Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Piano Teachers Forum Teacher stealing my student - UPDATE

Interesting strawman argument.

Our teachers association publishes a listing of member teachers and there locations. As I have noted here before, three of us live within a block of each other, and several more within a mile radius. We do put out signs advertising our services! However, going to their studios and handing out fliers as their students leave lessons would border on unethical behavior. Doing so while bad mouthing them would be over the line. Talking up your positives is one thing, talking down your competition can be libelous and as most of us are not lawyers, knowing where that fine line is, it becomes an activity to be avoided.

And as you brought up supermarkets, we have two nearby, across the street from each other. Both send out weekly advertising fliers with their specials. Neither sends an agent into the parking lot of the other, to hand out coupons. Both toot their virtues, neither says anything bad about their competition.

Individual teacher's recitals are not public recitals, nor are our group recitals, in the sense that the general public is invited. The audience doesn't pay for admission. The recitals are by invitation. That doesn't mean the event is "top secret." It is possible to find out when they are and invite yourself.

Competition is fine, but unethical behavior is not.

Heh...

I currently have 7 composition students, and hoping for the 8th! Blooming business! LOL! It's through the internet, so things are rather... more 'flexible' than a private piano lesson face to face, but still.

6/7 students actually study composition in a uni or conservatory, but simply feel the need to push more and seem quite happy with what I do. I have never made any 'ownership' rules, as is stated in some of the above posts. I do feel that they are free to roam about, however they wish.

STILL: I would feel somewhat hurt for a few of my students (especially the 'older' ones) where I have given all I have and much more than I should have based on what I'm getting. It somehow feels that they 'owe' me for being a good teacher. This is a rubbish thought, I know, but I can't help it. I'm doing a good job (as I should be doing) and they owe me because of that?!?!?! What the heck!?!?!? But this is how I feel and how it works out in my head.

So the OP has a right, apart from the practical points of view (sharing a student will eventually create issues, and I have little doubt to that), to feel hurt.

Down with Polish teachers! YAY! (only kidding here of course...)

QUESTION:


ANSWER:


IMO teacher's associations such as the EPTA and MTNA, etc are primarily aimed at promoting cartel-like behavior by promulgating standard terms and conditions, specifying minimum honoraria and restricting competition while providing few or no benefits to consumers such as guaranteeing minimum standards of competence, providing information on quality, etc.

The teacher I referenced a while back is no longer a member of our association. It was kind of self-correcting situation. No one would talk to her - we didn't collude to do this. Members became POd as they became "victims." It's possible, I'm sure, that some members mentioned to other members, "Watch out for so and so if she shows up at one of your student recitals" type thing. At this point, I have no idea whether they moved on, are still in the community, or are still teaching. Their students cannot participate in any of the community events, in any of the area competitions, etc.

We had another incident about 8 years ago, where a student went to a competition at a regional university and was solicited by one of the professors to become a private student. This was brought up in our meeting and while we voted no action (the vote was something like 55-45 to inform the university. No one, at the time, thought to have a vote to just condemn the action and encourage members not to participate), what happened was the sudden drying up of entries from our service areas, as teachers began to rethink the issue from their personal perspective.

You're entitled to your opinion, but in this case, it's not supported by the facts. MTNA does not, nor do the chapters, discuss fees, allow members to discuss fees, etc. We do encourage professional development and certification, including the undertaking of more coursework and continued studies. Providing a public listing, both in print form and on the internet, of member teachers allows the public a chance to comparison shop. We provide group activities for students which would be beyond the financial means of individual teachers. There is no way that any private studio could afford recital hall rental on a near monthly basis, yet member students, if they avail themselves of all performance opportunities could be performing monthly. That is a giant benefit to students.

Just because MTNA does not do every single thing that EPTA or KNTV or other organizations do is beside the point.

The MTNA providing a listing only provides a place for potential customers to find members of the MTNA without indication of relative quality, etc. Beginning students or families with tight budgets might be better off starting with teachers who offer better value (such as college students or part-time mother teachers) and advanced students are likely to find their teacher through word of mouth (or as in the case of this thread have their teacher find them) So, in fact the MTNA listing provides less information than one can garner from the internet or the yellow pages.

As to recital halls, at least in this neck of the woods there are legions of opportunities for individual teachers to organize regular recitals at low or no cost without having to cooperate with a teachers' association.

In your previous post you gave an example (illustrating my earlier point) of the MTNA considering taking action against another teacher irrespective of the interests of the student. Do you have examples of how the MTNA has stepped in to protect consumers irrespective of the interests of MTNA memebers?

Now that does sound like a Cartel. I'm very afraid. Imagine if the 'professor' were another Lechetitsky!

