 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: Lelia Loban ★2017
Date: 2009-03-31 20:05
The threads about teachers and students, combined with the daily news media litanies of international economic woe, provoke this question: Do any of you teachers encourage students to pair up for lessons and teach each other? The idea is for Student A to come to a lesson, go home and teach the lesson to Student B. Student B comes to the next lesson, then goes home and gives that lesson to student A. They continue to swap, so that they alternate getting their lessons from you and from each other.
The idea wouldn't work with small children and probably wouldn't work with advanced students, either -- and certainly wouldn't work with unmotivated students. I'm thinking about conscientious teenaged students, whose parents may not be able to pay for weekly lessons but could split the cost with another family.
This concept of sending surrogates worked for me as a long-time tutor of ESL, which I expanded to mean adult literacy in general, and I don't see why it couldn't work for music. Money wasn't the motive for me, because I was a volunteer and the classes were free of charge, in a classroom made available by a local church. I instituted the flexible attendance schedule because so many of my students were employed in blue collar shift-work. They couldn't choose their hours. Getting to class at the same time every week was impossible for them. People in this situation tended to drop out of a formally-structured lesson plan. Without better English, and in some cases without knowing how to read and write, they were never going to get jobs that paid living wages for a family. These were the most motivated students I've ever encountered.
I had the latitude to do things unconventionally in there -- whatever worked -- so I started every new class session by saying that anybody (including anybody who had to drop out) was welcome to re-enroll as many times as necessary in the future and that everybody was welcome to skip classes when necessary -- but I encouraged them to send surrogates. That's a familiar concept in the Vietnamese and Mexican communities whence most of my students came. It drives local employers nuts when someone completely new shows up on a job and says, matter-of-factly, "Tio Marcos couldn't make it, so I'm working for him today." (Paperwork? What paperwork? Who cares *who* earns the money and pays the taxes as long as everybody gets paid, eh?) But in my class, the students were not my employees, the paperwork was uncomplicated and I was free to tell the students that I hoped everyone would go home and share the lessons with the whole family, because teaching someone else was the best way to learn the material anyway. That way, if one person in the family couldn't show up, someone else could come get the lesson and take it home.
In this class, helping each other was not cheating. It was just common sense. The idea was not to get a grade. I didn't give grades. I wanted everybody to learn to read and write English. Period. Word got around. Within a year or so, at least half of the people in my class on a given night were surrogates.
I wonder if the surrogate plan could also help kids learn the clarinet, if the only goal *is* to learn the clarinet by any means feasible. Kids who share the expense are a better deal for the teacher, seems to me, than kids who can only take lessons half as often as they need them, or kids who have to quit because of money. Also, the students share an obligation to each other that eases them away from self-absorption. They're not just thinking about how to get through the lesson. They're thinking about how to *teach* the lesson. They're relating to other people instead of navel-gazing.
Lelia
http://www.scoreexchange.com/profiles/Lelia_Loban
To hear the audio, click on the "Scorch Plug-In" box above the score.
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Author: Bluesparkle
Date: 2009-03-31 21:58
Definitely out of the box thinking. If it's splitting the cost of a lesson that's at issue, and not the ability to attend a lesson (as it was in your English class example), I think that perhaps teaching two students at once and splitting the cost is a better solution than depending on one student to teach the other.
From a parent's perspective, I have to nag over practice times, so you'd have to have extremely self-motivated students. Also, from a parental scheduling perspective, if my child was the one who got the "real" lesson one week, then I'd have to find another slot on the calendar for my child to instruct the other. It's really more like two commitments in one week, then it would just be one time the next week. That's awfully confusing to keep track of, and even worse if I have more than one kid with extra-curricular activities.
Knowing kids, there's also some pressure to be well-accepted by peers, which I think would negatively affect the teaching student's ability to present the lesson, and the learning student's ability to receive the lesson. It's either too hard to tell someone what they are doing is wrong, or it's too easy to tell them that. Being corrected by peers at this age can be humiliating.
I think this idea would work with adults but not with kids.
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Author: kdk
Date: 2009-03-31 22:04
Lelia, I think it's an idea that would have to be tested to know how well it would work. My gut reaction is that it would depend too much on the match between the students to be useful in a general way. Teaching a second language is different in a number of ways from teaching music (or, for that matter, a child's first language). And logistically, among the problems I would foresee with having students share lessons in this way is the unreliability of many students about keeping to a regular schedule of lessons. There are so many legitimate reasons - illness, school activities, family vacation trips among them - that can cause a student to miss. If another student is depending on him/her, either the cooperation or the tandem schedule will be compromised.
I think I'd rather simply have a student come every other week on his/her own without involving anyone else if money is an issue. For most of the students I've taught, every other week is enough if they're practicing between lessons. If they don't practice, it doesn't much matter how often I see them.
I think there *is* value in having more accomplished students teach or coach less accomplished ones. My wife (violist) and I have sometimes recommended our better high school students to teach younger ones we didn't have time to schedule or whose parents were looking for a less expensive alternative to a professional teacher. It seems to work well for both students.
If you do try this, I'd be very curious to hear how it turns out.
Karl
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Author: skygardener
Date: 2009-04-01 05:59
Lelia,
I can see how it may work in an information type class situation as you describe Kids do it all the time; "You read chapter 4 and I'll read chapter 5 and we'll swap notes at lunch tomorrow", but music lessons are so physical, it would seem really hard to teach two people via only one of them. For physical things like sports, ballet, etc, I am not sure.
One thing I think is good to help people save money on lessons is to have group lessons, but the same people would have to be there at the same time every week. This can not only save money for the students, but it can offer an opportunity to do duos with other students (not the teacher) and it can help them push each other to work hard.
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Author: BobD
Date: 2009-04-01 15:44
Oh, the non-player parents will love this idea.
Bob Draznik
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Author: lrooff
Date: 2009-04-01 15:52
I think it would be more effective to have shared lessons, with both students attending at the same time each week. Otherwise, it gives each of them two weeks to reinforce any errors made in transmitting the lesson to each other before you can see the problem and correct it.
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Author: mrn
Date: 2009-04-01 17:51
Well, this is not quite the same thing, but I sit in on most of my daughter's violin lessons (she's 6). While the teacher works with her I watch, and some of the instruction she gives she directs to me so that I can "play teacher" when my daughter practices at home (she knows I have a background in music). I have my own violin, so when we're at home I can demonstrate for my daughter what the teacher wants to see/hear and I can also play along with her, which makes it more fun.
It's win-win for everyone because my daughter makes progress more quickly, which makes the teacher's job easier, and I get to learn a new instrument in the process. The teacher not only tolerates my participation in the lessons--she actually *prefers* me to be there. She has told me that if I want to I can bring my instrument to the lesson and she'll spend a few minutes listening to me, too, but I haven't felt the need for it and would prefer my daughter get all the playing time she can, so I just listen and ask an occasional question.
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Author: D
Date: 2009-04-01 18:04
How about
20 minutes student one
20 minutes both students
20 minutes student two.
Means they both get 40 minutes, no gap where one is packing up and the other unpacking, they both get some individual attention and experience of group playing with all the associated benefits.
I can see the teach each other aspect might have more of an application in music theory - it's more of a stretch for the practical music teaching due to the physical aspects mentioned by posters above. But still, I can see some situations where it could work. Thanks for raising the point OP.
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Author: kdk
Date: 2009-04-01 22:46
This is the way the lessons always worked when my kids were taking lessons from Suzuki-style teachers as very young students. The parent was expected to practice with the child every day.
Karl
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