Teacher withOUT love

I am still trying to figure out if Charlotte is interested in learning piano/keyboard. Previously she attended 3 months of music class in Cristofori and she likes it. But the class is mostly coloring... and its not cheap. After Cristofori, my friend and I were sourcing around and we thinking of why not try Yamaha.

We compared the price between Yamaha school and those Yamaha classes conducted in Community Center. Those in CC is easily half price and not easy to get in as there are a lot of people enrolling. We managed to get slot in the CC. Parents need to follow the kid though.....

Because of the class, we also loan a set of keyboard from my colleague. But kids being kids, she does not like practicing at home. I find that it is quite taxing as the teacher expect the kid to practice at home and show their learning every week in class.

Through the class, I also noticed that Charlotte is not very good in following music steps. Every lesson they will need to do a dance according to the song... every week is the same... Despite learning for 5 or more lessons, she is not following the steps.... I am quite ok with it.... But last Sat, her teacher openly ask her why she is not following.

The teacher also put a lot of stress on the kids when they are not answering. She started the class with some notes on the keyboard and ask the kid to answer what is the note. 2 correct answers get a badge. Charlotte being very quite refuse to answer. At the end of the session, the teacher says for those who has no answer got no reward.

Next, there is this kid where she refused to go to the front for group lesson. The teacher told her, "If you do not want to go to the front, you dun come to my class next time, you stay at home." After what the teacher said, the mother kinda made the daughter to go to the front (the mother followed her) but the girl still refuse to join the class. The mother scold her and she cry... another saga follows when the mother pulled the wailing daughter out of the class. The mother scold her quite loudly outside the class. The mother and daughter returned to the class after that.

Another crying kid is Charlotte.... the teacher ask the class to follow her on the keyboard... the teacher will play the notes and ask the kids to follow. Charlotte says she its very fast and she refuse to play. The teacher walk up and ask each kid to show on the keyboard. Charlotte refuse to do it. The teacher says,"if you are not going to show me, you will stay back in class and you cannot go home." I can sense that emo is building up on her... The final straw came when the teacher came again and threatened her saying that "Your mother will go home and you have to stay back if you dun show me."

The teacher still did not take her cry into consideration. She came again and ask her to play the 3rd time (a different song this time), Charlotte still refuse to play (think she DL liao)... then she just cry and cry. The teacher says "I am going to count to 3 and if you dun show me, you will not get your stickers". Then the teacher really do the count to 3 in front of the crying girl and say "Bye bye" to her. She added, "You will not get the sticker even if you cry!".... I just said nothing.... because I think Charlotte has to manage this situation herself.

After a while Charlotte has calmed down. It was also end of lesson. The teacher ask them to bring the homework for marking and attendance book for stickers. I took out the books and ask her to bring to the front. She did it. But when she approached the teacher, I heard the teacher said, "Charlotte, I am angry with you.... so you will not get the sticker". I did not go up to intervene. After standing there for a while, Charlotte came back with her book and tell me "I dun want to mark". I say "Ok, keep the book" then we left the class.

We did not talk about what happen in class after that. I just told her she need to practice else she wont be able to show teacher when being asked to. She got no reaction. The father did not want to let her attend the class anymore as he was not happen with what the teacher did. But I think otherwise, I feel that its unavoidable that you will meet with nasty (in your own context) people. Are you going to run away all the time? But I am quite sure if I am Charlotte, I would not enjoy going to music class with this kind of teacher. But I do not want to give her the impression that she can stop the class when she met with some unhappiness... I will let her continue till the class end to give it a closure. So that at least she knows she is not going anymore because the class has ended and not because we dun like the teacher.