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How can I have my new adult transfer student stop saying bad things about his previous piano teacher?
It has been six lessons I taught, after every lesson, he has to send me email and explain to me how bad his previous teacher are and how good I am. The first two emails are fine, and it get worst. I have to start to worry now.

1. Be aware that he might say similar things about you, to the next teacher. Consider carefully whether this is a student you should be keeping.

2. "Could we please keep discussions focused on music? Comparing piano teachers doesn't accomplish much."

I agree with david_a. This student may be a problem for you somewhere down the line.

Speaking from experience, a transfer student may have one or all of the following scenarios:

- the new teacher has a different teaching style and different expectations than the old teacher. The student has to catch on that there are more than one way of doing things, which can both be ok. You may know that as a teacher, but there is no reason why the student will know it.

- the old teacher neglected to teach necessary things so that the student was struggling and didn't know why, and if the new teacher teaches it the light bulb may go on. Or he may become puzzled about what's going on, or (if it's happening) why he's going back to old things, or anything. Bottom line, the older transfer who is no longer an accepting small child will be puzzled about this.

- the old teacher mistaught in a harmful way; it can be technique, wrong information, or wrong instructions on how to practice.

If a transfer student did get mistaught of part of what he should have learned wasn't given, then there is confusion. For practical reasons, that needs to be addressed in some way. For example, if I am doing wrong things due to misteaching, then I need to know what to do instead. This is not about a malicous student who is going to say dreadful things about you later on. Ego should not play a part here.

What is VERY HELPFUL is for a student to know that the teacher will be able to see what he may not have learned, or was mistaught, simply by his playing and answers every week. It is also helpful if you, as a teacher, ask questions if you see a sign of something not being having been taught or mistaught. "How were you told to do this?" or "Did you get taught to...".

IF a student is coming from poor teaching, then that student has also lost trust. After all, he trusted the first teacher, and look what happened. If you show you're on top of it, then that trust comes back.

Other than that, if the student just tells you the other teacher was horrible, instead of addressing things he was taught, simply tell him that this makes you uncomfortable and you want to talk about lessons, not any other teacher. (David's advice).

LoPresti's Rule #1: Nip eMail communication in the bud! Communicate only face-to-face, or if necessary, voice-to-voice on the telephone. eMail invites "one-sided communication" where a student, for instance, gets to "spout-off" without the limiting factors of normal conversation, or the accountability of looking someone in the eye.

Ed

Keystring's Rule #1:
Don't make rules.

- if tempted to make rules, be aware of the many possibilities, beyond what your own experience might be. (I include myself in this advice.)

Having been around for over four years, I know that some teachers WANT to have e-mail communication, but they also DEFINE what kind they want.

If I were to make a suggestion a.k.a. rule, it would be to decide what you want, and when you want to have communication, of what kind.

I can think of a particular instant where on my first day of practice after a lesson on the instrument of that time I ran into a nasty snag. I would have liked to phone my teacher about it (he was close to computer-illiterate) but didn't. By the next lesson I had practiced a really nasty new habit into my playing, and it took us a month to undo the damage. On that occasion this teacher stressed that if I had this kind of problem, he always wanted me to "bother" him about it between lessons.


There is no reason why e-mail should invite one-sided communication. If there is that kind of student, then you cut off e-mails: simple as that.

I prefer to get e-mails from my customers, and discourage phone calls for some simple reasons:
1. I can answer in MY OWN TIME of my choice.
2. I have TIME TO THINK of my answer.

Bottom line is that it depends on the teacher, the student, the circumstance, the nature and reason of the communication. There should be no "rule", though there can be some general advice or points of consideration. I agree with the points of consideration, because e-mail CAN be abused.

There were some serious problems mid-period of my first lessons that I ever had as a student. 90% of them could have been prevented by communication rather than slogging through the object of the lesson each week and "wondering". In fact, the worst of them were then turned around because of things expressed IN WRITING. When I tried to talk about it in lessons, I would come out with an incomprehensible stammering jumble of words.

KeyString,

I can not picture this from you, under any circumstances, ever!

eMail between students and their teachers is a problem. While that MIGHT be a bit of a generalization, how many threads on these Forums refer to this mode of communication AND the dis-connects in meaning that occur BECAUSE a genuine dialog was not employed? How many times have you and I bemoaned the inadequacy of the written word to convey thoughts and meanings?

There are time-honored ways for individuals to communicate - ways that incorporate mood, inflection, nuance, irony, sadness, surprise, disappointment, and ???, and ????, and ?????, etc. They are proven effective. They are called meeting and talking.

Ed, the first problem in oral communication is that we students are venturing into an area in which we have no expertise. Therefore we don't have the vocabulary, the conventions of the field. You have known me only in writing, and never in oral communication. I am able to compose my thoughts in writing much better than in person.

Any means of communication is a means of communication, and any such means can be misused.

One can ignore emails, ezpiano. You don't have to respond to them. This will all blow over soon. But I'm with Ed L, in that I generally don't have email correspondence with my students.

