Fired.


I had a trombone student's grandmother(whom he lives with) call me today and tell me that my 'style' doesn't mesh well with him and that they had found another teacher. Fine. I've lost students before. This one bothered me, though, because the grandmother seemd to imply that I didn't 'respect' him and 'treat him like a man.'

He's 13 years old.

This particular student was actually pretty good for his age, making 1st chair all-city and 1st chair all-region this year. Unfortunately, he felt like he had nothing left to learn. He seemingly just wanted to be told how good he was - which I tried to do, just not all of the time. His reaction was to just sit there and pout.

He needed to take resposibility for his lack of action but why do it when his support system at home thinks that he can do no wrong?