What I'm pondering today:
My quarterly(ish) list of What is NOT Working In this Season.
If you're new around here, you should know there are two reflection questions I ask myself on a regular basis: What is working in this season (which I talked about on this week's podcast episode), and the opposite: what is NOT working.
I keep tabs on these questions via a Studio Reflections Printable (that also gives me a single place to keep all my studio ideas: music to order, activities to try, etc.). You can get it for free by clicking here.
So, without further ado, let's get to the juicy stuff.
Three things that are NOT working for me in this season of my life:
- Overhauling My Students' Binders
- Scheduling Group Classes
- Online Sales Culture
AND - in true Christina Whitlock fashion, I've realized I have WAY TOO MUCH to say about these topics for one email.
....it is ONE Thought Thursday, after all.
(Though my husband said recently, "It seems as though One Thought Thursday should actually be called MANY THOUGHTS Thursday." Guilty as charged).
So, let's divide the list into three separate installments. Stay tuned next week for my issues with scheduling group classes this term, and we'll tackle my qualms with online sales culture the following week.
First up, student binders:
For many years, my friend Amy Chaplin collected her student binders over the summer, then spent a day cleaning them out and adding new things for the year.
(It should be noted: Amy no longer does this... and I can see why!) 😅
I've always been intrigued by this system. I thought it might be one of those activities better "batched"; doing everything at once, rather than little-by-little each week.
Obviously, I knew it would be a lot of work, but I had visions dancing in my head of presenting each student with a perfectly-curated piano binder their first week back in August.
As is often the case, I dreamt too big, friends.
I'll spare you the whole story but suffice to say: it was too much. My hope was to load each binder with relevant pieces/lead sheets/ensembles/etc. for the rest of the semester. Since each students' needs vary, it proved too big of an undertaking for 40 students at once.
I returned the binders (two weeks late!) to my students, making sure to model a healthy approach to learning by saying this: Sometimes we try new things and they don't turn out the way we'd hoped. Sometimes experiments fail. This was one of them.
Each of them cracked up when I told them I tried something new and it was a flop.
It's important for students to know (1) We can embrace the fact that things don't always go the way we plan, and (2) we ALL have limits with what we can accomplish in the 24 hours we're given each day.
Now for the REAL lesson of the whole situation:
As you can already guess, no one cared about the state of their binders.
My students didn't know the vision I had for them. Honestly, they just like seeing the new cover design each year.
I was the only one clinging to this vision of perfectly-loaded student binders.
...and I decided to let it go.
They got their updated cover pages, studio calendars, and a few other things. I replaced the binders and divider tabs that needed replacing. Everything else will get added/updated "in real time" like it always has.
And that's fine.
In the end, I'm glad I tried... because now I know not to attempt this one again!
So, that's the binder saga of 2024. Next week, we'll tackle my Group Class Scheduling takeaways.
Since I've shared mine - now it's your turn!
Have any of your BIG studio visions left you feeling differently than you hoped?
Have any of your plans left you with more of a life lesson than a tangible result?
HIT REPLY and let me know!
(as always, I read every response, even though I may be slow at replying)
🥂 Cheers to remembering our plans are simply that: our own. May we remember no one knows what we DIDN'T assign or what we DIDN'T do. 🥂