Klarinet Archive - Posting 000211.txt from 1999/12
From: "Rien Stein" <rstein@-----.nl>
Subj: [kl] Touching pupils
Date: Wed, 8 Dec 1999 20:54:55 -0500
The subject has been on this list before. We all know, that a student
complaining about your behaviour can bring you into great difficulties, so
care must be taken in what you do. However I think there are differences in
culture between the USA and many other countries. When following this line I
think in the USA you are _guilty_ unless the contrary has been proven. In
most European countries you are _innocent_ unless the contrary has been
proven.
Of course there also is a proverb: "No cat is called black unless it has a
black spot".
When I was a teacher of mathematics in secondary school it has occurred to
me several times that I had 14- or 15-years old girls of which I always
announced clearly to my colleagues: "I will not go with her alone into a
classroom for private lessons ." With one of these girls I did have troubles
once, as I refused to give her extra lessons, anyhow. The moment I should
have seized her we were in a meeting of the teachers of our school, but the
day after that meeting she went to the school director to press charges
against me. Of course there was no problem about her case, she just was
trying to get revenge for events she had experienced in the past - however:
OF WHICH I WAS UNAWARE, and still am! Ands there is a point: take care of
what you do unaware!
Nonetheless: when I am teaching clarinet or saxophone, I do touch my pupils.
I tell my female students in advance I may feel there flanks to ascertain
the way they are breathing. If they don't want me to do so occasionally, I
will not touch them, but I also tell them it may mean I cannot help them
with certain problems concerning their breathing. My youngest student is
only 8, he won't mind, and my oldest one is 72, she too won't mind, but the
young girls in between -- I always arrange a meeting with their parents, and
tell both her and her parents in such a meeting, how important a correct
breathing is.
Of course my situation is a rather comfortable one, especially compared to
my American fellow teachers. As I said before here you are not guilty,
unless the contrary has been proven, but a cat ... . And besides I have
several times asked the board of our band to find a professional teacher
instead of me, but the board has turned down all applicants so far, thinking
I could do a better job than those professionals applying for it. In some
cases I even had to agree to that! Nonetheless I wish someone could take
over from me: I do a lot of teaching in a school building, and still have to
receive two students at home. (Remember: I am just an amateur). I think if I
were in the USA the situation would be quite different and I could not do
what I am doing now and feel necessary for teaching. But I think I could not
have been a mathematics teacher in the American school system either.
What I want to express with this long mailing is, that it is not easy to be
a teacher, but that the first thing to do, when you want to teach anyone
something, is to build up a relationship of mutual comfort and confidence,
Without these teaching will have no effect, and raise only nutual feelings
of annoyance. With these an atmosphere will exist in which it is possible to
give exzpression to one's deepest feelings and emotions
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