How Hard Should I Push?

Although I love teaching voice lessons, it isn't always easy and it isn't always fun.  One of the things I struggle with is knowing how much to demand of my students.  I firmly believe in teaching that emphasizes process and progress instead of just product.  I believe that my first job is teaching people, not building voices.

The school where I teach is a triple A school meaning that they emphasize excellence in arts, academics, and athletics.  Students are challenged to be the very best they can be. Many of my voice students are the stars in not just one area, but in all three of the A's. That's awesome, but it doesn't leave much time, energy, or focus for practicing for their voice lessons.  And voice lessons always seem to be at the bottom of the priority list.

I struggle with how to inspire them to practice more when I know I'm adding to a work load that is already close to impossible.  I don't want to add stress, but I want them to understand that if they want to win competitions and/or pursue music professionally they need to invest more than just the time they spend with me in lessons.

This all came to a head again this week with the lessons of three very talented students who have a competition in less than two weeks.  One is doing OK, but in an effort to improve technically has completely ignored the interpretative side of things over the last couple of weeks.  Another was exhausted and sick and not yet memorized even though the person has had the song since the summer.  The third (normally a very responsible student) just didn't show up for the last lesson and doesn't have any other lessons scheduled before the competition.  And of course because it is always about me (or so I think sometimes) I began to stress out about how I was failing these kids.  I wondered how to make them realize that they have to do more if they want to reach their goals.

Not only did I struggle with how to talk to them, I couldn't find the words to reach out to my colleagues and ask for advise.  I didn't want to look like a bad teacher.

Then another teacher reached out with a concern and in addressing her situation, I found my answer.  My teacher friend has a student dealing with depression and anxiety and asked for feedback about how she should approach things in lessons.  This was my response:

I have been the student struggling with depression and anxiety, and I have worked with several too. At my worst, music was my anchor, and if my teacher had insisted that I take a break, it would have made the situation worse.

Talking with the student and her parents is probably the best option right now. For the student that I have right now in this situation, together we decided that I will offer her performance and competition opportunities, but she gets to make the decision based on what she thinks she can handle and there is no pressure from me. I also remind her frequently that if I'm pushing her too hard in a lesson and she just needs to have a fun sing day that she can request that.

Several years ago, a student's parents sat next to me at the final choir concert of the year and made a point of thanking me for helping their child make it to graduation.

We can't be therapists, but we can support and encourage, and the healing potential of music is why I keep teaching.

As I thought about that response, I realized that I don't know all the details of everything going on the lives of my students.  With rare exceptions, I don't know who is dealing with depression or anxiety.  I don't know who is still experiencing PTSD from a past trauma.  I can't know all that, and I can't make myself responsible for everything in their lives.  But I can offer every student the options that I give to those that I know are struggling.

I've mentioned my tai chi study before.  Every tai chi class I take and every tai chi class I teach reinforces those ideals that first led made me want to teach voice lessons.  Every student comes to us with different needs and each of those students will need to discover the specifics of how singing (or tai chi) happens in their own unique body.  

In his book Teaching Tai Chi Effectively, Dr. Paul Lam says

When working with the young people, you must be well prepared and yet, very flexible.  Listen to them--with your eyes, as well as ears--and adjust as you go.

We must also listen with our hearts.  We must develop empathy and teach with compassion.

Another of my tai chi heroes, Caroline Demoise wrote this her her book, Tai Chi as a Spiritual Practice.    All you have to do to make this apply to voice lessons is substitute singing for every time she uses tai chi here.

