makes sense.
But in my experience, I've hardly ever seen teachers talking about what being a good teacher means. And it's quite an important topic, because we all want to be good teachers, and there are so many ways to define it. Unfortunately, in most of our minds, the measurable sense of what makes a good music teacher often falls on things like exam results, which are a really inaccurate measure of a teacher's value.
Why criticism hits so hard
As in my example at the beginning of this episode, it's so easy for a single criticism, or a single piece of negative feedback from a parent, a student or even other teachers (which unfortunately comes across in Facebook groups sometimes), to completely derail your sense of self-worth. Because, for the most part, as music teachers, we're not all walking around with a totally solid, self-confident, self-possessed sense of worth. We tend to be quite a bit more humble and self-deprecating, more likely to think, "I can always do better," because we care so much about what we do. That dynamic means it's far too easy for us to believe the negatives when they appear.
Unfortunately, when there's a mismatch between student and teacher, these criticisms will come, because we're not in alignment with our students, and vice versa. It's not a good situation, but it's not anybody's fault. Not every teacher is the right teacher for every student, and vice versa. That was certainly the case in this example, which I'll go into more later.
But it does mean it's much harder for us to believe the positives about ourselves. Yet that's really important for maintaining the confidence you need to be a professional, run your studio successfully and feel comfortable in your own skin.
If you're asking yourself, "How good am I as a music teacher?", the question has a much bigger impact than it might first seem. It shapes your confidence. It determines the rates you feel able and confident to charge, and it changes how you speak to families and whether you hold your ground when your boundaries are pushed.
I've spoken about this before: I'm a recovering people pleaser. My default nature is to please people, and I have to actively remind myself when that's okay and when it isn't, when it's detrimental to me and my profession.
The next episode after this one is going to be about rates specifically, but rates are downstream from this topic. You can't set a fee you believe in until you have some sense of what you're worth: a real sense, not just whatever level your default sense of self-worth sits at.
"Good" depends on the student
The definition of a good teacher is subjective, and it will change depending on all the factors in the dynamic between a student and their teacher: the environment, the goals, and the parents' wishes, if it's a young student.
To give completely opposite examples: if you're a teacher who is really strict, sets challenging practice targets and expects diligence and proof of practice, that might be exactly what a confident, motivated student needs, or someone who's used to that kind of interaction. But if that student is shy or lacks confidence, it could be an awful situation. It could send that student away in tears, which is something we all want to avoid, isn't it? It could break their enthusiasm for the instrument entirely, just because of a mismatch of personalities, approaches and goals. That's why it's so important to get the fit right. And it's harder than it sounds.
When you meet a prospective student, hopefully in some kind of trial, you start to pick up on personality traits and try to work out whether this is someone you can help, and whether your personalities align enough for an effective teaching dynamic. I've very rarely turned a student away after a trial lesson (not at the end of the lesson, but in feedback afterwards), and it's never been a personality clash, thankfully. It's been because they were seeking goals I wasn't comfortable offering as a teacher. That's fine; that's why we do trial lessons. Recognising early on whether the fit is going to be a good one is really important, but it's not always easy.
When the fit is wrong
I read a post this morning from a teacher in a Facebook group (as it always is) describing quite an unpleasant interaction with a fairly new adult student. He'd had a few lessons, and she had a policy that missed lessons are still charged for, which, you know how I feel about that: absolutely, your time is not free. This student was refusing to pay and was unhappy with how things were being handled.
Very quickly, the interactions (all over email, I believe) turned quite nasty. The student sent some quite hurtful messages. Clearly it's a terrible fit. There had been a few lessons, and none of the obvious red flags had been raised. It's the kind of situation where, if you don't have a lot of confidence, it would make you rethink everything about yourself, your approach and your policies, and wonder, "Are they right? Am I being unfair?"
So having the right fit with your student is of the utmost importance. Not only for a long-lasting, fruitful student-teacher relationship that produces the results you want for your student, but also so it doesn't damage either party. And particularly for you as the teacher, you don't want to come away from these interactions with a hit to your confidence that has lasting negative effects on your life.
