In The Loop

Imagine, for a moment that you have a child in the 6th grade taking private lessons. You ask him or her what they did today in school? "I dunno." Did you have a lesson today? "A what?" A private lesson - did you have one today? "Yea, I guess so." Well, what did you learn? "I dunno." You must have learned something in your lesson. "Oh, you mean in the private lesson?" Yes, what did you learn in your private lesson that I'm paying for? "Umh, something about breathing." Breathing? You don't know how to breath? Do you have an assignment? "No, he just said to take a breath before I play a note." I'm paying $30 a lesson for someone to teach you how to breathe? Maybe I should give lessons!

How would you like to pay $80 to $100 a month or more for private lessons for your child and then hear about the lessons like this? It happens all the time. Is it no wonder that some private teachers have problems keeping students, or even worse, collecting for lessons they delivered! My advice for any private teacher is: "Keep the parents in the loop." All it takes is a short comment to the parents to let them know that yes, a lesson was given and important things were discussed dealing specifically with this student's strengths and weaknesses and that practice exercises were prescribed. This very small amount of communication with the parents can make the difference between apathy and full support with on-time payments.

After all, if you are teaching lessons then your two biggest motivators are probably "the pride of teaching well" and "monetary compensation for your expertise". The concept of communication is so important in developing a successful private teaching business that I discuss it in greater depth in another article.

Communication, it is said, is the key to great leadership. As it happens, it is also the key to more effective lessons and a great reputation for producing outstanding musicians.

In order to understand this, we need to delve into the process details for just a moment. Bear with me if this tends to be a little too analytical for you. I think in the long run you will certainly be glad you stopped to think about this.

Of all the things that I do as a private teacher, I think that communicating the student's goals and progress with the parents is the most important. Some of this, as I have said before, is a little selfish in that I am making sure that parents are aware that a service is being provided (and without saying it directly,

"for compensation"). However, the rest of the communication paradigm is all about your students excelling! Think about it, by communicating with the parents you get them involved in the program. They become your advocates and help produce positive results from your lessons. They can help by making sure Johnny has a regular place and time to practice. They can also tell if he is focusing on your issues or just practicing mistakes.

We should never underestimate the influence of an interested parent in the development of a child; but for some reason private teachers of younger students often ignore the potential benefit of supportive parents. By doing so, they lose out on a prime support system. I have had extreme success with my private students and the number one thing that I attribute this to is my philosophy on keeping parents in the loop.

If you are not sold by now, here's another way to look at it. By not communicating with the parents, then you are running the risk that another private teacher will come on the scene who does. It will turn your world upside down as parents and students flock to this other teacher who everyone believes is a better teacher. It may not be true, but "perception is truth", so if parents have positive things to say about your competition it only reflects negatively on your method of teaching.

Now before you say that's not my style or I'm not the outgoing type or something like that, let me first tell you that I would not consider myself as an overly friendly or chatty person. Quite the opposite, I'm actually a kind of shy, focused person - so how do I manage all this communication with parents? It's easier than you might think. My secret is Email! About 98 percent of my students have email. Whenever I take on a new student the first thing I do is get their email address. I also mention to the parents that I'll be sending lesson notes and assignments to them on a regular basis. I prefer that the parents print the notes, review them, then hand them to the student. That way the student knows that the parents know and everyone knows what's going on. This little Email trick has gotten me more praise and recognition for doing a great job than I got in all the years when I taught without Email.

I have this down to an art now. I use a software program developed specifically for private music teachers. During the lesson I make a few key notes in the "Observations"

field, a quick assignment in the "Assignment" field and click the email button. The email is automatically addressed, formatted, and placed in the "Outbox" for sending as soon as I reconnect to the internet. Furthermore, the lesson notes are stored where I can review them the following week just before our next lesson. There are a lot of advantages of working this way, which I'll share with you below.

From the very first lesson I have a record of my observations, goals and strategies for each student. Before I used software in my lessons I used to send many of the same messages week after week. If parents were to compare notes it would probably seem that I wasn't saying or trying much new. Now, I can address the same problem, or comment on progress, and there is a continuity of thought and strategy in my teaching. Being able to look back on lesson notes also helps me to decide when we may be stuck and it's time to move on, at least temporarily. If I end up coming back to a previous issue, which is often the case, I can then address returning to a that same issue in a fresh perspective. For instance, when you say it like, "As we said earlier in the year, this would be something that we want to return to periodically and now is a good time to do so." This gets a much better response than parents discovering that you are still working on the same problem eight months later. The reality may be that for most of the year you were working on other problems. However, in your brief return to a previous issue, the parents could come to believe that you are still working on the same problem after all these months. Of course, this is probably not true, but again, "perception is reality". Who can blame the parents for becoming somewhat skeptical or doubtful about the benefit of private lessons?

My advice for private music teachers is to get yourself a software package like PLSoft (stands for Private Lesson Software) and use it to not only track your students, but also to communicate with the parents on a regular basis with professional looking notes and billing statements.

Don't be surprised if you get nice comments from grateful parents right away. You will most likely notice greater improvements in your students over the months. Your reputation will grow as your students begin to excel and outperform others in competitions. This is a great position to be in where you have all the students that you can handle and your reputation is one of success.