All About Choosing Piano Schools And Teachers

[Dreamaurora]

I would like the present the flip side of the coins; I apologize in advance if I anger anyone here.


Just like teachers who travel are generally not good, the same is true for the parents or students that ask teachers to travel. I used to travel to student place for around half a year and quickly realized it is not a viable environment to teach. Students get distracted easily and parents were generally not so interested in the children.

I have since fully switched to full private and i can’t be happier. By forcing students to travel, this effectively eliminates the not serious ones. Also because the students have to sacrifice their times to come for lesson, they will work harder to ensure they get the most from the lessons. It is also easier to organize extra activities such as group lessons or duets with a proper home studio.

I have to admit it is considerably harder to get more students as a non traveling teacher, especially that I am considered still relatively new to the field. But hey, quality over quantity.

[sleepy]

From parents’ perspective, ideally prefer teacher to come to student’s house.


It’s rather disruptive to child’s busy schedule if need to travel to & fro. Say for example lesson on afternoon 3pm, need to start preparing at 2:15pm, leave the house latest by 2:30pm depending how far is teacher’s house or music school, sometimes need to leave house even earlier if congested carpark. Don’t want to be late since every minute counts in piano lesson.

Lesson ends at 3:45pm. By the time reach home, assuming 4:15pm. Again, child needs time to settle down, change clothes, dilly dally almost 5pm then can really sit down to start doing school work. Between 2:15pm to 5pm, it’s 2 hours & 45 minutes in total although actual lesson time is merely 45 minutes.

That extra 2 hours child could have finish up school work earlier & rest or read books.

Having said that, I believe parents are still willing to travel to teacher’s house if convinced of higher teaching quality & if within reasonable travelling distance.

[peanut_butter]

Many of my home-tuition parents are involved in their children’s practices.


I may not be a world class teacher. But I am not those inferior ones either. It also takes a lot of teaching 'intuition' to do the job besides the qualifications and experiences. I do lots of traveling (50%) because I am not established yet. I charge more than the schools around my studio. I do quarterly class-hour to weed out the bad students. I also turned down parents who ask for discounts.

The down side is that I ended up home-tutoring in the ‘rich’ areas. When they change their school schedule next year, we will run into some schedule problems. And yes, organising extra activities is a serious problem and doing a duet is a fantasy.

[sleepy]

nissin:

O gosh..really? Gd teachers dun travel?

I have just found one who is willing to travel to my plc..$130 for 45min,4 lessons.She has a diploma, 11 years of teaching experience. Hope she is good! :xedfingers:

Equally important is the chemistry & whether teacher can engage the child especially for beginner learner.

I engaged a diploma teacher many years ago. Teacher taught for 20 years & willing to travel to my place. $90 for 30 minutes. On paper sounds good & fee reasonable.

But teacher cannot engage my dd. dd1 totally gave up learning piano after 1 year because she felt that piano lesson was way too boring. We were too inexprienced at that time to realise that teacher's teaching style is not appealing to very young children. We should have change teacher.

Hence, finding the right teacher is very important. Check for chemistry & make sure teacher doesn't kill interests instead.

[nissin]

sleepy:

nissin:

O gosh..really? Gd teachers dun travel?

I have just found one who is willing to travel to my plc..$130 for 45min,4 lessons.She has a diploma, 11 years of teaching experience. Hope she is good! :xedfingers:

Sometimes cannot simply look at qualification or teaching experience. Equally important is the chemistry & whether teacher can engage the child especially for beginner learner.

I engaged a diploma teacher many years ago. Teacher taught for 20 years & willing to travel to my place. $90 for 30 minutes. On paper sounds good & fee reasonable.

But teacher cannot engage my dd. dd1 totally gave up learning piano after 1 year because she felt that piano lesson was
way too boring. We were too inexprienced at that time to realise that teacher's teaching style is not appealing to very young children. We should
have change teacher.
Hence, finding the right teacher is very important. Check for chemistry &
make sure teacher doesn't kill interests instead.

This is a problem. How do we parents,with no music background know if the teacher is good.? I can only engage them thru sourcing on my own, recommendations or hearsay based on my budget and location preference. It's really not easy at all..

Yes, I believe if the kid likes the teacher, he will love the lessons but loving and enjoying is one thing, is he learning all the techniques correctly is
another issue(though I will not know cos i really know nuts about it :scratchhead: ) best is to have it all within my budget. Kekeke

Argggg...anyway I m still sourcing around. Is your current teacher ok? Can u give me his/her contact so I can include her in my list of potential teachers? Tks!

[Dreamaurora]

peanut_butter:

Many of my home-tuition parents are involved in their children’s practices.


I may not be a world class teacher. But I am not those inferior ones either. It also takes a lot of teaching 'intuition' to do the job besides the qualifications and experiences. I do lots of traveling (50%) because I am not established yet. I charge more than the schools around my studio. I do quarterly class-hour to weed out the bad students. I also turned down parents who ask for discounts.

The down side is that I ended up home-tutoring in the ‘rich’ areas. When they change their school schedule next year, we will run into some schedule problems. And yes, organising extra activities is a serious problem and doing a duet is a fantasy.

I share your view. Unfortunately many parents or students do not realize the importance of these extra activities. Without extra activities outside lesson, learning piano is a very dry process that is devoid of any social interaction. Take for example performance class. School of young talents have it once a week. I like most other teachers have it once a month. Ever since I started it, I have noticed an enormous improvement in students' motivation level. The impact of watching other students play well can inspire students. Stude concerts are a necessity too to provide avenues for students to perform beside music exams.

and I said this plenty of times already, students are a teacher's best advertisement. Visit a teacher's student concerts or group class to see the students in action.

And I am going to say this out even though I know I am going to offend so many teachers. Any teacher who does not provide students performance oppurtunities is a mediocre teacher.

[sleepy]

nissin:

How do we parents,with no music background know if the teacher is good.? I can only engage them thru sourcing on my own, recommendations or hearsay based on my budget and location preference. It's really not easy at all..

Me too, zero music background. Thus can only share my kids' learning journey Can't tell how good is teacher technically

Based on my prior experience with dd1, I took a different approach the second time round & decided to start dd2 with group lessons in Seimpi. Group lessons generally more fun & lesson plan seems structured. After dd2 shown keen interest in continuing learning, then switch to individual lessons to better prepare for graded exam.

She's still motivated after learning for 2+ years, compared to her elder sister who totally gave up after 1 year. I guess 好的开始是成功的一半？

[phankao]

peanut_butter:

I do quarterly class-hour to weed out the bad students. I also turned down parents who ask for discounts.

what is \"quarterly class hour\"?

[Dreamaurora]

phankao:

peanut_butter:

I do quarterly class-hour to weed out the bad students. I also turned down parents who ask for discounts.

what is \"quarterly class hour\"?

Performance class

[phankao]

Dreamaurora:

phankao:

what is \"quarterly class hour\"?

Performance class

Oh ok - will be attending one with my 3yo soon. Will see for 1st time what it is like! Hmmm... interesting.... Never had any with my older 3 kids before and they are like done with grade 8 for no.1 & no.2 and another doing grade 8 in all their respective instruments. *hehe*.