Fee Structure & Parent/Student-Teacher Conduct
Kant’s Music Tuition fee structure is a carefully worked out fee so that it does not undervalue the services it provides.
Kant’s Music Tuition will not negotiate on lower fees and “volume discounts” for multiple students from the one family. This is a very bad precedent to set for my studio. It may anger other clients if they learn of a lower fee given to another client.
All students are treated individually and of equal status and it is not good business to devalue the costs of one student compared to another regardless of whether they are from the same family.
During my period managing and teaching at a music school which had approximately 35 teachers and 300 students, I heard this refrain, “I’ll just go to another teacher!!” countless times from prospective, and a few existing students and parents. They hoped of “leveraging” the school into either lowering the fee or removing a late fee. I find this behavior unacceptable! My reply to them was and would be if the situation arose in this studio is that they always have the option of finding another teacher, and that I would be happy to give them some references for other suitable teachers in the area. In those cases where the students did leave the school and gone to another teacher, they have almost always stayed with that teacher only for a short period of time, whereupon they either quit lessons entirely or searched yet again for another teacher.
People who are more interested in playing control games than they are in their or their children’s piano lesson are rarely good clients and rarely become good pianists. The important thing that Kant’s Music Tuition promotes for the studio, students and teachers in this local area is to refuse to tolerate these tactics. I find that in the end, such people cost me more in time, frustration, and mental anguish than they ever bring in income or personal satisfaction.
Please do not take this article in the wrong way. I am not implying that all, or even the majority, of clients behave crudely and callously. Quiet to the contrary, almost all of my students and parents are honest, respectful, thoroughly decent people who only want the best teaching for themselves or their children. As a teacher, I owe you nothing less than the highest quality of professional piano teaching that I can give.
For the small minority of people who do not see myself or other piano teachers as professionals, the best thing I can do is to set an example that says that we, as professionals, will not tolerate disruption that they bring to the studio.
To the extent that clients mistreat teachers, it is mostly because the teachers tolerate or, indirectly, even reward mistreatment. It is a requirement of professionalism for me to stand against such disrespectful attitudes, in my own studio. By setting standards of conduct in my studio for parents and students, I can improve teaching for all.
