Wednesday, July 14, 2010

Positive Thinking


This video is on the mark. I wish that all of our students' parents would drop the positive thinking paradigm. (Some of them have!) Learning a skill as complex as piano is not all smiles and warm fuzzies. There are rough patches to get through and walls to climb over. Frequently a student's preparation is lacking and the teacher must be the bearer of bad news. Sometimes students get upset when this happens, but that is not the teacher's fault. Honest, constructive criticism is not abuse, even if a student cries upon hearing it. Honest, constructive criticism is, in fact, a large part of teaching in general. People seem to forget that. We're not cheerleaders, we are teachers!

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