Monday Mailbag – How to Handle Non-Practicers
I am wondering about having a contract with my students, expecting a certain amount of practice commitment from them. I have one family, in particular, whose children seldom ever practice. This has been going on for approximately four years now. I have mentioned this to their parents and to the students. They always say, “Ok, we’ll have them practice more.” Nothing changes. I’m tempted to ask them to leave but I don’t want to hurt their feelings. Perhaps, if I had them sign a contract as the school year resumes, with guidelines to what I look for in their progress, I could let them go if they don’t meet those expectations. What do you think about that?
This is a tough situation. I will say that you are more patient than I am, though – I don’t think I would last four years in that sort of a situation! Here are some things I suggest. Some are preemptive; others are responsive:
- Conduct an initial parent and student interview and make it clear what the practice expectations are. Have them sign a commitment to practice consistently at that time.
- Have the student keep a practice record each week. I develop custom pages to correspond to our practice incentive theme each year, but here is a sample Assignment Page/Practice Journal. I write the assignments in the open area on the left and then the student places check marks for each item in the column for the day that they practice it. They total the number of minutes they practiced at the end of each day, and at the end of the week, the parent signs off on it.
- Conduct Year-End Evaluations with the students and parents at the end of each school year. This helps the student and parent honestly evaluate their practice habits, and gives me a starting point for discussing changes that need to be made in order to ensure that more consistent practice habits are enforced.
- If during the year the student begins to slack in their practicing, alert the student and parent that if they don’t honor their commitment to practice consistently, you will have to let them go and make their spot available to another student. I know this is really, really hard to do! I’ve had to do it a couple of times, and one time I did have to let a student go because he just wasn’t practicing or progressing.
- If you would rather approach this from a different angle, you could try incorporating a fun practice incentive into your studio, or you could schedule regular group performance events that might motivate them to practice more consistently. Try to tap into the interests or opportunities that will motivate those students. The hard thing is that you’re working against four years of them establishing a pattern of not practicing, so it will be difficult to counteract that. Part of the motivation that drives practicing is experiencing the exciting rewards of consistent practice habits. If you can provide the impetus for them to experience that, even for a couple of weeks, that may be enough motivation to keep them going.
- Finally, I would say, yes, definitely have them sign a contract or do something to ensure that you’re all on the same page as far as practice expectations. Then you’ll have something concrete to help both the students and parents remain accountable for that commitment.
If anyone else has thoughts on how to handle non-practicers, please jump in and share them!
Remember, if you have a question you’d like to contribute to next week’s Monday Mailbag, leave it in the comments below or send me an e-mail sometime this week with Monday Mailbag in the subject line!
I would ask yourself this question- Inspite of the lack of practicing, do you feel fulfilled, as a teacher, in working with the student? I have had some students, in which the amount practicing was not great, but I still gained satisfaction in working with the student. I know she can do more if she would practice, but I can overlook that. In another case, the amount of practice the student did greatly affected our teacher/student relationship to the point that I could no longer encourage or motivate her because it was all taken through the viewpoint of the student that she was never good enough or did enough. That was never my intention, of course. I had to draw a firm line and the student was not willing to go that far, so our lessons ended. It was damaging what was otherwise a very good relationship.
You don’t have to be a pushover. When families agree to take lessons, they also agree to practice. It won’t get done any other way. But you don’t have to be a big meanie either. Some weeks are good, some are bad. If you are good and consistent, your students will learn to rise to the goal and in return, gain great satisfaction from their efforts.
This was an interesting post and a good comment too from Mindy. As a teacher and a parent I find that parents have a big role in whether practice happens or not – in a positive or a negative way! Our elder daughter loves to practise alone, while the younger daughter wants mum or dad constantly present at each practice. I think a lot of parents don’t consider that they might need to play a role in their child’s progress, even if they are not “musical” themselves.
Also I find some parents have no idea that their child is “falling behind” due to lack of practice. As a teacher I am challenged to communicate these ideas to the parents – 1) that they can and sometimes must assist in the actual practising (it is not something where the child is solely responsible) and 2)to report their progress honestly to the parents so they can see that their child could achieve more and enjoy the piano more if they practiced.
I have had a clause in my T&Cs for many years which says ‘I reserve the right to cancel lessons if students do not practice’.
I think every teacher should say this upfront and there can then be no confusion later.
Equally however I think along with this statement is a responsibility for the teacher to show the student how to practice. All too often practice is only discussed when it hasn’t been done – that’s not good enough from the teacher. Why do we assume that students know how to practice if we don’t tell them???
I know there are many ideas for practice on this blog and I have many, many ideas of my own. A lot of my teaching time is focused on helping the student get the most out of the time between lessons. If I can’t give them the motivation and ideas they need to practice between lessons then they are better to go and find another teacher.
It is a shame that sometimes it takes a move to another teacher to realise that the problem wasn’t with the teacher but with the students attitude and approach.
We could talk for many hours about this particular topic . . . . .. as always thanks for the post!