How losing 9kg made me a better piano teacher (and it’s not about losing weight!)

Last week teaching my class of seven 13-year-old students who have just finished their grade 6 piano exam, I had a revelation. This moment of illumination stemmed from how I managed to lose 9kg.

If you’re reading this, you’re probably a piano teacher committed to professional development. Maybe you, too, have read Carol Dweck’s book on growth and closed mindsets. I believe I have a growth mindset (most of the time). I love her quote about teaching kids, “Don’t judge, teach. It’s a learning process.” I try not to judge, but these 13-year-olds had previously been driving me nuts!

At this stage, you’re probably wondering what a piano class of 13-year-olds has to do with losing 9kg. Let me explain...

We’ve all heard that quote about doing the same thing and expecting a different result. Back in my 20s & early 30s, I could just exercise away the extra pounds that made their way to my tummy. Now at 50-something, the scales don’t lie, and I had managed to become 10kg overweight.

In more recent years, I continued to try to lose weight through increased exercise. I’d lose a kilo and then get injured. I kept doing the same thing, expecting a different result. The highlight of my stupidity was earlier this year, when I was in so much pain from over-exercising, I could barely sit down. What’s even more foolish is that I’m also a qualified running and swimming coach, and I would never tell a participant that what I was doing would be effective or healthy.

I realised that I had a closed mindset around losing weight. I was convinced that I could exercise to achieve my goals while continuing to eat whatever I wanted. I needed to change my mindset and start learning how to eat for my age. Finally, I changed my lifestyle and reduced my weight by 9kg within eight weeks.

It got me thinking. I realised that overcoming my single-mindedness had opened me to new learning so that I could achieve something I’d wanted to do for years. I wondered how could I change when I was teaching my previously delightful class of now 13-year-olds to make lessons better for them and me?

The seven kids in this class are pretty young to be starting grade 7 piano. Talented with a wide range of skills and abilities, they all take onboard information differently. I needed to change what I was doing to avoid frustrating them and me. After all, they started with me when they were around four years old, so I thought I knew what I was doing. I thought I knew best. But I didn’t.

My weight loss had opened my mind to not being quite so stubborn on how I thought I should teach this class. I caught up with a colleague who was also my Orff-Schulwerk teacher, Dr Carol Richards. She inspired me to create some new ways to approach teaching these kids.

When I taught my class last week, I know we had a great lesson. It seems the students thought so too. Going 10 minutes overtime, they were surprised when the lesson ended. My observation from this journey is that all the experience in the world will never give you a solution to every problem. But, openness for change and learning will undoubtedly help.

I will be sharing this story with piano teachers in July when my colleague, piano examiner and AMEB Syllabus consultant Stuart Storer and I present a course on Whole Body Learning using the AMEB’s Piano for Leisure syllabus. Maybe you'd like to explore some different ways of teaching for exams. It's going to fun, so register before 9 July to get early bird pricing.