Strict isn't bad, it's just not for everyone
Going back to my example of the really strict teacher, I want to make it clear that doesn't mean they're a bad teacher at all. It just means that teacher is really good for the type of student who needs tough love, I suppose, or a more military-style approach.
Speaking from my own personality, as a child I was very shy, without a lot of self-confidence. I was tall from a very early age, so I stuck out, and I was very awkward. I've mostly got over that over the years. Most people don't realise I'm shy, because as an adult, and as a piano teacher one-to-one with my students, or with a student and their parent, it's much, much easier to be confident and professional. But my child self, I suppose, will always be that shy child.
As a student, I was very fortunate to have a very empathetic piano teacher. I had two teachers: one for just a year or so, and then I moved on to my childhood piano teacher. She recognised straight away what I needed, which was not tough love. I've always had a strong desire to please and to prove myself, but it needs to come from a place of safety rather than fear. She created an environment where she encouraged me enough and gave me enough of a challenge that I'd grow and progress well, but not so much that it tipped me over the edge and my dwindling confidence said, "No, you can't do that. That's too hard." I was very fortunate to have a teacher like that.
I've mentioned this once before in one of these episodes. My main piano teacher, the one I call my childhood piano teacher, told me when I was setting up as a teacher myself that when my very first, short-lived piano teacher passed me on to her, she warned her that I would never be any good. Obviously I didn't know about this at the time; I only found out years later, as an adult, from my childhood piano teacher. If I'd known, I'd probably have crumbled into dust, because that kind of negative feedback for someone so young and fragile (as we all are when we're very young and learning an instrument) would really have crushed me. And it was because I was shy and so afraid of making mistakes.
I'm telling you this because having a good teacher made such a huge impact on me and my life. It's why I'm doing what I'm doing today, because it instilled in me a confidence and sense of purpose that I want to share with other people. That's why this is so important.
Who is your teaching naturally suited to?
So I'd like you to think about your natural personality. Who is your teaching naturally suited to right now? And who might struggle with your approach, through no fault of theirs or yours? It's a really useful thing to think about.
To use myself as an example: because of this shy child living inside me, I can be fairly certain I'd be terrible as an authoritarian, strict, ultra-disciplined teacher who expected nothing less than perfection from my students. Students who want to be pushed that way would be a terrible fit for me. I'd like to think I could spot them a mile off in a trial lesson and direct them elsewhere, because I'd know I wouldn't be a good fit for them.
Whereas I find it quite easy to adapt to a range of students. It comes from the inherent people pleasing. I find it very easy to feel people's emotions when I'm in a room with them. It's a blessing and a curse: if you're around someone particularly anxious, it makes you anxious as a result, and I've experienced that a lot. But it's useful to be perceptive in that way, because if you have a student in front of you, and you ask them to do something and pick up on fear, lack of confidence or any other emotion, you can do something about it. You can reassure them if they need reassurance, or redirect them if they need a distraction or a break.
What I want to say is that it's not about lowering your standards, or trying to become all things to all students, because it's got to feel natural. It's got to be you, comfortable in your own skin. But I want you to recognise that "good", in inverted commas, only makes sense in relation to a specific learner. It's not a fixed, universal quality. When people say about another teacher, "Oh, she's a really good teacher," that's based on a number of assumptions. Unless you've been taught by them directly, you wouldn't know for 100% sure whether they'd be a good teacher for you. So it's all subjective, and that's the point I want to get across, to help you understand how you're a good teacher for the right students for you. Once you take this idea on board, you can let go of all that comparison.
For example, because I don't have a lot of experience teaching very advanced students, that's an area where I feel much less confident. If you suddenly gave me six Grade 8 students, I'd feel out of my depth, and I wouldn't feel I was a very good teacher for them. That doesn't mean I couldn't become a very good teacher for them, with experience and over time. But going from nought to a hundred, I can pretty much guarantee I wouldn't be a good teacher for them, and you could find other teachers with more experience. It's not always about experience, but in that particular respect, you can see where being a good teacher would come from.
