Sometimes I wish I wrote beautifully curated how-to posts on this blog. But I generally don't, and this is one of those times. This is not a "how to teach your kids piano." It's just scattered recollections on my recent experience doing so.
One of the things that is new for us here in Finland is that I am the girls' piano teacher now. We had a fabulous piano teacher in Sharjah - she came to our house and taught the girls once a week in back-to-back lessons. She was Ukranian and full of energy and so skilled as a teacher. (She has my old accompanist job now, which makes me equal parts happy for and jealous of her.)
We tried a new piano teacher here, but he didn't teach the ABRSM exam and with our budget begin a little tighter now, it felt silly to pay someone else to do something I could do myself. So I became the girls' piano teacher. I am teaching them the required ABRSM exam pieces and technique, and they'll go to Helsinki in a couple of months for that. It has been a clear benchmark for me to aim for with them, and it will be a clear assessment of my attempts to teach them.
So how's it been going? Well, the first thing I did was set a system in motion that could mostly run on its own. I made practice charts for the girls showing every element of the ABRSM required curriculum, as well as (not pictured) a sign titled "What does it mean when we say 'practice the piano'?" with bullet points of how any given practice session should go. That way, even when I'm not at home, they (and Jeremy) know what they should be doing.
That said, we almost never have formal once-a-week lessons for 45 minutes, like the girls used to. Instead, I work with each girl for about 20 minutes almost every day. I sit with them at the piano and they go through anything they need help with. It has led to very fast progress with Magdalena (she has already learned all three pieces); slightly less so with Miriam (she's only learned one so far). Both are doing very well with their scales and technique work. I didn't plan it this way, but it turns out I prefer checking in for a shorter length of time, more often, rather than all of us dreading the approach of (or lazily postponing) Piano Lesson Day.
Becoming my girls' piano teacher was not a task I took on lightly. I agonized over it quite a bit, in fact. And some of the downsides of being your own child's piano teacher that you're assuming I have - well, I do. But for us, right now, it's worth the savings, as well as the connection to my girls' music study I get to enjoy. We'll see how the exam goes in the spring!
