Should Your Piano Teacher Give Makeup Lessons?
Here's The Reality, For Teachers And Their Students.
So...You found a piano teacher with a flexible lesson policy. So that means that if you are sick, there’s a school play, a family member is in town, you got a birthday party, the annual dance recital, an unexpected soccer game, basketball game, hockey game, or you just don’t feel going to your lesson, then you can just make up a lesson at another day and time or if you can’t find time for make up then just cancel the lesson and not have to pay for it. What could possibly go wrong?
Actually...a lot could go wrong.
Make up lessons tend to be a pretty controversial topic among teachers, students and parents.
I will explain why make up lessons aren’t just bad for your teacher but they are not also great for you, your kids or anyone else hoping to succeed in piano lessons or any kind of music lessons.
Let’s start with an example of what actually happens when you miss a lesson and your teacher agrees to give you a make up.
Let’s say your teacher teaches from 3:00 to 7:00 pm Monday through Fridays, so about 20 hours per week.
You have to miss your Wednesday lesson from 4:00 to 5:00 because of a soccer game but you would like to make it up.
That means that this hour comes off of your teacher’s schedule but keep in mind that your teacher is still there at work during this time. And then your teacher needs to find time outside of their normal teaching schedule to give you that make up lesson.
So, in order to give you this make up lesson your teacher now has a 21 hour schedule but its only being paid for 20 hours of work. Or if you decide to just cancel the lesson altogether and your teacher doesn’t require you to pay for this slot, then now your teacher is being paid for 19 hours for a 20 hours schedule.
You can also think of it like this: Imagine you went in to work tomorrow and the boss came in at 3:00 o’clock and said “I don’t have any more work for you for the next hour so I'm not going to pay you but I’d like you to come in at an hour early tomorrow so that you can do that work when I actually have it for you”.
Is that a job you’d be happy with? Probably not, and it’s the same thing for your piano teacher. And you may be thinking, “surely just one make up lesson here or there isn’t that big of a deal” but remember your teacher has dozens of students so if everyone its allowed to even one make up then it comes out to an extra week of unpaid work or if the lessons are refunded then it results in one week of no pay.
And so, students can miss any time especially during busy times of the year like the Holidays or the end of the year and teachers who gives make ups, their schedule can end up absolutely insane, and this kind of schedule and all this instability will make your teacher anxious, stressed, burned out and ultimately result in a lower quality of teaching for you.
It seems that in recent years a lot of studios and schools have been much more flexible with this but I believe this is mostly out of fear. They’re afraid that with a more strict make up lesson policy students will drop and ultimately their business will suffer.
But rest assured that if you can find a teacher who has a no make up policy that’s great news for you because you are getting a teacher who is professional, has job security, has a consistent schedule, has self respect, and will be able to provide quality teaching consistently.
You can easily find a school or a studio that would give you make up lessons whenever you need it or even allow you to take several weeks off at a time and still hold your slot and while that’ll give you some scheduling flexibility that means that you are also with a teacher who has no job security, is overworked, underpaid, burned out which will certainly result in a lower quality of teaching and in fact they may not even be your teacher for much longer. Many teachers quit their jobs or even left the field just because of this problem.
Now, don’t get me wrong, I get it. Stuff comes up, kids get sick, there’s school functions, family events, you may need to miss from time to time so that’s why at Mrs Rodriguez Piano, I offer three options in the event that you need to miss a lesson:
1. If you are available but you just can’t make it to your lesson, I can offer you a Zoom lesson.
2. If you know in advance that you have to miss you can send me your materials in advance and take an asynchronous lessons (this is where you will record your pieces and send it to your teacher and then your teacher will take the time during your normal lesson time to review those materials and return a feedback).
3. If none of these two options work, you can gift your lessons to a friend or a family member.
Whether you are a student or a parent, I hope this has helped you to understand the importance of make up policies not only for your teacher security but also to help provide you with the highest level of education possible.