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Have you had kids who spent an entire year in the Primer book? Or take an entire year to learn a Level 1 piece? Or make the same mistakes month, after month, after month (I'm not exaggerating).

How would you keep these kids interested in learning piano? Since progress is apparently not going to happen for these kids, I just need that tiniest of sparks to keep these kids interested. Well...



I'm almost out of ideas.

I think I do have the patience of a saint when it comes to kids who are not at their full mental capacity, but at what point would you tell the parents to just terminate the lessons, since they're taking their $$$ and flushing it down the toilet?

After a full year of NOT doing anything, I think you're safe to tell them that their kid should probably do something else instead of piano, and in any case you're not suited to handle their kid, because it's your fault, and you don't have the patience, etc (blame yourself obviously).

Are they practicing? At the primer level, simple repetition of the music is enough, so even if they only do 10-15 minutes a day they'll progress decently. Even if they do so practicing 5 days/week. Less than that, however, will result in little to no progress.

At higher levels, of course, how they practice plays a bigger role than how long - or rather, that can get added to the mix of figuring out why a student isn't progressing.

I have had some students who weren't particularly talented at the piano, but they loved their lessons and they worked really hard. They were slow the first year or two, but then after that things just took off. They started to progress and actually outpace my more talented but less hard-working students.

If you have addressed the practicing issue with them and their parents and still it's not going, but they seem to like their lessons, try and find things for them that go at a slower pace. Maybe do a lot of supplemental music to the method books so they really get a good feel for a concept before moving on to the next one.

It's their $$$ and your livelihood.
As long as you are not misrepresenting your work or the child's potential, it is really their decision. When you are no longer interested in teaching this child then tell them that they may find a more suitable teacher elsewhere.

I've worked with kids like this as a speech-language pathologist. When I feel like I have exhausted every trick in the book I just start over at the beginning of the book-so to speak. Recycle the things you have tried before and haven't done for a while. Maybe something will click with the kid or maybe revisiting the activity will spark a new idea for me.

I read the OP a few times, and didn't see anything about how much work the students did - only how much progress they didn't have.

That's what I meant... Their progress rather than their studying, but in all honesty I'm not sure they're truly studying and not learning anything... :-/

Quite often one springs from the other - no progress because of no work - so if that is going on then you are probably right.

Usually when there is no progress, there is no work. As a teacher I'm simply not OK with this, so I stop the lessons.

What people like this do with another teacher is not my concern.

But such severe cases are quite rare.

Sometimes there are reasons to continue with someone who is doing almost no work.

I have a 6 year-old who is incredibly slow in piano. Normally I would have stopped the lessons, but I'm teaching his older brother (about 2 years older). The older brother was almost as slow, but now he is moving reasonable quickly.

The mother is in all lessons with both boys and works with them at home. I think in this case it's a development problem. Both boys were quite immature when they started. Both of them had big problems processing things like which line, which space, very simple things.

Never say never. Sometimes after 3 years of that they hit a new stage of maturity, or motivation kicks in, and they start progressing much faster. I've had that happen with multiple students.

For me the issue is not how fast they progress, but whether they enjoy playing and are engaged in making music and are working as hard as they should for their current level.

It's a simple matter of the teacher being patient enough or not. I think AZN is clearly not fine with taking the money from his clients and feeling that he's doing anything. So... I don't think I would wait for 3 years for a student to come to MY senses (not theirs)...

True, but with each new year that they do not progress, the chances of them turning around becomes smaller.

It's a lot like people who switch from teacher to teacher to teacher. Yes, they may find someone they like and stay with that teacher, but I don't think it happens very often.

If I can put up with these super S L O W kids for 3+ years, you can imagine how patient I am. I face these students, week after week, with a strange combination of pity, frustration, and apathy. And, recently, it's more apathy than anything else. It's like I'm numb to their lack of interest.

The punishment of Sisyphus...

Seems to me that a couple of good repertoire choices could do the trick. Or you should change the rhythm of all this learning. Don't keep on in the same Primer book.

But it also sounds to me like they have no rapport with you. That could be fatal.
You might wish to set them free.

I might also add that these kids are stretched out thin over many activities. They can't devote enough time to each activity, so they end up doing 10 things terribly instead of 2 things well.

Still, these slow students are better than some of the transfer students I've interviewed recently. I must be the magnet for remedial students. Either that, or there is some extremely poor teaching going on around here.

If you wait long enough, slow kids may turn into average adults.

OK, if they're not working at all, then I have a different view of things. Definitely have a frank discussion with kids and parents about too many activities. You can either plan your life to get a little taste of a lot of things but never know what it's like to do them well, or you can plan your life to achieve excellence in one or two things but maybe miss out on some things that might have been fun.

Sometimes parents who haven't studied music don't understand that practice is where the real progress takes place, and lessons without practicing don't accomplish anything even with a talented student. They may think the kid is still getting an education, or is held back only through lack of natural ability, when in fact learning isn't happening and the obstacle is practice time. So you may need to make sure they understand that as well.

If what they want is a little taste of piano but don't want to commit the time to make progress, and the whole family sees it the same way, then maybe after enough lessons to learn the basics of music reading and technique, send them home with a couple of entertaining books of easy music, encourage them to play for fun at home for as long as they want, and invite them to return to lessons if and when they want to commit the time to improve their skills.

I've had my share of unbelievable transfer students.

RE your original question: I talk to the parent (and student) about reasonable (and very easy) goals. "Lets set a goal to finish this book by the end of xxxxx" Then when they don't do it, we talk about it. The reason I do this is I think it's part of my job to inform the parent the child isn't meeting a reasonable standard of progress. I don't drop the student for this problem (at least in this stage of my career). It's really the parent's decision if they can afford to take lessons, and if they can then I'm a music teacher who is open for business. I don't do a year long contract. If I did, I might feel more responsibility to stop lessons as I would have made the parent commit to spending a certain amount of money.

That didn't work. The concept of "work hard toward a goal" eludes these kids.

Ok. I wonder if the parents might just be looking for expensive baby sitting. I'm not sure what to do in that situation.