It is during the summer time that I notice how UN-exhausted I am when teaching piano. After a full day of teaching school, the thought of four or five lessons in the evening sometimes overwhelmes me. But during the summer, it is positively joyful. I have so much more energy and stamina for paying attention to everything the kids are doing. What a difference!
So those two students who started me on this blog are still taking lessons, but sadly, not making much progress at all. It takes the boy weeks and weeks to just learn one line--he is such a timid player and if he practices at home, he's not actually practicing, just playing through his pieces. He is capable of reading the notes and playing the pieces, but the amount of progress he makes each week is just miniscule.
His sister, on the other hand, quit for a week. But then she came back. And I think she is the one with a bit more talent, although I realized that she cannot read notes. So we put the books away and concentrated on strategies for learning the notes on the staff. She is doing much better, but I don't have her in her book just yet. We picked up one of her brother's old books and she is working through that one. It's a level below where she was, but it's giving her the practice and the confidence she needs to start moving forward.
In other news, one of my students, Raymond, is very interesting. His parents called me back in the fall and asked about piano lessons for him. He was in sixth grade at the time, and a total beginner, so I picked up a book that was not too little-kiddish. So. It turns out that Raymond is autistic. Oh my. Why wouldn't his parents tell me anything? It only took a few minutes to figure out that something was off, but sheesh...I have used every strategy in my book for working with autistic children. It's really amazing how his brain works. He came in very upset the other day, locking the door so his mother, who was walking a few steps behind him, couldn't follow him in. And he was crying. It was very hard to get the story out of him, but I think I figured out that his mom was bothering him to practice, and he didn't like that. Whew. We hardly played the piano that day, instead I let him cry and get out his frustrations before we could even think about playing songs. I'm glad that I have him as a student, as it is helping me as much as I'm helping him (I hope).