Part 2: Numbers that don't tell the whole story
Number of students
There are a number of factors we might look at when we're trying to find proof that we're good teachers. I'd like to talk through some of them now, because on the surface they may look like obvious ways to measure how good a teacher is, but when you look under the surface, they're quite misleading, so they're not very helpful when you're asking, "How good am I as a music teacher?"
Starting with the number of students you have. It's a very common assumption that a teacher with lots of students is well thought of and sought after, and therefore highly likely to be a good teacher. There will be lots of studios with lots of students where that's the case. However, a large or full studio could just as easily mean they've set their rates low enough to attract volume, rather than offering teaching that's truly in demand. So being busy as a music teacher isn't the same as being sought after, especially if your rates are very low.
And aside from that, when you set your rates too low, you attract the wrong kinds of students, the ones who don't value or prioritise piano lessons. You can fall into a trap with families who maybe treat it as just another thing to fill their child's time (babysitting), and it spirals into a dynamic where you don't get the respect you deserve as a music teacher. The interaction between you and the student's family isn't as good, and then you get scheduling disagreements and payment disagreements and all the rest of it. I've talked about that in other episodes, but setting your rates too low can be damaging on many levels. One is that it can fill your studio with students, but not really reflect the quality it should.
Student retention
Another one is student retention. It is a useful signal of how good you are as a music teacher if your students stay with you for a long time, or a relatively long time, as opposed to starting and quitting two months later. If you're in that bucket, don't worry; I've been there too. Over the years, I've taken on a whole bunch of students who suddenly turned round and quit after a month or two. For some, it was a misunderstanding of what was required, or how difficult they might find learning to play the piano. For others, it was a complete U-turn in the hobby they wanted to pursue. One, in fact, was bought a puppy for Christmas by her husband, and that was going to take all her time. So it could be anything.
Retention in itself is a good signal, because if students stay with you longer, they're getting value from their lessons, and therefore you're a good teacher. But it's not the whole picture, because so much of it is outside your control. The puppy example is completely outside our control, and it doesn't reflect on me as a teacher. At that point in her life, she had a surprise present that takes up all your time, so it didn't make sense for her to continue lessons, and she didn't want to give the puppy back. Why would you ever want to give a puppy back?
Students moving house so they're no longer nearby isn't in your control, and doesn't reflect on your teaching at all. A family's finances can change quite suddenly, if there's a bereavement, if someone is made redundant or loses their job, or if family circumstances change. That's not in your control, and it's no reflection on you; it's just the way life goes. Priorities can shift, or the student can simply reach a natural end point, like finishing school and going off to university. That's exactly what I did: I had lessons all the way up until I was 18, and then I left for university.
I've exchanged messages with a teacher friend whose confidence was quite shaken because he'd lost several students over a series of months. It was almost entirely for the reasons I've just mentioned, but it shook his confidence and made him wonder whether he was still a good teacher. And of course he was; of course he is.
It's not that we're all fragile in terms of confidence, but the sort of people we are as music teachers means we take it very personally when students leave. We can't help it, because the student-teacher relationship is so personal. We're not just churning out students with grades, are we? We care about what we're doing. You spend half an hour, 45 minutes or however long every week, one-to-one with these people, so you get to know them really well. You understand how they respond to different things, and you go through the highs and lows with them. And of course, we all know about our unofficial role as quasi-therapists: if students have a bad day, they want to tell you about it, and that's okay.
So with all the complexity of the student-teacher relationship, when it stops because the student stops lessons, it's very hard not to feel it as a loss, in a way, and very easy to take it as, "I didn't do a good enough job to keep them here." But remember: student retention isn't everything. Students move away. Students change their interests, and when they do, it doesn't mean you didn't do a good enough job of teaching them piano, or whatever your instrument is. It just means it wasn't for them.
