Hello Everyone!  I feel so privileged; Rebecca gave me the honor of inviting me to guest post today!  I need to let everyone know how exiting this invitation was for me.  I knew that this meant that I would be getting lots of great advice and feedback from fellow colleagues.

I would first like to introduce myself.  My name is Suzan Pleva.  I am new to the piano teaching world.  I began teaching piano lessons in February, so it’s been a little less than a half of a year for me now.  I am not sure what happened, one day, something just “clicked” in my head.  I love working with children, I love to teach, I love the piano.  Why not put them together!  This is what I did.  I am now proud to say that I am the owner/Instructor at Melody Piano!

I have played the piano for 17 years now.  I am classically trained.  I would have to say that my forte is my ear for music.  I have always had a passion for the piano.  I am not sure what it is, I just get this wonderful feeling when I can play my heart out.  I was the kid that WANTED to practice everything that I could to get better. 

Today, one of my students (11 year old) was having trouble with her hand structure and seemed as though she couldn’t keep her body straight when doing her scales.  When she finished her F major scale, I said to her, “Do you ever play video games?”  “Yes”, she said.  “Me too” I told her.  “It’s so funny how I always want to move with the character on the screen, if he needs to go left, I lean left.  If he needs to turn right, I move my body and the controller to the right! LOL!”  I told her. You should have seen me, I must have looked like a fool.  I stood up and was acting out everything that I was saying. She was laughing, “I do that too!”  I said, “You know what’s really funny about it, I always think about how no matter how much I move my body, it’s not going to affect my video game character a bit.  The only thing that matters is what is going on with the controller.” I then directed this analogy towards the piano, elaborated a bit more than that, but she totally got it!  I was AMAZED!  She immediately improved!  At the end of lesson, I always go over our “What to work on this week” sheet.  I told her, “When it comes to hand structure and posture, think video games!”  I even wrote that on her sheet.  She responded to this really well! 

Now, some questions:

How To Help The GTOF (Gifted and Terrified of Failure) Piano Student

1. Praise effort more than praising an innate ability like talent or intelligence.  This is SO important. When you praise hard work and the courage to meet a challenge, then you get more of those things.  But, when you praise a child for being “smart” or “talented,” things he cannot personally control, this is what he actually hears: “My image of you is that of someone who gets everything right all the time. So don’t disappoint me.”  When faced with a challenge, he’d rather not try than to try and discover that he doesn’t measure up. It’s too risky.  For a great explanation of this, read “How Not To Praise Your Kids,”  an article from The New York Magazine about Dr. Carol Dweck’s research on the psychology of praise.  The insights there have changed the way I talk to my students and my daughter, and they have informed my understanding of my own fear of failure.

So, how does this translate in a piano lesson? It’s better to say “I like the way you embrace a new technique and keep working at it until you get it,” than to say “You’re such a talented piano player.”And it’s better to say, “I really appreciate how you’ve practiced hard to make your rhythm accurate” than to say “You’re really good with rhythm.”

2. Make practicing safe. The GTOF child is painfully embarrassed to be vulnerable in front of you. Show them your own “in progress” pieces in all their rough glory. Demonstrate the practice techniques you are using to overcome your weak places. Give him permission to sound bad sometimes. For instance, I might introduce a new piece and ask him to play the first line, concentrating on one single element and giving him permission to get everything else completely wrong.  For instance, I might ask him to aim for accurate rhythm, even if he hits every note wrong. I’ll then make a very comical display of playing with absurdly wrong notes (fistfuls of them all over the piano!), but accurate rhythm.  This usually gets a laugh and dispels some of the anxiety of being imperfect in front of me. (It might improve his rhythm, too!) You can even turn it into a fun game. “How horrible can you make the notes while still keeping the rhythm accurate?”

3. Teach the student how to learn something, not just know something. The GTOF student expects to be able to do something on the first try. When she can’t do something the first time, one of my young students wants to change to a different piece of music. With her, I might introduce a new piece by asking her to be the teacher and devise a plan for practicing it. This changes the focus from “Can you play this piece?” to “Can you show me how to practice this piece?” If you ask her to “find the troublesome spots so your student will know where he has to spot practice,” then making a mistake becomes a success! And since gifted students love to have autonomy in the learning process, this approach is highly motivating.

With a GTOF student, it’s very helpful to give her a realistic expectation about how much she will learn in a single practice session – 2 lines, one page, or whatever is realistic.  This gives her permission not to have to learn it all at once. Her own measure of success was to play the whole piece today, and she may well be trying to digest the whole thing in one bite when she practices.