So if you go to a restaurant, have a bad meal, you're acting like a cartel when you tell friends and neighbors? Okay.

What's so bad about this meal?

You specifically called out MTNA; I responded to correct your assertions.

In fact that 'professor' may just have a legal case against the MTNA just as any restauranter would if an organization were bad mouthing his restaurant without grounds.

No, TJ, I don't think I answered myself in quite the manner you suppose. All I pointed out was that there are many prisoners' dilemmas floating around. Weakness of a code's enforcement mechanism is not identical with uselessness of a code.

Often a professional organization will have an executive board and other committees, one of whose purposes is to enable action that individual members would not choose to undertake on their own. The member informs the organization of what they think is unprofessional behavior. The committee investigates and issues a ruling.

Another benefit of an organization is that it can at least publicize things to its members. One of those things could be a notice that certain non-members are behaving in unprofessional ways in the community.

Being publicly thrown out of your MTNA chapter might be an effective form of discipline. MTNA sponsors lots of goodies like conventions and competitions that are of value to the teacher and to their students. I'll warrant that the student stealing behavior comes more from non-members than from members.

In the end, the physician example may offer a stronger case than a music teacher's situation. The sanctions that the medical societies can bring to bear may be a stronger discipline than any sanctions that MTNA could bring to the table. We tend not to see physicians engaging in the FUD behavior I described earlier. Fear of sanction may not be the only reason, but it could be an important one.

Another benefit would seem they can hound university professors. Watch out P*Dad!

I don't think this is all that complicated.

If you're a teacher - get business by doing the best damn job you can. Focus on the things you can do something about, not things out of your control like impolite students and slimy teachers.

If you're a student - communicate with your teacher. Tell them what's on your mind, what's working, what's not working. That's the best way we can help you.

It's OK to be upset when a student leaves on you - but don't dwell on it and don't let those emotions take a hold of your actions. EVERYONE has emotions, that's what makes us human. But when we're RUN by them that's where we get into trouble. The more quickly you can get beyond that and focus on the students you HAVE and do your best job with them, the better off you'll be for sure.

Do they? I thought it was just hormones. What's it like?

Any professional organization runs on two premises. One is ethical behavior of members toward each other. The other is that the professionals do in fact possess the knowledge and skill needed to practice their profession, and that they are also doing so. Public confidence and trust rides on the assumption that the second is also true.

And this is a virtue of the communication process within the organization. Yes, this protects the interests of the members. But it can also protect the public.

Actually, it is complicated.
I'm part of MTAC, which is the "union" or "cartel" or whatever (insert your own derogatory name here) that basically has California cornered. And it's not necessarily a bad thing. MTAC actually has hired a lawyer on its staff. At first I thought was that even necessary? Then I hear all sorts of legal hoop-la that happened in the last two years. This is when I'm happy to have a lawyer representing the association, so we're not bankrupted by some crazy lawsuits.

It is a bit of a stretch IMO to compare piano teachers with physicians. There are very strict education and licensing requirements to become a physician and there are both professional standards and very specific laws and rules regulating the behavior of physicians. Physicians also can have a life or death impact on their patients.

The legal profession in the US has been allowed to advertise, poach clients, chase ambulances, work speculatively on no cure-no pay basis, etc. for some time now resulting sometimes in three law firms all showing up at the hospital bed of plane crash victims pen in hand. They make the Polish teacher look like Mother Teresa.

In most countries anyone at all can hang out a shingle and call themselves a piano teacher. Membership in an organization such as EPTA or MTNA is not required and also does not make sense for some/(many) teachers. Consumers receive no guarantee of quality, etc. just because a teacher is a member of the association. There are no laws and state licensing requirements to give anything the association might do have any real teeth, etc. The kinds of enforcement actions we have heard about on this thread and others are all about protecting the financial interests of members of the guild, i.e. the teacher, and are often at odds with or indifferent to the interests of the student and paying customer to be able to choose the teacher they prefer.

If an accountant, lawyer or physician acts in a truly unethical way, they can be disbarred or prevented from working at all in the profession, in or out of the association. In the case of piano teachers, (or real estate brokers in some countries, or house painters, or gardeners, etc.) sometimes the very best are the ones that don't think they need or want to be part of herd in the association. A consumer can't tell from the fact that a teacher is not on the association list is because the teacher is too good for the association or not good enough...

As to notifying members of the kind of asocial and unethical predators such as our Polish teacher, I am sure that word of mouth would travel with or without an association. On the other hand, if he or she is as good as they think they are and the get real results, then they will probably do just fine. The very best teachers have to say no to those they can't accommodate rather than beat the bushes looking for students.

Here lies the problem: How do you weed out the bad/inept teachers from the association? And what criteria constitute "bad" teaching?