Crescendo of Chaos (Diary Of a Private Music School CEO)

 Life can throw the strangest, most grotesque situations at you especially when you least expect them.     A young (11 years old) and high-performing guitar student who looks forward to each end of term student concert as much as humanly possible, just two weeks before the end of year concert last May, with the help of his father tells us in a polite, but nevertheless no-nonsense manner that we should postpone the concert to another date in the calendar as he has important things to do on the day of the concert. This got both me and the guitar teacher very interested, as we naturally assumed that then it has to be a really important event if the boy cannot take part in the concert! I regretfully (with slight unease) replied that there is no chance to move the concert forward as the date has been set for more than 3 months already, and the prestigious concert hall is fully booked. They were honestly saddened by this news, so I quickly jumped in and asked them what wo...

 As I already mentioned her in a previous post, Amelia is a tough one. On the one hand she is a good teacher: patient, good with children, technically proficient and has a very detailed focus in working with her students. Sometimes, she can be too technical, taking away some emphasis from the music side of piano teaching , but her approach is fine otherwise and is not the problem. The problem with Amelia is that as a person you never know how much you can trust her. She sometimes says one thing then does another. If you show gratitude and respect she can feel that she has power and sway and can then do something to annoy us. Case in point, is that a few years ago she used up a whole 500 pages of printing paper after we commended her for her work during the term. She promised not to do it again, but she still copies things for herself and uses us as a library sometimes. Which leads us into what happened this past week... Nicoletta (our other piano teacher) noticed that some piano ...

The best part of being here and leading this institute/school is the fact that it is truly international. We have people coming for music lessons from all over the world, from places like Spain, Latvia, Germany, Netherlands, Norway, Hungary, Brazil, China, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, USA and so on... This poses unique challenges for us as our teacher team is required to speak at least two languages - English alongside their native language (none of our teachers are English/American). Also, we must not only be good educators on our respective instruments, but must be good communicators as well as empathic and culturally aware in order to achieve good to great outcomes.  We had an interesting thing happen last year during our winter term concert when our Indonesian young girl student performed on stage. She is a very talented violin student and a cute girl. However, she made two mistakes in one of her performance pieces. We assume this was the reason that the parents decided to stop wit...

 My 'favourite pet' topic of all is probably about make-up lessons. Just the mentioning of the word 'make-up' sends shivers down my spine... Ever since the dark days, when I was a young lad giving private lessons going to people's homes, I had learned the term make-up early on. In a private or music school setting if a teacher misses their lesson(s) and was paid in advance for that lesson then it is normal and, in my opinion, customary to make-up that/those lessons. By contrast, when the student is ill and the teacher is available for the lesson then it is neither fair nor customary to ask for a make-up from said tutor/teacher. Now, this is used and abused by almost all of the students (or parents of the students). It got so out of hand just before COVID times that since then we have had to introduce an online learning agreement which includes specific wording under which circumstances the student is eligible for make-up lessons. This agreement has had to be read an...

 It's not all doom and gloom in and around the music school of course. On most days it is a great place to be for students, parents and teachers alike! Everyone likes the place, most of the people coming here like us - not just for our knowledge but as human beings as well. And that is a good feeling, as being miserable in a workplace is definitely not for me!  I enjoy teaching, if I didn't then I simply wouldn't be doing it. I appreciate even the most incremental improvements that I see with students from week to week, and most students improve every single lesson even if they didn't practice much (or at all). That is also down to my style and method, as I maintain a positive attitude and try to be as helpful, friendly yet professional as much as is humanly possible with every single student (and parent). In essence, at our music school everyone (hobbyists and professional levels alike) feels included and our place is a safe space for everybody where every lesson is li...

       This morning (Wednesday) was quite a laugh! Actually, two things happened in quick succession while I was/am still recovering from the obligatory autumn teacher's flu.  The first was a message from a potential - (very) interested - young adult student who had already come for her trial/taster lesson (to one of our teachers) before our term break a few weeks ago. We talked on the phone afterwards where she emphatically confirmed her wish to sign up for regular lessons with us sounding very enthusiastic throughout. I also wrote her during the break again, just to confirm in writing that we are expecting her today (Wednesday) to come in for the lesson. The dissonance struck while I finally sat down to drink my morning macchiato with honey (to soothe my throat and headache; but I like to take almost any hot drink with honey after all, anyways back to today...) when I heard the familiar glassy ping tone of the incoming message on the music school designated ...