“What makes a good private flute lesson is not the way the student plays. What makes a good lesson is the rapport, compatibility and understanding between teacher and student.”
Amy Porter, Flutist
So you are about ready to make contact with your students. Here you have some choices in your approach. Actually, any of these will work. Your own personality will ultimately draw students to you who have success with your teaching style.
It is for you to choose how you will interact with your students. This will be affected by the size of the community in which you live and your comfort level in working one-on-one with different personality types, levels of flute playing, and ages of people. A huge influence will be the teachers you have had. What was their style of teaching? Do you want to copy the interactions and learning experience you had?
Remember not all musicians make good teachers. Teaching is definitely a job that needs to be done well, weather it is learned or comes to you naturally. If you take it on, this should be a job you enjoy doing. Your local flute society or the pedagogy committee of the National Flute Association will have additional information on approaches to teaching the flute.
Teacher vs.Student
A first choice in planning your teaching style. do you feel comfortable in the I am the teacher you are the student approach. In this scenario, you feel it is better to keep a distance between you and your students. You feel comfortable letting them know you are more accomplished, and in holding them to a strict sequence of very structured lessons and practice sessions. You may justify this approach if it feels like a serious or intellectual one to you. This may be the best approach for conservatory bound students.
Teacher as a Mother
A second, is the I am your second mother approach. This is a very “touchy-feely” approach. One in which you like to take an interest in all aspects of the student’s life and their family. You want to be their friend. You offer musical prizes, certificates and parties. Your goal is to make a student for life which insures a consistent income stream. If you chooses this approach, just be sure that you are honest with students and parents about their musical abilities. Don’t let them think they will get a music scholarship, can have a performing career or even that they can get into the music program at a university if this is not a reality. You might want to make them feel good about themselves, so do this by guiding their musical success.
Teacher as Confidence & Independence Builder
A third choice, and this is the approach I like, is when you are more comfortable building the student’s confidence and independence from the inside out. Here is how this choice looks. You want to teach them to be a good student. You want them to learn to learn. You speak to them in a way that they will understand your seriousness about guiding them and keeping their learning experiences growing and positive. You value their input and questions. I feel it is important to create an independent learner and performer. One who can learn to work through new pieces on their own and have the confidence to perform. One who wants to study the flute and learns to love music by playing the flute, maybe for their whole life.
Summary
My hope is always that students will take their love of music and playing the flute with them into life. I want them to have the confidence to play with others, whether it is another flutist, their church music group, community music ensembles, school music classes or a local flute choir.
It is not often in your teaching career that you will find students who actually want to choose being a performing flutist as their life’s work. Symphony level musicians are rare, but be ready to lift them up and pass them along to university or conservatory teachers who have the experience needed for this level of learning.
If a student shows real interest in a career in music, you may also want to be ready to help direct students into other music related businesses, such as music therapy, music artist or group management, or the sound recording industry for example.
The more years you teach the more information and resources you will gather together. Learn from your students how to do your job better. Make “being a better flutist” have a definition in your studio for all levels and ages of students.
What is your style of teaching? Think about this before your first student arrives.