Being interested in them as people and desiring to help them achieve their potential are quite different from having expectations about how good their tai chi should be, how far they could progress or how well they have taken advantage of the instruction they have been given.
Don't have expectations for the class.  Students will feel the pressure of your expectations, and it activates their critical voice when they are not progressing to your satisfaction.  Remember whose journey is unfolding.  It is not about you.  Class is each student's personal journey.  As the teacher, you are coaching, providing an environment for learning, giving encouragement, offering feedback and holding the space for them to unfold their potential.
As a teacher you want your student to succeed and reflect your teaching skill, but ideally your ego will take a backseat to your student's own timetable and development.  Students with incredible natural talent may have multiple priorities and may not be focused solely on tai chi, which influences the unfolding of their potential.  Means do not justify the end, and pressure and criticism are never appropriate as inducements to achieve.  Tai chi is not about competition, but about self-development.  Students who have only a little ability but who regularly show up in class, try their best, have a lot of enthusiasm for learning and feel better at the end of class are a visible demonstration of your success as a teacher.  

So how hard should I push? Maybe I don't need to push at all.  I need to give up the word should, and invite and encourage rather than setting expectations or demanding.  At this point, I think all I can do is offer opportunities and provide tools.  Each student needs to decide for himself or herself what to take and how far they want to go.  And I need to be OK with that.

Another learning experience with Solo and Ensemble Contest

For the last couple of weeks we have been putting the finishing touches on performances as students prepared for Solo and Ensemble Contest (which happened yesterday.) I encouraged each student to write a positive personal pep talk to review right before they entered the room to sing. This pep talk was to include reminders about anything that we had discussed in lessons to improve their song. It could include "remember to get a deep, relaxed breath", or "send the sound to the back of the room". I also asked that they really focus on phrasing things positively. Under pressure and stress, your brain deletes the word "not", so "Don't mess up the high note," becomes, "MESS UP THE HIGH NOTE! MESS UP THE HIGH NOTE! MESS UP THE HIGH NOTE!" A better, more positively phrased option would be, "I will sing the high note with space and freedom." I thought that avoiding the word "not" would be good enough, but a student showed me another way that we can sabotage ourselves. When I asked this student to share something he might put in his pep talk, he said something like this, "I will sing to the end of the phrase instead of breathing in the middle of the word." Ugh. That "instead of" just gave his brain another option that we don't want it to have. We talked about how in this last minute pep talk, we only wanted to include the things we want to have happen. "I will sing to the end of the phrase."

I also explained to the students that this personal pep talk was like downloading the latest updates to the computer. Once they entered the room, I wanted them to trust that the computer (their brains and bodies) would run the program (installed through practice and updated with the pep talk) and only focus on keeping the body free and expressing the text. If you don't know what to do before you enter the room, all the worrying in the world won't make it happen. OK, I didn't include that last part, but it is true.

Some of the kids thought it was a dumb exercise, which is fine, but I think it really makes a difference and the kids that did it, benefitted from it.

Solo and Ensemble Contest is such a stressful experience, and I'm not talking about what the kids feel. Take the nerves one student feels and multiply it by the number of students I have participating, (in this event it was somewhere around 40) and then you will see what I go through. I know what they are capable of. I know what they have practiced (or not practiced). I want them to succeed, sometimes even more than they want it.

But yesterday I got thinking about the pep talks and the computer analogy. I have to trust that I have done all I can to prepare my students. I have to let them go. I have to let them claim responsibility and ownership for their preparation and performances. If I am the person accompanying them, I need to let go of teacher mode and focus on the expressivity and beauty of what they are creating.

No, that's not totally new to me, but it's also not something that I've totally mastered either. I have a lot of room to grow still.

Here are some highlights of my day:

• a student with Asperger's conquered her nerves, sang her song, and responded very well to the clinician that worked with her.
• a student who stutters had even more difficulty announcing his song than he usually does due to his nerves, but he didn't let that create frustration that would affect his song. Once he started singing, he nailed it.
• 2 students who have had a rough year (or years) (partly due to their own poor choices) sang for completely impartial clinicians who knew nothing of their pasts. The kids brought the best they had to offer (which was amazing) and the judges saw that and let them know how wonderful it was.
• in more than one case, the nervous energy actually improved the sound quality and tuning and kids gave better performances than they had given at their lessons. (Love it when that happens.)

I survived another year of Solo and Ensemble Contests! Yay me! Now on to the preparation for the end of the year recitals. No pressure there. Just parents wanting to see that the money they've been paying was well spent.