UPDATE: Be sure to read the parent comments at the end of this article.
Over a decade after high school graduation, he told his parents he was bullied as a high school freshman, not telling them at the time because he feared they’d make a big deal of it.
He DID go to a teacher who ignored or brushed aside his emotional plea. In his valedictorian speech at graduation three years later, when he listed the “Top 10 Things I Learned in High School”, one of them was…..
“….that my head really does fit in a gym locker.”
Still no response. This was before all the more recent publicity of the terribly negative lifetime impact that bullying can have….but
…there is no excuse for inaction. EVER!
Fortunately, this story doesn’t end tragically…. but that doesn’t make it right.
For a short time during my earliest teen years, without concern about walking to and into his home, I studied piano with a single guy who lived a few blocks away. During high school freshman year, I took lessons with a college girl who came to our school and went with me into a sound-proofed practice room. Later in high school, I would travel weekly to an area band director’s home for instruction. Concerns about safety transparency and reputation never came up.
But times are different now. Priests, coaches, and teachers are convicted of having inappropriate relationships with children and students, creating a sensitive and suspicious society that dissuades good teachers and students from participating in the time-tested tradition of individualized instruction.
The concept of innocent until proven guilty does not apply. No one can afford even an accusation. A School of Performing Arts that provides private lessons for area children put windows in all the classroom doors, instituted a parental sign-in/out procedure, and has a staff member walk in on every lesson every time. Band directors schedule lessons in busy offices or in large ensemble rooms full of distractions. College students video lessons with middle/high school students, not only for critique but also for security.
One band director told me that
…you don’t have to be guilty….an accusation can destroy a reputation and/or cost your job. And unfortunately, even after proven innocent, the doubts, questions and hesitations can continue to damage a reputation that took decades to build. Teachers have to be soooo careful.
The very nature of individualized music instruction almost mandates that student and teacher be alone in a room with a closed door. How do we take the legitimate safety concerns that student, parent, and teacher share along with the teacher’s concern for reputation (and employment) and still provide specialized, accelerated training?
SAFETY is everyone’s concern even if from different perspectives. Be aware and be careful.
TEACHERS…
invite parents to sit in or be nearby during lessons.
My experience: When I teach 1-1 lessons in my home, parents can relax in my living room while I work with the student in the dining room. A 6th grader’s mother would bring a book and sit in the room.
leave a door open or at least ensure it is unlocked and/or has a window. Enable anyone to walk in on you. That delay while you get up to open the door from the inside can cause undue suspicion or concern (and increase interruption time).
schedule lessons when others are around. Avoid evenings or non-school days when teaching at school or make sure someone else is home if the student is coming to your home studio. Do everything reasonable to remove any question andensure both student and parent are comfortable. Keep in mind that teens are increasingly cautioned to beware of one-on-one situations with adults. Respect that.
My experience: When a mother requested I work with her student over holiday break, I scheduled it at school along with an appointment for another teacher to drop something off to me during the lesson time. I left the band room door opened and set up the chairs in clear view from the hallway so passing janitors could see and hear.
video or audio record the session. Make sure everyone knows. Place the camera so both teacher and student are visible, but NOT in a way that makes the student uncomfortable or could set you up for a different kind of complaint.
My experience: When I teach lessons via Skype, I ask that the camera be pointed so that I can see either fingers, embouchure or both, so I am usually looking at a profile view of the student’s top front. When girls start adjusting their clothes, there is some discomfort. Be aware, empathetic, and be careful. Explain your reasoning — or move the camera to remove the discomfort.
if you have a regular coaching schedule, post the schedule. If you have a website with a calendar, parents (and students) are better reminded and informed.
PARENTS…
check references. In addition to safety, you want to make sure you’re getting a good product (teacher). If the teacher is an outsider coming to the school, the school should have conducted a background check. Ask.
sit in or be in the area, at least periodically. Sitting in an adjacent room can provide reasonable privacy while often enabling you to hear your child play. They won’t do that for you at home, right? Bring a book.
for virtual lessons (via Skype, for example), be in the area. You don’t have to stand over the child’s shoulder, but listen in and even walk in a couple times….say hi to the teacher.
STUDENTS…
meet a new teacher for the first time with a parent and in public.
go with your gut.
if anything makes you uncomfortable, speak up or get out. Nearly 100% of the time, you are either mis-interpreting or the teacher is completely unaware and will respond and adjust. Don’t destroy an opportunity based on your misunderstanding a teacher’s oversight.
if a parent is dropping you off, have a cell phone to call if the teacher is not there, you finish early (or going over), or you otherwise need parental pick up.
My experience: It was during a storm and I was mid-lesson after school when the power went out. Emergency lighting came on, but not enough to continue.
if you are going to a lesson, tell your parents (or someone) when, where and for how long.
My experience: I’ve had an unnecessarily disgruntled parent when I scheduled some after school coaching with a student who never got around to communicating and mom didn’t know what was going on ’til the student didn’t get off the bus. My mistake was assuming the parent knew.
TRANSPARENCYhelps everyone.