That's something I forget very easily, because the piano is so important to me. It's very hard to remember that the piano isn't that important for the vast majority of other people. But it's a good one to keep in mind, so you don't fall into the trap of thinking, "They don't love the piano enough because I didn't show them how amazing it is." Everyone has their own personal things that make them click.
So if you've lost a few students recently and it's knocked your confidence, I'd encourage you to look at the reasons the families gave you, the real reasons, rather than reading between the lines or reading into it, because making your own assumptions is never helpful, especially as they're most likely to fall on the side of "I must have done something wrong". Accept that it's part of being a music teacher that students come and go, and however much you love your instrument, not all your students will put it at the top the way you would. Some will, and that's wonderful, and you know who those students are. But moving away, going to university, or taking on a bunch of different sports so they don't have time for music is sad for us, and it's part of life. Children are so jam-packed with after-school activities these days that it's a good thing for them not to try to do everything. So just keep that in mind.
Exam results
I'm going to touch briefly on exam results, as one of those external measures we can all fall back on: "This proportion of my students have taken exams, this proportion have passed, and this proportion got merits and distinctions." It's so tempting to use this to validate your quality as a music teacher, because exams are standardised, people understand what they mean across different countries, and they're quite hard to argue with. But they're a really complicated thing to rely on as a benchmark.
I'm going to do a full episode on this, because it's a much bigger topic. But I just want to caveat it: we've got some really amazing teachers who don't go near exams and produce amazing students who are wonderful musicians. Just because those students don't have an exam certificate doesn't make them any less successful as musicians. It doesn't mean they're enjoying what they're doing any less, and it doesn't mean the quality of the teacher is any less. So, as I said, there'll be a whole episode on this, but don't take exam results too seriously.
Part 3: What makes you a good teacher for your students
How well you communicate, and check understanding
There are lots of other intangible things that affect whether a student thrives with you, and therefore whether you're a good teacher for them. One of the most obvious is how well you communicate concepts and skills, and how well you read whether a student has taken the information on board, or is just nodding along.
That includes introducing a new concept in several different ways, maybe over several lessons, if it doesn't click straight away, and having some way of following up to test whether they've understood. Not in an obvious "repeat after me" way, but getting them to demonstrate it. For example, if you're teaching rhythm, you clap a rhythm and they clap it back; then they read the rhythm while you clap along; then you give them another rhythm they haven't heard before to clap back to you. That's not a perfect example, but being able to check robustly whether they've understood something and taken a concept on board, and then whether they can apply it to the piece they're learning, is a really important part of teaching. I'd say it's the vast majority of what we do as music teachers: communicating, and getting a sense of the response from our students, so we're not talking to a brick wall.
We all know what that feels like, when they go a bit glassy-eyed. It's mostly young students, not adults. When I'm talking about something and a student glazes over, once I spot it, I pause, keep making eye contact, and move left and right to catch their attention. You can see their brain come back online, and I'll make a joke about it: "Did you go somewhere? Where did you go?" It is hard for kids to concentrate for a half-hour lesson, which is why it's important to break it up with different activities, including getting off the bench for off-bench activities. I'll admit right here that I'm guilty of not doing that very often, even though I have a whole stack of games on top of my piano. But being aware of the response you're getting from the student in front of you is such an important part of teaching. It's that two-way sharing of information.
How you adapt to different learners
Another aspect is how you adapt to different types of learners, because, as we know, students aren't all like you. You'll have a couple who are. At the moment, I have a couple of students who are very much like I was as a child: quiet, taking everything in, working really hard, doing all the practice, coming back and seeing the results, and still a bit shy. But there's a whole range of different ways students learn.
Part of the reason I love teaching, and I'm sure it's part of the reason you love it too, is that you can never get bored. It's like puzzle solving. There's always a different way to explain a concept or idea; you might need half a dozen different ways to suit all the different ways students take information in. So the ability to adapt how you explain something is really important.
