Any teachers here?

There are teachers of all sorts ... some are parents (or others) teaching kids, and those parents (or others) may be very good teachers ... without having received certificates etc. And those parents or others may be both very good piano players, that had lessons ... and also very good at teaching their skills to others. And there are the professional teachers ... with certificates etc.

But ... of course, we have to support the 'professional' teachers as well. And we know there are all sorts. In any group or population ... you encounter various sorts.

As for piano ... it is a musical instrument as we know. And it and music and learning and etc means different things to different people.

As for teaching and learning ... there will be case by case situations. And it all takes time to find out what the situation is ... such as a student isn't putting in enough time or effort ... and why ... eg. other social/recreation/leisure activities, or a high workload at school, or not interested, or is one sort that doesn't learn at some average rate due to what reason there is, or due to another teacher not teaching 'correctly' (can be subjective) ... etc. Or a combination of mix of those conditions. There can be grey areas.

It may be good to answer the original question, "Any teachers here?"

I'm on the fence, and in-between. I do have a teaching degree for school, with learning disabilities & 2nd language learning in there. (I'm not the only language teacher here). I've taught in the classroom and also one-on-one; looked into alternative systems such as Waldorf, visiting classes, The one-on-one later on often was troubleshooting. The first time I ever had music lessons, it was as an adult on a new instrument, and a bunch of things went wrong. At the end of that, I got a piano, which I had played self-taught as a child. Because of the first experience, I went deeply into teaching-learning for music - so as to not fall into a hole as a student a 2nd time. Some of this was public dialog and a lot was private, including with a number of teachers and over a longish time. In my studies with my main teacher, pedagogy, teaching ideas, have been an element for quite a few years now.

I am still a student, and still learning. I've explored problems and solutions with fellow students, including passing on things that I've learned in all of this. Some of this may be considered "teaching". And also for me - learning. As far as that is concerned, I see fellow-students in the fora sharing experience and guiding all the time - maybe there's a gray and blurry line. A couple of teachers have urged me to start teaching for real, like officially. So, dunno.

The things that interest me especially has to do with the process of learning, approaches. This does mesh with my teacher training, plus what I learned from actual music teachers. In "school teaching" we learned to create teaching units, set out aims, objectives, means of getting there, assessing. That's geared to teaching a group, and a tad cumbersome for individuals doing music - but some of it applies. In learning to play the piano we are aiming to learn to play a given piece: we are also learning to acquire skills; both things intersecting. There's a whole gamut of stuff attached to all that. How does a teacher bring these things across, in what order - what activities does a student do at home so as to acquire these things, organizing their time how, etc.? This interests me greatly because of that first experience. There's a thread here about a scientific approach (dunno the exact title atm), and it has some of those elements.

I cannot call myself a piano teacher or music teacher, though.

Stub Yes, certainly some teaching skills can be learned, but (in my opinion) teaching is more of an art than a science. You can't teach the desire to teach, patience, wisdom, a mindset committed to doing what is best (and works best) for the student.

It is indeed both an art and a science. Yes, there is patience, commitment etc. - but how do you do the actual teaching? What kinds of things do you teach first, and how do you set about doing so? Have you an idea of how the student should practise these things at home - have you thought of transmitting this how to the student, and if young, the parents? Are you even aware that there are skills, and which ones, or will you simply teach simple music followed with more complicated music, and hope that skills will magically appear through the act of trying to sound good, like the teacher? These are questions we might ask ourselves.

The other end of the stick is the teacher who learned a rigid pedagogy - things must be done in this order and manner, and they "work" because that's how it's always been done - and those students who don't learn must lack talent, or are lazy - never examining the methodology and its soundness. This goes to what you wrote "and works best for the student".

Stub but (in my opinion) teaching is more of an art than a science.

You could say the same of playing the piano! Yet, here we are, some for whom playing the piano comes naturally, and others who must work hard to make it sound good. I am in the latter category.

So, if playing the piano can be taught, teaching to play the piano can be taught.

PS Keystring says it better than I do.

Stub In many of the Commonwealth countries (so I understand), the question of what to teach and when has been formalized for the teacher by the ABRSM or RCM grade system. Beneath the grade syllybi lie many decisions about how to teach, but the outline is there.

The RCM gives a list of results in various categories: It does not, in fact, give "what to teach". That requires a teacher who knows their craft, otherwise it falls short. I discussed this extensively with Elissa Milne some years back. Elissa's material is featured in the AMEB repertoire: she gives (gave?) lectures to teachers about teaching and has written extensively. No, the outline isn't really there - at best it's better than nothing.

To discuss this, one would have to define what "what to teach" actually means. It might get long and complicated to get into it.

This is pulled out of my hat and may be a poor example:
The last RCM etude I was assigned was grade 7, in violin, so I was in that system for a while. I've looked into all of that since - there are a host of supporting skills I had not learned. When I passed my grade 1 exam with flying colours, the adjudicator wrote in that the sforzando should have been played at the frog of the bow to make it crisp: I had not learned anything about areas of the bow. Such things are not listed. Instead you have repertoire, scales and arpeggios, etudes, and later theory exams. How (including piano) do you play those scales? What types of skills do you need to acquire so as to play those pieces?

As I said, I am also a trained teacher. When we create teaching units and individual lessons, it is broken down into skills, supporting skills, underlying knowledge. It also includes guidance in how to practice and learn. These are not included in things like RCM, ABRSM, AMEB etc. It is assumed that the teacher knows how to teach, and organize these things. Otherwise reaching those "milestones" can become a hollow thing.