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A parent commented after a lesson yesterday that I must know how to pack my patience. I was working with her three-year old who is wide eyed and bushy-tailed about piano. His ability to focus, to identify, to listen is all coming together in the first few lessons and I think it is as exciting for me as it is for him. We're discovering opposites on the piano; loud and soft, hard and gentle, low sounds and high sounds, slow and fast, on and off. The lesson is only 15 minutes, but for a 3 year old that can be an ocean of time. I hadn't really considered how I integrated patience into my lesson with a student so young. It just felt natural to me that 1) they are going to need constant redirection 2) they should want to play and be silly 3) for the first year+ they might just be over excited about the whole experience. How could I not have patience for that kind of formula, or at least what I thought was a given? Three students later it was 8:00, I had my final lessons (sisters) pile in for the night. I felt good; relaxed with energy, excited to see my students but met with that sitatution: my student didn't practice nearly enough. We spent 35 minutes of a 45 minute lesson playing the left hand of her piece over and over and over again. She yawned and complained and so we continued playing the left hand, again and again until it started getting better and better. In that moment I felt impatient; I know this student's potential, I want her to utilize that capacity. This might sound like tough love but really I'm on the sidelines cheering: "Come on you can do it!!!!" As all teachers who care, we are sometimes met with dissapointment, which summons us to inspire, motivate and ultimately forgive our students. I think there has to be that moment of forgiveness because there's a voice saying : I taught you how to do this, you're being ___insert description here____ and you're not taking me/this piano lesson seriously !!!! However, that's not true, so we are ultimately called to forgive amoung the inspiration and motivation. When her parent came into the lesson she also remarked about my patience after listening to the same bass line for most of the lesson. Despite patience feeling the furthest thing away from me , maybe it's been developing within me as a natural default. We all have our moments where we are the princess and the pea or we're feeling the last straw pulled from under us and the anxiety and expectations not only build but snowball. However, moving forward I'm going to dedicate more conciousness to packing my patience. Here's a list of conscious ways I will have more patience. What does patience look like as a private teacher : -repeating what you've said -explaining something multiple ways -making room for mistakes -making room for my own mistakes -dealing with scheduling conflicts
-playing parental phone tag -waiting for your studio to grow -watching students bloom -letting kids be silly
-being silly myself -going on the students' level (floor work or couch time) -letting go & having faith.