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Forget Perfection

Since the quarantine I have taken on, with some trepidation, new students.  As in, they were not studying with me before the shutdown.  100% fresh start... and all online.

This experience has been interesting, to say the least.  I will admit that I approached the whole "starting an online new student" thing with a toe dip rather than a full cannonball into the pool.  The first one I took on was older (seven), her mom used to play violin in middle school, and I've taught her grandmother violin for some time now.  Can't get much better than that, right?

I have become bolder in subsequent new students.  Younger students with less experienced parents.  Each experience is so different!  Each child responds to online lessons differently.  Plus the nature of having lessons in their house (compared to coming to lessons in my studio) adds a grocery list of extra variables.  Did the dog run through the lesson?  Did the younger sibling decide to have a meltdown?  Each week varies so much more than when I can have some say in controlling the environment.

At first, this was a little frustrating for me.  I wasn't frustrated with my students.  Rather, I was frustrated at not being able to provide what I considered to be my highest quality of service.  I would watch the student struggle with something that I knew exactly how to fix... just not in the online format.

I would never describe myself as a perfectionist teacher.  But there I was, struggling with how I didn't have the ability to set a student up "perfectly."

It took a few months.  But I finally came to terms with the fact that it doesn't have to be "perfect."  It has to be "functional."  Yes, this or that detail could be corrected.  But it wasn't worth me not being able to enjoy the teaching moment because I was stressing in the back of my mind about how it could have gone better if it had been in person.  So long as the student is improving, having fun, and staying motivated, that is functional.

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