Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Piano Teachers Forum What do you think about hitting young students?

Yes, it probably has. Good question.

I hate to show my age, but corporal punishment was well and widely accepted even in the USA until the mid-50s. Then it's use went into a steep decline.

FWIW, most of us boys would get into mischief if we could, and we certainly wanted to, but the consequences, which was meted out to the sucker among us, was enough to keep the rest of us in line.

If the teacher intended to cause pain, then he chose the wrong weapons. Much better use from a ruler or an open hand. But a pencil? And a violin bow? Surely the teacher has no intention of damaging his bow.

Sounds like an unpleasant situation. My guess is that I would not have been thinking child abuse. But the teacher obviously lacks skill in working with kids.

Why were you observing this child's lesson?

Aren't we talking about hitting a student during a piano lesson? And not a parent disciplining their child?

Two completely separate issues here:

1. Disciplining your children -

Corporal punishment was still in place when I went to school in the 70's. My husband can vouch for the 'pops' he used to get in the principal's office a few times a year.

I got spanked as a child; we spanked our own kids when they needed it. They're in their 20's now and have had actually thanked us for the occasionally wallop they incurred as children.


2. Hitting a piano student -

Completely unacceptable. But I'm wondering if there's a 'cultural' aspect to this. I've talked to teacher-friends who say that in their homeland (Asian or Russian), they were routinely smacked on the hand and yelled at during their lesson.

I simply don't believe that fear is the right method of teaching anything. It is fundamental for our well being, but not for educational purposes... Simply put you want the student to study the violin because they know it needs to be done in order to reach the desired result, because the student wants to keep parents and teacher happy, because the student is enjoying the violin performance. Worst reasons to do something is because of fear of punishment.

BTW, If you want to enter that discussion here's an analogy: I won't put any names, but over the past 30 years several countries have decided to discipline a remote country for whatever reason (right or wrong, I'm not examining that part). The resulted discipline is named "war" and has never ever brought the expected results. Discipline never came in any of the cases I can remember.

Perhaps I'm magnifying things to the extreme and going off topic, but my point is that if such magnitude situations can't work as required, are we certain that smaller scale ones work as intended?

Striking someone else's child is over-the-top. Since the OP is only asking what I (we) think, I think it is a very poor pedagogical technique.

The mother should have put a stop to it then and there. If it had happened in my presence, I think I would have had a word with one or both of them. The third party is tacitly endorsing it, otherwise. But, it's understandable that it may be hard to know the best thing to say in the moment. "No more," comes to mind right away, even if you can't come up with anything else immediately.

I figured the OP was a troll posting a crazy thing to get everyone riled up ;-)

That's what I thought too.

Yeah. This forum can get so nauseatingly fluffy, supportive and just damn CARING sometimes that I picture a grizzled old pianist with a beer belly, working in a cat house, posting just to take the p***.

Oh no, hold on. That's me. Except I got fired from the cat house.

No... And to the question asked, it happened in Malaysia.

If Beethoven was not beaten by his father, would he have produced the same works? I'm not advocating abuse of course, just was wondering while reading this. Different scenario. But yes, in Eastern Europe, striking the student is common practice. No fuss.

Probably not, but there may have been many more Beethovens lost to the world due to crippling low self-esteem brought about by regular beatings. Also, it would be a dubious argument to claim that as long as we got some creative genius out of it, it's acceptable to use abuse - especially since it most likely won't produce any genius at all.

I said I was of course not advocating it...But, I'm not sure a genius like a Beethoven would lay down. So while of course I'm sure abusive parents only harm their kids, I think a real genius like Beethoven overcomes even the harshest of odds.

Yes, I didn't mean to imply that you advocated violence! I think that there are many cases of people developing extraordinary skills in the face of bad situations. There will always be bad situations though. The creative world is certainly riddled with very damaged souls. It may well be one of the biggest sparks of creativity. Certain things need to be right as well though - otherwise they wouldn't have the motivation to do anything.

Anyway, not disagreeing with anything you have said, just thinking out loud.

There are some very dubious assumptions there. Childhood experience is regularly given as an excuse for low self-esteem (not that self-esteem becomes an issue until something occurs that requires THAT as an excuse). But there isn't necessarily a correlation.

Does creative genius necessarily imply a strong personality? Some geniuses mat be sociable, others may appear autistic! (Observers often confuse the ability to concentrate with a social disorder:-)

To me, a real genius, social or introvert, etc., will see to it that he does what he or she needs to. Against all odds. Especially in the arts. I don't believe in "hidden geniuses" in other words. To me, they are not geniuses - a words that gets thrown around too often IMO.

If this is already repeated, I say sorry.
To the one who suggests it is ok to hit a student, I would then say it is also ok for the student to hit the teacher when the teacher make an error.
We are all humans and can make mistakes.

If hitting (physically) is all right for this teacher, he/she should stay away from any children or student.
Music learning is a nice way to live. To hit is to punish. Music is not about punishment.
That is my personal view.

You have no experience of frustrated geniuses because they aren't productive! How WOULD you have heard of them?

Genius can be very hard to distinguish from craft and application.

Not a subject where fixed opinions are very useful, I think.