Some of the membership forums about teaching in which I am
involved have horror stories about the pupil who is walking disaster or the
pushy parent wanting their kid to do grade 10 or whatever, my solution to this
is to view it as a game and have a little bit of fun with that.
For instance if you get someone turn up who has not done any
practice, which let’s face it is incredibly common, think about the game that
you are playing; which is they turn up and pay you to spend time playing
guitar. So help them with their practising and take their money and tell them that
they need an extra lesson and get them working towards an exam and get them
focused.
The pushy parent game is; ‘yes they can do those grades but
for them to have a good chance of passing they will need to do twice the amount
of lessons’. Do not concern yourself with the well-being psychologically of the
pupil because if they are under pressure with your guitar lessons they will be
under greater pressure for everything else they do for the rest of the lives
from their parents, your guitar lessons a drop in the ocean.
With the disorganised schools and colleges play the
trickster game of ‘can we do some catch up lessons’ where pupils share the
lessons and in the mix you can catch up the lesson numbers that way. I also call
this the’ statistics game’, governments do it all the time, for you are just
doing this because the pupils have examinations coming up and you need to get
the time in to cover for errors made by the school ( that makes you look very
good in everyone’s eyes )
Pupils turn up without music, do improvisation today,
without an instrument, use yours, do some song writing, history of music etc it is easier to deal with problems if you do
not see them as problems but as chances.
Vic
www.bluescampuk.co.uk
come and play for three days get away from the family the job and the
world………….
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