The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly...or The Funny, The Unexpected, and The Unruly

Having taught piano at Dawson Music Academy for almost 2 years now, I feel like I've seen it all. Hilarious comments, surprising reasons kids couldn't make their lessons, and kids (or parents!) who I just wanted to send to the principle's office (if only we had one!). My friend Laura, who also teaches piano, always tells me that I have a story for everything, so allow me to recount some of my favorites.

The Funny:
1.) Elizabeth first came to me in the Spring of 2011. This spunky 6 year old always keeps me laughing, from the way she tells me stories, always interrupting herself with "You know what?", to her reaction when she makes a mistake, stopping and saying, "I mean" before fixing every note. My absolute favorite moment with Elizabeth was shortly after she had started lessons. We were reviewing the dynamic symbols (loud and soft), and when I pointed to the symbol for the loud dynamic, f, I asked her what it was called. "Farte," she replied. Trying not to burst out laughing, I replied, "That's right! But we pronounce it 'Forte'." "I know," she said, "but I like to call it 'Farte'."
2.) Logan, a wriggly, enthusiastic 5 year old, started taking lessons with me last fall. For all of my students, I photocopy practice sheets or charts so they can keep track of how much they practice each week. I had been copying them on different colored papers, and I asked Logan one day which color he would like to see next. "Pink," he replied. "Really, pink?" I asked. "Are you going through a pink phase?" I added jokingly. He looked at me very seriously and said, "Yes, I am."
3.) Aidan is one of the students I've connected with the best and we usually joke around and laugh a lot in his lessons. At his lesson after Halloween last fall, I asked Aidan, who is 9, if he had had a good Halloween. "I got 18 pounds of candy!" he replied. Shocked, I asked him, "Where did you go?" "Well, I first went to Hoover, and then Vestavia...and then I changed costumes and went back again! I have pillowcases full of candy!" 
4.) Sweet little Madeline, age 5, just started taking lessons with me. I enjoyed teaching her at her first lesson and knew that we were a good fit for each other. As she was walking out with her mom, I heard her say, "That was fun, Mom!" That just made my day!

The Unexpected:
1.) Do you remember that feeling when you were a kid of getting lost in the supermarket and not being able to find your parents? Now imagine that feeling multiplied because your parents are divorced and you're brought to and taken from your piano lessons by a variety of different people including your parents and grandparents. Mandy is one of my new students who I inherited from a different teacher. Of all the students I've taught, she is the hardest one to figure out. She's very quiet, but not shy quiet. She hunches at the piano, doesn't practice nearly enough, and acts like she just doesn't care. She's the most sarcastic and occasionally disrespectful 10 year old I think I've ever met. I have a hard time being patient with her and loving the unlovely in her. So after a frustrating lesson this week, I was glad to see her go. Not ten minutes later, as I was waiting on my next student, Mandy came back into my room sobbing.  I had never seen her so visibly upset or obviously emotional. "What's wrong?" I asked in alarm. "I think she left me," she replied, speaking of her grandmother who had brought her that day. By the grace of God, I had been standing by the window while I was waiting, and happened to see the grandmother pull out of the parking lot without Mandy and then pull back in. I brought Mandy over to the window and asked if that was her grandmother's car. Just then, her grandmother found us, rather flustered herself. It seems as if they had a miscommunication as to which door they were meeting at after her lesson. Honestly, it broke my heart. Most of the students I interact with are from solid, Christian, or at least moral, homes. So my contact with children whose home lives are dysfunctional is rare at best. God gave me a fresh perspective into her life and really burdened me to pray for her. I may not look forward to our lessons or jump for joy when she walks in the door, but I understand her better and my heart aches to see one so young, so terrified of abandonment. I'm praying that I can be the love of Christ to her, even if I only see her for 30 minutes each week.
2.) I hear the usual reasons for cancelling lessons all the time...she's sick, he has a track meet, we're going out of town. But yesterday was the first time I'd ever heard, "Your student was in a car accident." I had just started a lesson with Kristen yesterday, when someone knocked feverishly at the door and said, "Do you have a student coming who has a sister, goes to such-and-such a school...?" "Elizabeth?" I asked. "Yes, well they were pulling into a parking space at the back of the building and accidentally hit the gas instead of the brake, so she probably won't be coming to her lesson today." Needless to say, the rest of the lesson with Kristen, I was a flustered mess. That's not something you expect to hear, ever. Now granted, it wasn't too, too major of an accident. The airbags did deploy, but I think they were mostly more scared and shaken up than anything. But it really got me to thinking. All of my students, my kids, are very precious to me. Even though sometimes I get frustrated for how little they practice or just want to tell them to be quiet and listen, I love them all so much. It would be absolutely horrifying if anything happened to any one of them. It amazes me that God has allowed me to love so many kids, most of whom I've only known for little over a year and see only once a week. But they are precious to me, they are why I teach, they are all major players in my little world. It motivates me to pray diligently, urgently, and faithfully for them and for me, that I will keep my eyes on the bigger picture of loving them and not get so caught up in the frustrating details. I'm so glad I was able to hug Elizabeth yesterday, and see that she was all right, and tell her I loved her. My students are gifts from God to me, changing my life and molding me as a person, and I'm so, SO thankful for them!