It reminds me of being in Year 10. I'm okay at maths. I loved the sciences and was really good at them, but maths was my hardest subject by the time we got to A levels. I had a teacher who had literally one way of explaining problems, and if you didn't understand her way, that was it. I had so much trouble in her class. I'm glad it wasn't just me; my friend sitting next to me was also saying, "I don't know what she's talking about," while everybody else in the class was fine. When I asked questions, she really struggled to think of a different way to explain the concept, and I just didn't get it. So she was frustrated, I felt stupid, and it wasn't a good dynamic. It's a very vivid memory, but it shows how important that adaptability is, or, if you don't have it to start with, developing it and working out other ways. That's a lot of what we do, isn't it? We work things out in the moment, and try to explain things in different ways that will click with what the student understands at their age and level of life experience.
Chameleon or consistent?
A more extreme version of this is the idea of a chameleon teacher. Not everyone has to be like this, but it's something I identify with quite strongly. It's the idea of a teacher who naturally shifts to meet what each student needs, as opposed to a teacher with a really consistent, settled style. I'll say again that neither is right or wrong, but I think I'm more of a chameleon teacher than a set-style teacher, and again it comes back to the people pleaser part of my personality. Because I feel people's emotions so strongly, it's impossible for me not to feel them and respond.
So if a student is struggling, or maybe a bit anxious about trying a sight reading card, or, heaven forbid, when we start the aural work and they need to match pitch, which students over a certain age are often highly uncomfortable with, I find ways to meet them on their level and help them understand that it's okay. They're not being judged, they're not alone, and I know what it feels like. "It's just you and me in the room." I've used that phrase a lot, especially with my adult students. A lot of my adult students get really nervous before playing for me in their lesson, because it's a "Here's what I've practised; is it good enough?" kind of feeling. So it makes sense that they'd feel nervous, even though they don't need to, and even though I don't feel like someone who'd make anyone nervous. Being aware of those things, and adapting your words and body language to help them through, is really useful.
If that doesn't come to you naturally, that's absolutely fine. It's not a failing, and it doesn't mean you can't be a good teacher. It just means the good teacher you are is good for a particular set of students. So this is more about self-awareness than trying to train yourself into something you're not, because that won't feel normal or natural. You'll feel fake, and we don't want that, because being genuine as a music teacher is really important for these relationships to work.
So have a think about what kind of person you are. Are you comfortable stretching your approach for different students, finding different avenues and thinking outside the box (I know that's a bit of a cliché), finding other ways to put across the same idea? Or do you feel most comfortable, and do your best work, within a fairly consistent style you've developed? Being aware of which one you are, or if you're somewhere in between (we can't put everyone in boxes), shapes who your ideal student is. If you'd like to learn more about your ideal student, I've done a whole episode on that.
On the other hand, a teacher who can flex for more types of students does become accessible to a wider range of families, and that tends to support higher demand. But that's just a side effect of being able to be a good teacher to more students. We all have a ceiling, don't we? You can't take on endless students. That doesn't mean you can't have a good set of students you're a really good teacher for, because they fit the way you're able to teach. And it's certainly not a reason to force adaptability that doesn't come naturally, because you'll feel uncomfortable, they'll feel uncomfortable, it'll all feel a bit off, and it won't be a relaxing way to teach.
Liked or respected?
Okay, this might be a topic that touches a nerve, so please take it at face value. But it's an area I think is quite important to observe in yourself, and there's no shame in admitting to either side: wanting to be liked, and needing to be respected as a music teacher.
For those of us who lean towards people pleasing, myself included, wanting to be liked often outweighs the desire to be respected. I'm speaking broadly and largely from my own experience, but also from many teachers I've spoken to: the desire to be liked really does outweigh the desire to be respected, in its most basic form.
It shows up when you start bending policies, waiving fees, rescheduling lessons and basically bending over backwards, taking the hit yourself in time, income and stress, because you want to be liked. You want to be the helpful teacher who's not a problem for anybody. I say all of that as someone who has lived there, though I've obviously moved on from there, and I'm now at a place where I feel respected by my families as well.
