Not your studio glamour shot: the scene after a day of teaching.
It has been 8 weeks and I’ve given nearly 400 lessons delivered via Zoom, FaceTime, and WeChat, as well as numerous webinar appearances with teachers from Canada, the United States, and around the world. Our studio hasn’t had an in-person lesson since early March and I’ve discovered that it is much more difficult to clean up on the fly during a teaching day when I need to constantly remain on-camera.
Many of us are feeling considerable fatigue from weeks of all-online teaching, as well as grief brought on by the fact that public performances might need to be shelved for quite a while.
Although we’re probably still in the early stages of the massive change brought on by the COVID-19 virus, planning for the future and how to adapt has become a hallmark of the last two months. In order to survive, we all need to come up with new ideas, work through and develop them, as well as learn career skills like never before, realizing that bootstrapped solutions are often the cheapest and wisest.
Here is a list of some of the things that I’ve been noticing about the changes in music education that have happened in a very short time. Some of these changes will be temporary, and some will be permanent. Knowing which is which is beyond our ability to forecast in late May 2020, but is an important thing to ponder, given the consequences of fat tail events with far-reaching consequences.
1. Music education is now online learning. To put it bluntly, if you want to teach music at present, you must teach online. A few months ago, online learning was a fun sub-project for many of us. I started teaching online just over a year ago, and although I realized that it would have a major impact on the pedagogical world, it was impossible to know that it would become a daily reality so quickly. Until a vaccine or effective local safe-distancing guidelines are enacted, to do otherwise will put yourself and your students at risk of contracting a formidable disease to which you have no immunity, and risk personal ruin or death in its aftermath.
2. More than ever, music teachers must have an online presence. To put it in a less positive manner, teachers unable to effectively make the transition to online learning during the crisis might very quickly lose access to their students. You need a website with online registration and you need a way to reach people online, whether through search, referrals, ads, or social media.
3. Traditional neighbourhood music teachers will need to rebrand in order to reach a wider market for their services. This is a golden opportunity to serve the community on both a local and international level. Students can now choose from a much wider array of potential teachers. Teachers can also cast their net much wider when recruiting students.
4. The most experienced and respected teachers are now the most vulnerable. Many of the very best teachers in our profession who represent the grand traditions of our art are people who have been doing this for a long time, and have learned from those even greater than themselves in previous years. However, older people are more vulnerable to the serious risks of COVID-19, and it is also our responsibility to help them make the transition to online teaching.
5. This is the golden age of professional development. Teachers who are motivated will be able to learn a wider variety of technological and pedagogical skills in a very short period of time. Learning online skills has never been so accessible as it is now, thanks to the efforts of organizations such as The Royal Conservatory and The Frances Clark Center for Keyboard Pedagogy.
6. During the COVID-19 crisis, music instruction is one of the few safe extracurricular activities that people are able to access. Team sports are off-limits for the foreseeable future, as are orchestras and choirs. Unlike most online learning from public/private schools, summer music lessons are specifically tailored to each student and their individual goals. The individual instruction of music lessons and the structured learning that comes with it can be some of the only face-to-face non-family educational time that a child has, and be of inestimable benefit to their mental health.
7. Self-isolation is a golden opportunity for students to experience deep learning. Just a few months ago, most kids were massively overbooked, with far too many activities on their hands. Now the opposite is true. Once the framework for learning is in place, this can be a time where students can finally discover and learn with much greater time and depth. We just have to provide the structure and impetus.
8. The techniques learned from online teaching will inform future pedagogical thought. Online teaching won't be going away once COVID-19 is over. Teachers are starting to understand what kinds of students are suited to online or in-person lessons, and will be able utilize these ways of teaching in new and inventive ways.
9. Once music teachers start becoming genuinely effective at online teaching, there will be very little difference between an online and in-person lesson. I’ve already had students ask me if they could continue with online lessons even after we return to in-person teaching. They found it that valuable, and what was lost with in-person instruction was more than made up by what they gained from online instruction.
10. The techniques learned from online teaching will inform future business plans and studio policies. We need to plan for uncertainty and risk. Enterprising teachers can alternate between in-person and live online lessons in order to cut down on travel time and teach students from much farther away. Sick students won’t necessarily be absent, as they can easily have a lesson online if they feel well enough. Teachers who can specialize can cast their net far and wide in order to find those in need of their particular brand of expertise.
I’ve never seen the level of innovation and rapid change that I’ve observed with music teachers in the last two months. Many challenges await, particularly how to navigate the transition back to in-person lessons in conjunction with local health directives and how much risk individual teachers are willing to assume with their studios.
How do you feel about these changes? What have you noticed about the last few months? Feel free to leave a comment below.