The Unruly:
1.) Bethany is one of my new students. I was happy to learn that she was 5 years old, because I started taking piano lessons when I was 5 and I think that age is so fun to teach and interact with. I've had several 5 year olds who have been great students and are still with me today. At her first lesson, Bethany's mom told me that she wouldn't normally be able to sit in on lessons, but she'd like to today. I told her that was fine, as I usually have parents sit in on first lessons, and we got started. At the beginning of the lesson, Bethany was very shy and quiet and wouldn't talk to me. I kept asking her questions and trying to get to know her, but she kept her head down and would just kind of grin up at me. We started working through her piano books and got to a page where she needed to draw some notes or circle an answer or something. I handed her a pencil, like I do with all my students, and as she was completing the page, I began to write down her practice assignment in her notebook. When I looked back over to see how she was doing, I discovered much to my horror that she had begun to color all over the piano keys. "Oh no!" I cried, "We don't do that to a piano." I went to take the pencil from her gently, when she yanked her arm back and almost scratched the full length of my arm with the pencil. Then, she threw the pencil, got off the bench, and wouldn't get back on. The shy, sweet little girl was gone and the trouble child had emerged. The rest of the lesson was much of the same, disobedient little student and frustrated piano teacher. When our (forever long) 30 minutes finally came to a close, her mom looked at me and said, "Oh my goodness." Like, "Oh my goodness, whose child is this?" or "Oh my goodness, I'm the mom, but I'm not going to act like it and deal with my daughter." I wanted to say, "Oh my goodness, get a life and find a new teacher!" But I didn't. I decided I would stick it out a couple more weeks with her and see if things improved at all. The next week, in she came to her lesson, head down, quiet, and shy. "She's my easy child," her mom said, "so I don't know what happened last week." Easy child? I wanted to tell her I didn't want to touch her other children with a ten foot pole. Bethany's second lesson was a little less eventful. I was able to be the authority figure more since her mom wasn't in the room (doing nothing). Things were going a little more smoothly when next thing I know, Bethany was off the bench, pulling at the back of her pants saying, "You can see my panties!" I'm here to tell you, I saw no panties, I saw a lovely half-moon. So, you never know what you're going to get with Bethany. She's like a box of chocolates...chocolates that make you want to run for the hills!
2.) My last story today is not one of an unruly student, but an unruly parent. A parent who you never thought would give you any problems. At the beginning of the school year last fall, I began to set up my schedule once again. I email my piano parents frequently with schedule updates and things they need to know for lessons. I had gotten my schedule all set up, let my boss know so she could assign me a room, and was ready for the semester to begin when I got an email from a parent, addressed to another parent, that said, "I'm copying Molly on this to let her know that starting Labor Day week, my daughter will be taking the such-and-such slot on such-and-such day and your child will be at the such-and-such time on such-and-such.  Appreciate your help!" I think I just sat there and looked at my computer for awhile. My initial thought was, "Who put you in charge?" I emailed her back and, in a very non-confrontational way, thanked her for letting me know but asked if in the future she would run all schedule changes/requests through me, "In the future, please run all schedule changes through me first before contacting another parent. It would be better to ask me about any schedule changes first and have me contact the other parent and student. This is just more professional and keeps everyone's best schedule interests in mind. Thanks for noting this for the future!" I thought it was so strange that she had gone behind my back and switched all this without asking me. I very obviously checked my email frequently as was evidenced by how many emails she generally received from me on a weekly basis. I even emailed the mom she had emailed to apologize and ask if I was crazy/did she also think it was weird. She replied that she did think it was strange, so I knew my reaction wasn't off. I then received this from the first mom, "Sorry... didn't realize swapping times would be such a big deal... my email to her was very polite and in no way pressured or obligated her to switch time slots.  Figured it would be quicker since I found out Tuesdays won't work for us... not sure how often you check email and wanted to try and resolve quickly!" Ummmm, can you say kid caught with hand in cookie jar? I responded that it wasn't a "big deal" but just restated what I had said early, about it being professional and just the decent, courteous thing to do to contact the teacher first (duh!). And I did add that I checked my email often (also duh!). Well, I never heard anything back from her and when her daughter came to her first lesson, she showed up 15 minutes late! I didn't know if they really had gotten caught somewhere or if her mom was still miffed at me, but I decided that this was all so high school and I wasn't going to have any part of it. So I emailed her mom and offered for the daughter to come early to her next lesson so they could get their full money's worth, blah, blah, blah. She responded very sweetly that yes, that would be great and they'd see me then. I thought that was the end of it, until I got another email from her that confused me. It was sent to me, but not worded to me. I then realized that it in fact wasn't written to me, but had been sent to me. It said, "Ok... this was nice of her, so we've made amends." Wow. I just sat there and laughed. And it still makes me laugh. I don't want you to get the impression that I haven't forgiven this woman, because I have, but it still amazes sometimes the amount of childishness I see not from children, but from their parents.

Thanks for reading! More stories to come in the future.