You can be liked and respected; it's perfectly possible. They aren't opposites. You can be warm and professional, and those can sit together. You can be personable while still running a business with clear standards. That's quite a hard mindset shift to make, but I promise you it's well worth the effort, because once you get there, everything feels so much more settled, comfortable and happy. All the guilt, awkwardness and fear of rejection largely goes away. There'll still be some of it deep down, which, as I've mentioned in this episode, can re-emerge as soon as you get a bit of negative feedback. But for the most part, you can have a good balance of being liked and being respected at the same time.
Part 4: What happened with that student, and what to do next
The festival
Back to the story I started this episode with. I'd been teaching this student for a while, and the family were lovely. She was a lovely student to teach. She'd only had a short time of lessons before she came to me, so she was still relatively a beginner. She could read music fairly well, though not fluently. She could work out where things were quite well, but her rhythm was underdeveloped, as was her muscle memory for finger distances and so on. There were lots of basic, fundamental skills that needed developing. So we started with a method book at what I believed was a really good level for her.
After a while, she started coming in with different music that her mum had given her. She came in with a film theme she loved. It's a beautiful piece of music, but it was well beyond what we were working on, both rhythmically and in reading ability. But I didn't shut the request down, because that's not who I am. I said, "Yes, that's fine, we can work on this piece alongside the existing plan, because we don't want to abandon developing all those foundations. Just be aware that because it's a more complex piece, it will take a fair bit longer to accomplish." It did, and that was fine, and everyone was happy and on board, so we went with it.
I've done that with several students, and they're happy to keep working on the basics while learning other things, by rote for example. So it wasn't outside my experience, and it was something I was comfortable with: finding a compromise that let the student learn a piece she absolutely loved. She loved it, so it was motivating.
Then, later that year (or was it early the following year?), I decided for the first time to enter my students into a local music festival. And I made a mistake, which I admitted to: I entered her into the wrong festival class. I say "wrong" because if I'd understood more about how it worked, I never would have entered her there.
Some of the classes were divided by age group, and some by grade ability, which was quite confusing for me as a teacher entering students for the first time. I just assumed that if I entered her in her age group, she'd be playing with others of her age, some more advanced and some less.
Anyway, I wasn't there when she performed, but she was playing a much easier piece than everyone else in her class. The rest of them were her age, but playing some really high-level music. So naturally she felt quite humiliated and demoralised, because she figured there was no way she could win the class with an easier piece. Even though it isn't really judged on that, it wasn't a fair comparison, and I understand why she felt so bad. Then I had an email from her mother giving me feedback on the festival and saying how bad she felt. It wasn't a very good experience for them.
The email
Shortly after that, the mother sent me a message giving notice to stop lessons, citing all these reasons that had never come up or been raised before. She framed them as, "I thought you'd like to have this feedback," as if she was doing me a favour, so that I wouldn't lose any other students.
She said I was too expensive, and that there were lots of other teachers in the area who were much more reasonably priced. She said I was too rigid with my scheduling, which I'm assuming related to requests I hadn't been able to agree to, because my lessons are back to back. It was lots of things like that, and that I don't reschedule missed lessons.
But the one that really knocked the wind out of me was where she said she doubted I had the skills to take her daughter through the grades. That was the part that made me think, "Oh, is she right?" Because I'd got this feedback in an email, and it was what she supposedly believed, it really affected me quite strongly.
A sound process doesn't guarantee a good fit
The point I want to make by telling this story is that following a sound process doesn't guarantee a good fit. I believed, and still believe, that I did the right thing in taking her daughter back to the basics and trying to fill the gaps she had, without racing ahead, because she needed those foundations to succeed as an independent learner. That's what we want them all to become.