4. Help him exercise control in a healthy way. The GTOF student takes control of the lesson by refusing to try. It’s important to shift his focus from trying to control me or the assignments to controlling himself and his own fears. When I assign a new piece or introduce a new technique, I might preempt the fear by saying, “When I was your age, I was sometimes afraid to try something new if I was worried I wouldn’t be able to catch on right away. But, I learned that most of the time I could get it if I gave it my best effort.” This makes you his ally. I’ll also reassure him that I don’t expect him to get it all at once. “I know this is brand new, and you will probably make lots of mistakes at first. We’re going to break it down and take one thing at a time.”

5. Don’t push too far too fast. This seems counterintuitive because we usually worry about making sure the gifted student isn’t bored by material that’s too simple. But remember, the GTOF child may be more sensitive about failing to achieve a goal you set for him than another student might. You need to earn his trust by not throwing him into the deep end of the pool before he’s ready. One way to do this is to be sure to introduce a new technique before he encounters it in his literature. It’s much easier to take on a new, scary-looking piece of music when you know that you have all the tools in your toolbox that you need to play it.

6. Seize on mistakes as a tool for learning. In a lesson, I like to say, “I’m so glad you made that mistake! It gives me a chance to talk about…” I also like to say (jokingly), “Thank goodness! Finally you made a mistake and I can teach you something! You know, if you got everything right the first time, I’d have no job to do, and I really LIKE to teach…” The GTOF student may not have much experience with learning from mistakes because he makes so few in school. He doesn’t go back and study the questions he missed on the test because he didn’t miss any! You have to teach these kids how to celebrate the value of a mistake.

You should also give the GTOF student realistic expectations about mistakes in performance. Before a performance, I like to say, “I’m proud of your hard work no matter how the performance turns out. As far as I’m concerned, you’ve already passed the test, and the performance is just the icing on the cake. Chances are that you will have an unlucky mistake or two.  I’m expecting that possibility, and you should be, too. Because we both know you are well-prepared, we know that those mistakes are just a bit of bad luck, and they’ll be opportunities for us to learn something new.” In other words, it’s all good.

If you’re interested in reading more about gifted children, you’ll find tons of articles and links at Hoagies’ Gifted Education page.  

Laura Lowe has a B.A. in English and secondary education, and a B. Mus. and M. Mus. in organ performance. She has been an independent piano instructor for 16 years and teaches her own gifted 6-year-old daughter.  She writes at lowepianostudio.blogspot.com.

First, an introduction: Laura Lowe has a B.A. in English and secondary education, and a B. Mus. and M. Mus. in organ performance. She has been an independent piano instructor for 16 years and teaches her own gifted 6-year-old daughter. She writes at www.lowepianostudio.blogspot.com.

Part 1 in a 2 part series:

Recently, Rebecca posted a question about how to handle a student who was highly capable but refused to try when faced with a challenge. My guess was that the child was highly intelligent, and her response  confirmed that. Her student is what I call a GTOF student – Gifted and Terrified of Failure – the kid who shuts down when the going gets tough. My heart went out to both the child and Rebecca because I’ve been both the teacher and the student in this situation! And, I have a 6-year-old daughter who fits this profile perfectly, too. We commonly think of a gifted child as one who is eager to embrace a challenge, but gifted children are not all alike. Many end up underachieving out of a fear of failure that seems inexplicable to others, given the child’s potential. If you have an inkling of what’s going on in their minds, you can help them tremendously.

Things To Know About GTOF Students

1) They’ve been told for their entire lives how “smart” or “talented” they are, and this is their very identity. The need to work at something means that their natural gifts don’t measure up to the challenge, and this makes them feel like a failure from the start.

2) A gifted child’s definition of “unsuccessful” may be what the rest of us consider average achievement.  Gifted children often don’t compare themselves to their level-appropriate peers, but to their teachers or other highly accomplished figures. They have an unrealistic, inflated expectation of what they are supposed to achieve. 

3) The ease and speed with which they usually pick things up in school and elsewhere means they may not have learned how to patiently have faith in the practicing process. Faced with a challenge that will require many repetitions over a long stretch of time, they don’t feel confident that their effort is going to produce results.

For a student like this, it can be a great relief to discover that you know how he feels, and that you aren’t going to belittle his fears with comments like, “Why should YOU of all people be afraid to try! You’re so smart! You know you’ll get this!” His fears are very real to him, no matter how unrealistic they seem to be to others. You need to show him that you understand, and you can do this without lowering your expectations. In most cases, a well-placed comment or two and a slightly different strategy for presenting something new will do the trick.

Stay tuned for 6 excellent tips for helping these kinds of students!