Last week:

I was shocked when of one of my teen students developed an alarming tendency towards passive aggression. Is she suffering from middleschoolitis? Is she bored? Is she a victim of raging hormones? Last fall her parents expressed the desire for the children to participate in our state evaluation program. We began the theory portion about a month ago. Coincidencenza?

I think that partly the portents were there all along but I failed to recognize them and partly this young person has reached a new stage in her overall development and is experimenting with power. She has always been reluctant to incorporate suggestions and corrections into her playing. I have had to choose my battles, standing my ground when a deadline loomed and choosing the option of moving on to another piece with similar challenges when deadlines were not a concern.

Last week, during a game in which students draw cards and answer questions about scales and triads, clap rhythms, play 8 measures from a piece they are learning, etc., she decided not to answer saying flatly, “I don’t know.” When I attempted to help her think through a problem with cues, she refused to participate, mumbling repeatedly, “I don’t know.” Well, she did indeed know because she has been playing and writing these things successfully for quite some time. She even beat out the studio during a scale game a few weeks back. I turned the lesson in the opposite direction and began an improvisation activity. Rather than interact with the music, she played a collection of random notes and just giggled.

No matter what she did we finished the game as a group. Afterward, I took her aside. I asked her what was up. Not surprisingly she said, “I don’t know”. I quietly told her that we had a problem and this behavior was unacceptable and could not continue. I told her we needed to work through this together- that I couldn’t help her if we didn’t communicate. I was careful to convey my message without either blame or accusation. I was careful to use the word “we” rather than “you” and to keep my body language calm and similar to her own. Not surprisingly she just listened without responding.

I wrote a note in her notebook:

Dear _______, Always fight to understand and find answers. Please don’t ever give up. The person who fights and doesn’t quit is always a winner even when they give a wrong answer. Dr. Gail

This week:

A smiling confident young lady walked in for a lesson. She was able to answer my questions about her theory and she asked some of her own. Her pieces were well prepared and so was her technique. She said she made a bad decision and just quit when she discovered she didn’t know her theory as well as she thought. I told her bad decisions happen and as long as she learns from them, they will ultimately make her a stronger person.

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