Best Practices Before Meeting a New Teacher

Photo Credit: Andy Bullock

Happy April to you! It’s officially been Spring here in the DC area for a little while now. After enjoying warmer weather in California last week, I really hope we are done with winter and with snow. If you take lessons with us and went out of town for Spring Break, I hope you had a wonderful week and safe travels. If not, I hope your week was fantastic wherever you’re reading from. I definitely enjoyed seeing my family, and I feel refreshed and revived to get back to work teaching and preparing for our Spring Recitals happening in one month!

Over the past few weeks, I’ve discussed a couple of teacher specific subjects including: does your teacher need to specialize in the instrument he teaches your child and is it ok to change teachers. If you haven’t already read those articles, click these links to check them out.

Today I’m going to continue on the same vein and discuss my thoughts and suggestions about meeting a new teacher since when a teacher arrives for the very first lesson, students are often nervous and shy. This occurs frequently whether it’s the first music lesson for a student or whether the student has taken lessons previously and it’s just a new teacher to them.

This week I’ll explain from a parent’s perspective what you should do to ensure that the first lesson goes as smoothly as possible. In a future post, I’ll expand on this to cover things from the student’s end.

First of all, I very very strongly suggest you have a short phone call with your son or daughter’s new teacher before the first lesson. This is vital, and for that reason, I always ask my teachers to call the parents of their students prior to the first lesson. In my experience if you’ve been able to introduce yourself and discuss important lesson related information beforehand, you won’t need to do this during the actual lesson, which would take up valuable lesson time that could have been used for instruction rather than talking.

Occasionally when our teachers call the parent of their new student, they will get taken to voicemail. If you get a voicemail from your daughter’s new teacher, make it a priority to call her back before the lesson. If our teachers don’t get a return phone call, they will still arrive for the lesson as planned, but as I already mentioned, having an initial conversation in advance saves time from being taken up that would be used for instruction.

When you do connect by phone with your son’s teacher, I suggest you and the teacher discuss the following topics:

• Does he have any past experiences with music, music classes, or lessons?

If so, describe what the experience was. Knowing what your child already knows will help his teacher adequately prepare for the first lesson. Also, it’s helpful to let the teacher know if you already have music at home, what the music is, and its level.

• Is there anything important the teacher should know about your son’s learning style or personality?

• What do you want your him to get out of the music lessons?

• What type of music does he like to listen to and want to learn to play after he learns the basics?

• What type of instrument should we buy or rent, and where should we buy or rent it from?

In some situations parents may need advice on which instrument to buy or rent (particularly if it’s guitar or another string instrument). This is a great time to ask about this. I always suggest that if you don’t currently have an instrument, you ask for the teacher’s guidance prior to purchasing an instrument. That way you won’t end up with an instrument that will need to be replaced shortly because it’s of poor quality, etc. If you’re interested in starting with a keyboard for piano lessons, you can read my thoughts on that here.

The above questions are the ones I think you should definitely go over on the phone. If the teacher has any additional ones, she will ask you them. Of course if there’s anything else you think you should add to help make the lessons a success, do let the teacher know over the phone.

Thanks so much for reading! Please leave a comment below and tell me: 1. If you’re a teacher: are there any additional questions or topics you like to talk to parents you about before the first lesson or 2. If you’re a parent: did you talk to your child’s teacher before the first lesson, and if so, do you think it was helpful? Subscribe to the newsletter, share this with your friends, and “like us” on Facebook. I’ll catch you next week!

Sincerely,

Cassie