When the parent's expectations are misaligned with the teacher's, that's where things can fall apart. So even though I did all the right things in terms of what I believed this student needed, it didn't mean it was a good fit. The mismatch was really the mother's expectations meeting reality. It wasn't a failure of teaching on my part. And losing the student really cost me nothing, because if this is how it was always going to go, they were never the right fit. It just didn't emerge until that experience at the festival.
So, to really bring it home: not every teacher is a good fit for every student, and not every student is a good fit for every teacher. I said this in my final lesson with that student, because the mother brought it up, and I explained that that was how I saw the situation. She agreed, and she was content with that. So it's not a verdict on either side. It's just that the match between student and teacher has to be right, and if it isn't, the lessons won't progress the way they need to.
"I don't get many exam distinctions"
I'd like to address a few worries I've read about, or heard about directly from teachers, about seeing yourself as a good teacher.
Things like, "I don't get many exam distinctions, so I must not be a very good teacher." Exams test such a narrow slice of ability, under very specific conditions, and a well-rounded musician is not the same thing as a strong exam candidate. As I said, I'm going to do a separate episode on this, but it's not worth treating exam results as the whole picture, because, as we know, it's possible to train students to pass exams even when they're missing core fundamentals of musicianship and skill on their instrument. It shouldn't be that way, but it is. So it's worth keeping in mind.
If you have a cohort of students for whom exams aren't the priority, that doesn't mean you're not a good teacher just because you don't have certificates to prove that all your students took exams and got distinctions. It just means that's not the pathway you're taking those students along. It's a particular issue here in the UK, and I believe in Australia, but not so much in the US. The exam culture is very, very strong in the UK.
"I've lost several students recently"
Here's another one, as my teacher friend expressed: "I've lost several students recently, so I must be doing something wrong." As we've covered, most departures have nothing to do with quality: moving house, changes in family finances, or a student reaching a natural end point. If their goal was to get to Grade 5 or Grade 8 and then stop, and that's what they did, they've achieved their goal. Leaving for university is a big one. So if this is something you've felt, go back and check the actual reasons the families gave you before assuming it reflects on your teaching.
"I'm not the flexible, easygoing type"
Another worry might be, "I'm not the flexible, easygoing type, so I can't be as good a teacher as someone who can adapt to anyone." That's such a self-critical perspective, and it doesn't help you in any way. A consistent teaching style and a chameleon teaching style are both very valid. They just serve completely different groups of students, so your ideal student group will be a different size and variety. Knowing which one you are matters more than trying to force yourself to be something you're not.
"I have to be liked to be a good teacher"
And here's another one, which I think we probably all feel every so often, or fairly frequently: "I feel I have to be liked to be a good teacher, so if I hold firm on a policy, families won't stay." We've covered how being liked and being respected aren't opposites. Speaking from experience, it's entirely possible to be warm and personable while running a business with clear standards. And the families who respect your boundaries are often the ones who stay the longest. When you find your people, they stick with you and respect you. You're happy, they're happy, everything's professional, and it's warm.
Two students who needed opposite things
Something I think would be really useful, when you have five or ten minutes, is to sit down and think of two current or past students who needed almost opposite things from you as a teacher. Write down what made you a good fit for each one. That's a far more useful measure of your value than any single number, whether that's student retention, number of students, exam results or anything else. Rather than asking, "Who's the most popular teacher?", ask, "What makes me a good teacher?" A good teacher is someone who can provide what their student needs.
It won't take you very long, but I think it'll be a very useful way to reflect on your teaching without the burden of preconceived judgements and old ideas about what makes a good teacher. As we've discovered in this episode, it's far more complex than it first appears.
When you think about the rate you charge: if families are willing to pay it, that's real evidence of your worth. And if your rate feels lower than you'd like, it's worth asking whether it reflects your actual value, or an old idea of your value. As I mentioned, the very next episode picks up on this topic directly, looking at why so many teachers charge average rates despite being anything but average teachers.
Thank you so much for listening to this episode of the podcast. I hope it's given you some food for thought, and helped you with this idea of what your value is as a teacher.