I stand by LoPresti's Rule #1. Communications between students and teachers are an on-going challenge, as evidenced by the discussions on these Forums. eMail adds to the problem. Simple.

Or SOLVES the problem.

As a high school teacher and adult piano student I am finding this thread fascinating, not the least because it is happening via an electronic form of communication!

Email is a form of communication with conventions that need to be learned. As mentioned one of the key ways to encourage or discourage communication is by adjusting the time and length of responses.

My teacher and I email each other when we need to cancel an appointment. I asked her a question via email once and she didn't reply so I learned that she didn't want to communicate in that way. Short or delayed responses will send a discouraging signal. Long or quick responsies encourage communication.

I have a brother who really sucks at communicating electronically. He is insanely formal, gets confused about meaning and context, cannot follow parallel conversations, and does not understand how to use time to send signals about willingness to chat. He is also a professional pianist, something that is just coincidental!

Just to clarify, he did mention it to me during lesson, then I used David_A rule #2 to lead him back to the music. However, he sent emails and explain it in details when he got home. I was ignoring his description about his previous teacher mostly, but answer his request such as if I am able to do a transcript for him.
So, I think he is communicate with me both verbally and email.

You're next. When this student fires you, he'll be emailing the next teacher about how horrible you are, every week.

My number one rule:

Don't listen to people lecture on the Net who continually talk about how useless the Net is.

Gary,

I am eternally grateful to you for bringing me back to this thread. I see now exactly what I have been missing in regards to eMail, and its use.


If I read alsoTom correctly, there is this unspoken layer of communication, behind the communication (as it were), that uses certain elements of delay or speed, and which sends us messages, along with the messages (as it were). Until this very moment, it has been hidden, and that is why I have never seen it! It could account for why I am so ineffective in communicating.

So that I no longer continue to blunder along, wondering why I dislike using the tool, I have constructed myself a little Flow Chart, or Decision Tree, based upon alsoTom’s suggestions, and thought I would display only one leg of it below. Responses are in italics, and drive the next question. Each branch, of course, leads in a different path, and arrives at a different response.

LoPresti’s Flow Chart for correctly using the Unspoken Aspects of eMail

Level I: Are you the Sender or the Receiver of this eMail? {branching}
>> Receiver

Level II: Is the nature of this eMail Urgent, Important, or Casual? {branching}
>> Important

Level III: Do you care anything about the subject of this eMail?
Yes || No || Neutral {branching}
>>Yes

Level IV: What is the relationship of the Sender to you? {branching}
Underling || An Equal || My Superior || Uncertain
>> My Underling (Student)

Level V: Does the Sender’s Mother or Grandmother live right near you?
Yes || No || {branching}
IF YES, increase Sender’s ranking by one increment.
>> Yes, she’s my neighbor

Level VI: Indicated Response –Wait at least two-and-one-half hours before replying. Greet Sender by name, but do not wish him well. Limit response to 10 words or less. Capitalization and punctuation are optional.

Do I have it about right so far?
Ed

When I was in high school decades ago, somebody gave me an interesting term which has been useful ever since. "Reductio ad absurdum", literally "reduce into the absurd". It means that you take what somebody has said, paraphrase it as if you are trying to understand what the person has said, but in such a way that it becomes absurd. Sometimes a person of low intellect, or an intelligent person who is totally unfamiliar with a subject will appear to be doing this, when it is simply lack of knowledge showing through. The above appears to be reductio ad absurdum. If it is lack of knowledge and it is a sincere effort to understand, should an effort be made to answer the question?

My impression is that it's an attempt to turn alsoTom's statement into something silly. It isn't.

For you email would be merely another place for you to be as condescending and arrogant as you are here, but without having anyone to witness it.

To all the other people here that do use email and find it useful, I only allow students to email me when I have experience with them and trust them. For serious adult students, the ones who come to lessons prepared and take lessons very seriously, email is very useful for many things.

Emailing is a tool, and it is as useful or as useless as the communication taking place.

"Reductio ad absurdum"
Occasionally, the subject itself verges on the absurd, and that can be confusing, too. It looks like it has been transformed, but it did not need to be.

Ed, the people in this forum are trying to find solutions, better ways of doing things, etc. It is a practical forum. There are teachers here trying to teach, students trying to work with teachers, parents trying to do the same, and people learning to teach. It is not the place to spread confusion for the sake of making a point of how silly it is.

I could spend my time explaining matters of communication, and matters of e-mail communication. But if it gets turned into something ridiculous for the sake of making things ridiculous, then I will have spent valuable time uselessly. Meanwhile, people who ARE trying to find solutions or improve things can get confused, and this can have real consequences.

There was a time a decade ago when I was new to this and needed help, and turned to a forum. I know what it is like to be in a new situation and trying to orient myself.

Several people have stated how they use e-mails in their communication effectively with their students or with their teachers. I agree with being cautious about using what is a powerful form of communication. I disagree with generalized statements. I also disagree with conclusions that suggest that there is only one type of scenario. Unfortunately people do take advice they read seriously, so we must be careful about the advice we give.

ANYONE who is sincerely engaged in a subject will not appreciate their involvement or the subject being turned into absurdity.