Sometimes there is a drop off in parental involvement and in student/parent communication during high school. Teens want more responsibility and independence and both parent and teacher should strive to help them in those areas. Assumptions often cause problems, however, and most issues I’ve ever experienced in the triangular relationship with parent and student elevate because somebody “assumed”. Several years ago, I gave each of my business office employees a personalized, engraved magnet that said, simply:
Assume Nothing!
TEACHERS…provide a list of expectations and policies.
Payment. How much, how often and what happens when they don’t. Are materials (music) included?
Cancellations when you cancel, when student cancels, how much notice and what if there isn’t any?
Minimum requirements; lessons per month, practice time, materials such as tuners or metronome, a functioning instrument with adequate supplies (reeds, etc)…
Privacy. Don’t share student/parent contact info or details about what happens during lessons. That is why they are called “private” lessons.
Communication. Be easy to contact. Determine whether your communication is to be with the student or parent. Any written communication with the student should be copied to a parent, when possible, including texts, emails or other types of media messages.
REPUTATIONS are slow to build and quick to crumble.
Students and parents need to realize how important that is to the teacher, especially when their very livelihood depends on it. Younger or single teachers need to be hyper-aware, but no one is too old, fat, bald or ugly for legitimate concern and caution.
Without an element of TRUST, this simply cannot work. Hopefully, the teacher has ‘earned’ some trust from both the student and the parental. It is unfortunate that we hear via national news when trust has been abused. That is horrible. But it is also a very, VERY small percentage of people. My advice to all…. in a nutshell:
I was coming down the one-way street where we live. There is parking on both sides, but that doesn’t leave much room. Years ago, when I had a conversion van, I managed to take off someone’s mirror with mine. (Yes, I dealt with it.)
On this particular trip, in addition to normal cars parked, I encountered a lawn service truck, an Amazon van, a City Truck and one collecting trash…and I barely made it through with my car. I commented in a post that a fire truck wouldn’t make it and was reminded of a couple of Dad’s firetruck stories and events, one courtesy of my sister.
What happens when you block a fire truck?
Backdraft, a realistic presentation of real fire fighting
The movie, ‘Backdraft’ fascinated me. Dad was a 32-yr veteran firefighter in a full-time city department that had about ten “houses” around town. He was one of three “Chiefs”. He said “Backdraft” was pretty accurately done. I asked about the scene where there is a car parked in front of the hydrant and they break the windows and take the hose through the car.
“We would probably just use the truck to push the car out of the way. The car would be a wreck, but don’t put your car between my truck and our getting to a fire.”
Dad’s “Company 1” Fire House, @ 1975Problematic long driveway at Holmes High School.Entrance gate to Holmes High School. What you can’t see are the iron-works gates that matched the fencing to the right.
What happened when they blocked my Dad’s fire trucks?
Close to that in real life that involved Dad and his trucks happened at my high school around 1980 when my sister was a sophomore. There is a long driveway through the school and at times they would have problems with people speeding through there during school. On one particular day, someone chained shut the large ironworks gate. They weren’t supposed to do that, I’m sure, but those drivers and that long driveway could be disturbing and a safety concern.
There was a fire alarm and Dad was on duty.
When the trucks arrived at the school, they encountered the locked main gate. Guess what they did?
Dad never talked about that story, but sister tells me she remembers faculty talking about the Fire Department “busting the gates down”.
Another news story of a teacher caught up in a sexual situation with students. Sad and disturbing on multiple levels because at least two lives are damaged — forever changed. Students become hesitant to open up to and trust teachers. Parents become understandably hyper-sensitive and maybe over-protective.
Most teachers work so hard to build proper, trust-based relationships with students.
My intent was never to make students obey commands because I was the authority in the classroom. I wanted them to listen and want to follow my guidance because they TRUSTed that what I am saying was best for the ensemble collectively and for him/her individually. I didn’t want to be their ‘best bud’. I wanted to be a life-mentor, someone they will look back at 20 years from now with favorable memories of someone who helped them get through some of their high school hurdles.
Of course, there are several reasons for a student to hesitate to trust: 1) parents have broken trust between themselves and with their children — so the teen, wanting protection from future pain, erects a shield to keep people out, 2) friends break trust — so hurt teens conclude trust is risky and 3) teachers like the one in the news.
So who am I to expect students to trust ME? I get it. It makes me sad sometimes — when I sense that a student really needs to talk through something but is afraid to lower that shield. Or when I see one heading in a potentially negative life-impacting (but not physically dangerous) direction and regrettably conclude that, because it is none of my ‘business’, i.e. outside my teaching subject, that I need to stay in my space and not try to cross over into his/hers. I do understand.
As I started writing, I realized I’ve said variations of all this before. I used the search function on my blog, entered “trust” and found the following: …
For a short time during my earliest teen years, without concern about walking to and into his home, I studied piano with a single guy who lived a few blocks away. During high school freshman year, I took lessons with a college girl who came to our school and went with me into a sound-proofed practice room. Later in high school, I would travel weekly to an area band director’s home for instruction. Concerns about safety transparency and reputation never came up.
