Klarinet Archive - Posting 000444.txt from 2000/04

From: Matt Goff <goff@-----.edu>
Subj: Re: [kl] Student motivation (or lack thereof)/ Lame Excuses
Date: Tue, 11 Apr 2000 01:30:23 -0400

On Mon, 10 Apr 2000, Patricia Smith wrote:

> I think it is critical for the student and teacher to be able to agree on
> what the student wants to learn, and even on what reasons the student wishes
> to learn an instrument.

I agree with this. I sometimes get the feeling that there are teachers
out there who will teach what they know needs to be taught to all students
and if a particular student does not want to learn that than he or she can
go somewhere else (and stop wasting the teacher's time). Sometimes it
seems that there are also students who know what they need to learn (or so
they think) and if they are not learning that, then they get pretty
unhappy. It may be due to my personality as much as it is anything else,
but I find neither of these approaches very appealing.

I think you are right to suggest that the teacher and student need to
agree on the goals for lessons. I imagine that when the student is young,
the parents need to be thrown into the mix as well. It is entirely
possible (likely, perhaps) that everyone will have different goals. If
these goals were not discussed then it's hard to know that they are
different and maybe troubles will come up later (especially if all
involved assume that there is a common goal). Have you (or anyone else)
had any experiences where the student and the student's parents had
different ideas about taking lessons? (the extreme example being that the
student was being forced to take lessons) If so, how did you deal with
it?

Matt

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