Whose Side Are You On?
How does your studio stack up against the schools around you? Do you try to match up with schools, or to contrast with them? A studio is a kind of school, so it’s natural to make the comparison.
While many studios probably don’t make a deliberate decision about it, some feel they are taken more seriously if they incorporate elements of regular school, while others see themselves as an environment that offers a break from the school mold. It would be interesting to hear from you (add a comment below) whether your studios tends in one direction or the other.
The most obvious connection of studios with schools is in the calendar. Some studios coordinate closely with days-off or vacations of local schools; others pay no attention because it is often precisely during those school breaks that students have more time and flexibility to come to the studio. Many studios split the difference, recognizing that people are more likely to be away during school breaks, and offering makeups, but still allowing lessons and classes to proceed.
The less obvious but more important comparisons with schools, however, have to do with teaching methods and attitudes. Although individual teachers have to work in their own ways, the studio can also set a tone in these areas.
For example, is practicing is treated as homework? Are there studio-wide benchmarks, grades, or tests? How do students proceed from one level to the next? Are there achievement awards? Do teachers use a curriculum of some kind? These can be discussed either at the level of teaching or at a studio level — but they all live in the shadow of … the Big Question!
The Big Question is: Whose side are you on?
If you assign homework, are you testing whether a student can measure up, or are you offering the student a chance to do something that intrigues or inspires them, or that they understand will lead them to something exciting and challenging? If you have recitals, tests or evaluations, are they presented with the threat of embarrassment for those who don’t do the work, or are they looked forward to as rewards for progress made? If you use a curriculum, is it rigidly applied or can it adapt to individual needs and help them move forward on a solid foundation?
“Whose side are we on?” Asking yourself this question can help you when you plan events, classes, policies, and publicity. It can help when you greet students who come in the door, or when you have to handle questions about payments or registrations.
Unfortunately, many schools are so tugged by requirements of laws, budgets, test results and behavioral standards that they forget they’re supposed to be on the students’ side — helping them learn and grow. A lot of time in school is actually spent in confrontation with students — full of testing, threats, and control.
Your studio and your teachers can be on the side of your students. Students come to you, after all, because they want to learn what you offer, whether you teach music, dance, art, gymnastics, or other skills.
It’s important to remember that teaching and learning is all about progress, not about achievement. As much as we need benchmarks of various kinds to mark student progress, the only real goal of teaching is progress itself. Whatever skill someone learns, they can always learn to do it better. And everybody used to be a beginner.
Recitals, competitions, classes — all can be geared toward rewarding progress by celebrating honest effort at all levels.
I’ll never forget the first music studio where I took lessons. At the end of each year, we were required to participate in a studio-wide recital. For many it was nerve-wracking, but the reward we all were proudest of was a little pin we were given, marking how many years we had been at the studio. It didn’t say how good we were, just that we had put in good effort to make progress over X number of years. We were proud to be a part of that studio. They were on our side.
