By Nicholas Anderson
Not all guitar teachers are created equal. Most teachers are average. Only a few are excellent. If you have a teacher who is average, you will probably just get by. If your teacher is excellent, you will excel, assuming you put in the work required. Do you know if your teacher is average or excellent?
An excellent teacher has a well thought out plan to teach you. I put the emphasis on you in that sentence. An average teacher has a plan to teach guitar to people. There is a vast difference between a teacher teaching you and a teacher teaching guitar. An average teacher thinks they can take the same model and apply it to everyone they teaches. This saves them time. It makes their planning easy. It also makes them a lousy teacher. Below are some examples of how an average teacher approaches his lessons.
- He teaches the same material to every student the same way
- He doesn’t plan lessons according to each students ability and need
- He doesn’t know how to effectively isolate problems his students encounter
- He isn’t passionate about teaching
- He does not have clear goals set specifically for you.
- He offers only one way to take lessons – one on one instruction
I could go on, but you get the idea. An excellent teacher doesn’t try to just get by with a lesson curriculum and the same formula for each student. An excellent teacher can take the same curriculum (a good curriculum, that is) and apply it skillfully to each students particular abilities and needs. An excellent teacher is able to recognize, identify, explain and isolate problems the student is having. He is able to not only show and explain concepts, he is able to actually teach the student to understand and execute each concept. Most guitar teachers do not understand the difference. In fact, most guitar teachers don’t even know there is a difference. However, many students do. Not consciously, but intuitively, they know when a teacher is just ok and when a teacher is excellent.
So, how good is your teacher? If you’re not sure, I know the answer. Make the switch today.