When they're not working...
Over the past few weeks, I’ve received emails from several teachers with concerns. Students seem to be stuck and don’t really care about what’s going on. Lessons that once worked no longer seem to be working. And method books teachers have relied on for years suddenly feel like they’re getting in the way rather than helping. One teacher described feeling defeated. Another wondered what had happened to their teaching. I suspect there are more teachers feeling this way than we realize.
So let’s take a breath and ask different questions: What if the problem isn’t our teaching? What if our comfort with method books is getting in the way? What if the solution is more about the students joining us in the studio this year?
Method books can provide a useful sequence, a collection of repertoire, and a sense of direction. They can give us somewhere to begin. But they’re not designed to know our individual students—their interests, their musical experiences, their personalities, their strengths, their challenges, or the music already playing in their heads.
A method book is a resource. But - it's not the curriculum, and it certainly isn’t the teacher. The curriculum is the musical experience we create with the student. Sometimes that experience will include a method book. Sometimes it might not. The student’s journey might be more about pieces the student has brought from home or creating space to explore the unexpected. The question isn’t whether the method book is good or bad. The question is whether it's helping us create meaningful music-making experiences for this particular student.
Perhaps this is a good time to reconsider our relationship with method books. Do we teach the book, or do we use the book to help us teach? There’s an important difference. When the book is working, wonderful. When it isn’t, we have permission to look up, look around, and pay attention to the real student joining us for their lesson.
This week, let’s explore what might happen when we stop asking, “How do I get my student through this book?” and start asking, “How can I get to know more about the musical journey my student is interested in?”
For sure, music teaching comes with bumps in the road. The beauty is that we can pause, rethink, experiment, and find new ways forward. We can step outside the familiar and see what happens when we follow the student rather than the page in front of us.
So when the method book isn’t working, keep in mind - it isn’t a sign of teacher failure. It’s an invitation to look more closely, listen more carefully, and become curious about what might work better.
After all, we teach students, not books.
What role does the method book currently play in my teaching? Is it a resource, a roadmap, or has it quietly become the curriculum?
What am I learning about the students sitting in front of me this year? What are they listening to, interested in, curious about, or eager to play?
What might I keep from my current method, and what might need changing?
Do you have teaching colleagues who might appreciate reading this blog? Please feel free to share it with them.
If this exploration into method books resonates with you, I’d love to hear from you. Click HERE to send me an email message.
This is your invitation to keep the conversation going....