That Thing I Do

Every time I lose a piano student it feels like a punch in the gut.  It hurts.  I mourn and grieve.  I question my teaching abilities.  I wonder if there is more I could have done.  I feel like a total loser.

I go through this even when I sense it coming (because I can often feel it heading down the pike).  I experience the grief even when I know that the time is right for a student to quit and that it will be best for the student and myself.  I even mourn a little when it is a student that I never really "clicked" with or one that never did any work (making lesson time torture for both of us more than likely). 

So when, at the beginning of the week, I received a call from a mother of two students to inform me that they would be discontinuing lessons at the end of February (for reasons I totally understood), I found myself facing that familiar mixture of disappointment and regret again. 

I rarely talk about piano lessons in this blog.  Not because there isn't a wealth of material - because WOW! - there is a lot of good stuff there.  Not only are my students hilarious, but I continually learn so much through them.  But somehow it feels as though there is some unspoken teacher/student confidentiality vow that I have taken.  I don't ever want a student to feel as though they are the butt of a joke or are being violated in any way.  And I guess what happens at our lessons feels a bit private and maybe even a little sacred to me.

I have the privilege of meeting one-on-one with children and young adults once a week.  And some of these students I see once a week for six or more years!  We build a relationship, a trust that I take very seriously.  Some students open up to me at the first lesson but some relationships I have to coax and nurture and build.  I made a decision long ago that regardless of a student's performance at the piano, I was going to build a relationship with the person who comes to lessons each week. 

Because each student is a person:

• who is good at some things and not as good at others,
• who has passions and hobbies - even if it's not piano,
• who experiences angst and drama at school and occasionally gets their feelings hurt,
• who has tests to study for and lines to memorize for the school play,
• who has a beloved pet that just died,
• who is excited about a sleepover or cousins coming to visit,
• who has dreams of someday becoming something great. 

How narrow it is to only view them through the lens of the piano.  If I only viewed them through that lens I could potentially end up really disliking a student who is a delightful person.  So I try.  I try to get to know them all and value them for who they are.  Sometimes I fail and I never quite make that connection.  (And granted, I only have a few minutes a week which isn't super conducive to developing really deep feelings.)  Sometimes I am just not the right teacher for a particular student.  But I really hope that they can feel that I care.  I think they do.  I have even had a few students break down in tears when they told me they were going to quit.  Which then makes me cry and really, it's a big mess. 

Perhaps that is why it always hurts when it's time to say goodbye.  Maybe if I took a more clinical approach, more professional even, I could separate myself from the heartache.  I don't know if I want to.  I don't know if I would enjoy what I do as much without the richness of those relationships. 

And then, with perfect timing, a new student came to meet me at the end of this week.  One that will leave me eventually as they all do - but one that I think I will love working with.  I was reminded that there is a constant cycle to this job of mine, and the sting from earlier in the week lessened.