“Challenge by Choice” – A New Way to Look at Piano Students

During the spring season, I volunteer as a coach for a local teen mountain biking team. This local team is under the umbrella of a national organization called NICA – The National Interscholastic Cycling Association, which has pretty rigorous training for its 3 levels of coaches. A few years ago, I was introduced to the idea of “Challenge by Choice” in a training session. I got excited about this concept especially when I saw it put into practice because I knew it directly related to piano teachers.

I think the “Challenge by Choice” concept could help us completely reframe the way we see and even teach some of our students, especially ones who don’t practice, get very little practice, or just don’t have a good support system in their home to practice regularly.

I’ve had mixed feelings over the years about students who don’t practice or get little practice.

Perhaps you too have experienced these things:

• Guilt – I feel like I’m somehow wasting the parents’ money because the kids just aren’t making much progress.
• Frustration – If you don’t practice at home, how do you expect to get better? I get irritated that I have to reteach the same concepts over and over.
• Resentment (leading to labeling) – These students are taking up valuable lesson time I could be giving to another, more “optimal” student. So I secretly label them as the “first to go” if I need to pare down.
• Judgment – How can parents be so laid back and “lazy” about practice? Is there any structure in the home?
• Disapproval – Clearly practicing is the only “right” thing to do during the week (or so I thought). Subconsciously, I’ve disapproved of any other activity or sport besides piano.
• Insecurity – I compare myself with other piano teachers whose students all seem to practice.

Does anyone else feel this way when your students don’t practice?

But when I heard about “Challenge by Choice” through NICA, and saw it in action, it helped me reframe my attitude toward these students and their parents.

“Challenge by Choice” is a concept where the rider decides how much they want to push themselves at a practice or race. (They can even decide last minute that they don’t want to race!) Every practice includes skill building, of course. We play lots of games to build these skills. Every practice includes riding that helps build skills and endurance. And we certainly encourage our riders to ride their bike and practice at home. But how hard or how fast a teen rides is dependent on the rider, not the coach. Whether or not they take the difficult line or the easier line on the trail is up to them. Of course, the coach can encourage or challenge the rider, but it’s never supposed to be done with any kind of coercion, guilt, or assumption that the rider is there to win a race!

Rather, the mission of NICA is to help youth develop strength, resilience, and character, while pedaling with a supportive and inclusive community. There’s no mention of winning, or even trying to win a race. I’ve heard it said that our coaches want the riders to:

Enjoy riding their bike so that they enjoy riding for a lifetime!

Now, doesn’t that sound familiar?! Isn’t the real reason we want our kids in piano lessons is so that these kids will enjoy playing the piano both now and in the future, for the rest of their life? We know most of them will not be a concert pianist, most won’t be teachers, and most won’t play in some kind of ensemble.

But that’s not what’s important, is it?

What’s important is that they enjoy making music now so that they’ll enjoy making music the rest of their life!

Let’s Talk About the Parents

As I said before, I used to worry that parents would think about how they had wasted their money if their child didn’t achieve a certain skill level. That might be true of some parents. But do you know what our mountain biking parents want?

Most of them just want their child to have a safe space where their teen can:

• Learn to ride a bike safely
• Have positive adult influences in their life (since parents have less influence as they get older)
• Be encouraged by adults (but not demoralized or yelled at like they are in many other sports)
• Find friends in an outside-of-the-mainstream sport (piano can be like this too!)
• Experience a regularly occurring, positive atmosphere

Doesn’t that sound a little like piano?

Of course, there are some parents who want you to push their child and some students who want to push themselves! We’re not talking about those parents or students here. This is just a different way to think about our non-practicing students.

Different Goals for Different Riders/Students

After initial skills are built, mountain biking practices begin with everyone riding together at a slow tempo. Later, we divide into at least 3 groups depending on how much a rider wants to push themselves. And then we usually end with a game to help build skills. There are multiple coaches that ride with each group and we have coaches that may coach the fastest group one week and the slowest group the next. But the riders are always given the freedom to challenge themselves.

We try to never pressure them to “win” a race. We just want them to get out there and try to accomplish whatever goal they have. Some riders want to win. Some riders just want to beat their friend on another team (yes, they compete with each other but are still friends). Others just want to complete one lap instead of two laps that faster riders complete. Others just want to make it up a long hill without getting off their bike!

And still others just want to play the games and have fun with their friends! (Think group lessons and duets!)

The Best Part of the Mountain Bike Race?

But by far, the best part of every single race event is when the race director comes around to all the team tents and says, “We have one more rider out still on the course, let’s bring them in with all we’ve got!” And everyone runs to the race chute to cheer that last rider in – just as if they are “winning” the race.

I often find myself crying with joy when I see the slowest of the riders finishing with tenacity. Or the rider that had a flat and had to walk her bike all the way back. Or one of my riders that has met their goal, however different their goal was from other riders.

In the end, both the podium finishers and those who just did their best are all winners, aren’t they? They are out there getting fit, enjoying life, making friends, achieving goals, and even missing their goals and learning from it. They are out there riding. If they love riding their bike now, we know that they’ll keep riding it through their lifetime.

And we can say something similar about our non-practicing students every week. “They are here enjoying lessons. They are hear learning, even if slowly. And I am hear helping know how to better enjoy the process of making music.” What a beautiful thing!

Reframing Lessons With Non-Practicers

So if you have some non-practicers in your studio, I think it’s okay to just relax a bit. Take a minute to find out what their goals are, even if they are tiny little goals. Talk to the parents to find out what their goals are. Make sure you aren’t forcing your own goals without any input from them. Of course, we have to help create a path for each of our students that is responsible and professional. But we can create a responsible path for any goal at the piano!

Because even if your students are making the slowest progress, they are still taking lessons. You are still a positive, consistent influence in their life. They are enjoying making music. And if they are enjoying it, they’ll probably keep playing the rest of their life.

Maybe they’ll only get to the late elementary level. But those 2, 3, 6, 7 years with you are going to be formative. You might be the most influential person in their life. And I’ll bet when they are done with lessons with you, they’re going to have at least some skills to keep playing for the rest of their lives!

Need more reframing? Read more blog posts from Wendy:

• Permission not to do that
• The best teachers are the ones that change their mind
• The fundamental algorithm of teaching and life