The power of a teaching community

Jeni Warder on working creatively with other teachers

Over the past few weeks, we’ve been sharing clips from a fascinating interview with creative pedagogue Jeni Warder of the Keys Piano School. You can find the other two below:

We want to develop not just as musicians, but as people

Teaching creatively makes us better teachers

In today’s clip, Jeni explains a little about how the structure of Keys Piano School works. It’s a fascinating place and I think its structure could prove to be a really useful model for other schools, so it’s a particularly interesting watch if you’re thinking about setting up your own school.

About Keys Piano School

The illustration below gives a good overview, though bear in mind that it doesn’t mention the many group recitals and workshops that are also an important part of the school structure. Note also that between ages 8-16, students have a choice between studying in the Academy with concert pianist Madalina Rusu, or in the Creative stream with composer Jeni Warder.

Here’s the clip, where Jeni explains how teaching in a community is beneficial for everyone involved.

Transcript

Jeni:

I think, because it's quite a singular thing often with teaching, that you have a very close relationship with that one student and you get so connected to that one student—which is brilliant, it's exactly what is needed in a really great teaching relationship—but you get so in one way of doing things that you sometimes think your way is the only way.

And what we are very big on is nobody is anybody's one student. We all know all of these children and it's quite difficult, especially for me. I end up in this middly kind of place. It's where I've just landed. So Madalina [Rusu] takes a really high achievers because that's her skill set. And Jen [Jennifer Haworth] obviously takes a lot of the children who need a different access. Sometimes she manages those, those huge groups of children who are all going between different foundation groups and, all of those. So I end up somewhere in the middle would be a lot of children that sort of grade two, three, four, who are, I'm starting to really get to know them really well.

And then you go, “you know what, you're doing really well now. And I think somebody else might need me. Why don't you go and have some lessons with Madelina now? Or somebody else who's really going to take you on to those higher grades. Because I think my, expertise is probably needed elsewhere.”

And, that as a teacher is… people look at me and go, “but you did all the work. Is it not really hard?” No, actually, it's a privilege to be able to say “I've done all right with you, now you can go and get a different input and I'll still see you all the time, I'll see you recitals, I'll see you at workshops, and we'll check in, and I'm looking forward to seeing what you do”.

Garreth:

I often think our job is an odd one in that our goal should be to make ourselves redundant ."You don't need me anymore. Go off and be you." And it's really hard. I let go of a wonderful student who just got a distinction in his grade 8 and was just like, just a joy to teach. He's better now than I was when I was his age. It was just great fun. And I was really sad to see him go, but , but you have to let them go and do their thing, don't you?

Jeni:

Absolutely. Absolutely. yeah, it is very much kind of a collaboration and all our teachers are very much on board with that. We all understand that is the way it works