Make-up Schmake Up

 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 and boxes ticked which signal back to us that the student/parent has read and understood the T&Cs. 

Nevertheless, this issue of make-up lessons keeps appearing, like mould on a damp wall. People (especially the rich folk in my experience) do not want to feel like they lost a lesson, so they always try and bring up the subject of make-ups in the most fun and creative ways. Since introducing the agreement, it happens usually in a civilised and polite manner (before we had the agreement there were occasional raised voices). Since I am a teaching director, this affects me just as much as it affects my team of teachers. 

I borrowed a genius idea from Vienna, Austria last year: instead of 60 minute lessons we now give 50 minutes per week. My original idea in this was - which rewrites the rules of the game in the most simple fashion! - that make-up lessons are now conducted in the following manner: if a student misses a lesson (due to whatever reason) then 10 minutes gets added on to the 50 minutes for 5 consecutive weeks. Basically, what we did here was a price hike, which also protects our rights as teachers. The sad thing is that I wouldn't have had to do this if people had just observed our T&C's and acted fairly with us and with each other. 

Now, that more than a calendar year has passed since the introduction of this measure, I can safely write that it works! Nobody can play the system, they can ask for make-ups but they know they are only going to get 10 minutes on top of their 50 minute lessons. Haha, touché I say!

So to all sad, burnt out and/or unmotivated teachers/tutors reading this, try this out and let's end 30, 60, 90 minute lessons for good and change them to 25, 50, and 75 mins. forever. It will make the life of all involved so much easier and more manageable! Of course, students and parents still bring up this topic of the make-up lessons during the school year but we now have the magic words in our vocabulary: 'extra minutes will be added on top of your regular lesson time in order to make-up your lessons'. The make-up lesson is dead, long live the make-up lesson!...