"From 8 to 80" -- The New Piano Teacher

Yesterday Last week on Wednesday afternoon, very late into the school year, our sons started piano lessons again.

And WOW, what a change!

We have this expression in Portuguese that refers to extreme positions and that is used in sentences like this: "Wow! You cannot be balanced in life! With you things are either 8 or 80!" ["oito ou oitenta"]

So in the "piano teacher for our sons" aspect of our lives we have suddenly gone "from 8 to 80!" (quite literally, see below! ;-)

The boys' piano teacher for the past three years (and Son#2's very first piano teacher) was a "church lady" who came to their school and taught the children there for a ridiculously low fee (10 dollars for half an hour). It was extremely convenient because I didn't have to take them elsewhere (she taught them during school hours in the afternoon) and initially the boys were doing OK. However, in the past year Kelvin had completely lost his motivation and wanted to quit.

Kelvin had another teacher for a year back in Pennsylvania. She was a lady from church as well, but she had the proper training and her own piano and Kindermusik studio in her spacious house. Son#2 only did Kindermusik, but Kelvin had a great start in piano. Two years ago a dear friend who is an orchestra conductor and doctor in music had warned us that we should switch the boys to another teacher if we wanted them to make any progress, but it took us all this time to finally do it.

Our sons are now (as of yesterday) last week, taking lessons with a person with a doctoral degree in music and who happens to be an assistant professor at a local university. (! ! ! even I am surprised!)

I think that she decided to take our sons because of how late we registered for lessons (at the university's music education department). At a dollar a minute I wonder that, given the choice, other families may decide to go with a more affordable instructor!

She is awesome, though. I wish I could link to her website so you could read her teaching philosophy and other statements. I can tell that the boys will learn a lot and, most importantly, be motivated to practice and learn piano on their own. She definitely puts them in charge of their own learning and praises them in just the right way to motivate them and boost their confidence. YAY!

I sure hope their experience with this teacher is completely different from mine!!