Ethical/moral teaching dilemma (hopeless student) (kinda long)

In My Humble Opinion
1

I’ll try to be concise about this. Here’s the background:

Last term (fall '06) I took on a new voice student at the University where I teach. He wants to pursue a career as a professional opera singer, but during the first lesson it became apparent to me that he was in big trouble. His voice was barely functional, and had (still has) many very obvious problems (no need to be specific about them). He has trouble grasping basic musical concepts like simple rhythm, even though he has taken 2 years of university-level music theory. He has almost no personal energy…almost to the point of complete passivity…no involvement in what he does either physically or intellectually. And, he has no work ethic.

Put all of that together with the fact that I’m already the 5th teacher he’s had in the last 4 years (which means he’s been hearing those same things from other people and just choosing to move on to a new teacher each time rather than confront reality), and you get trouble.

Blind ambition + little talent + no ability + lazy = bad situation.

To put this in a little perspective: if a young opera singer has tremendous talent, great performing instincts and ability, physical beauty, smarts, and a tremendous work ethic, he/she still needs a lot of luck to succeed.

So…I made a deal with this student that if he agreed to work hard and trust me I’d give him a full year to turn things around before evaluating whether or not he should be allowed to pursue his major. I wanted him to have every chance to succeed.

Fast forward to today: he’s skipped more than half of his lessons and made almost no progress. No surprises there. Just give him the “time to find a new goal in life, kid” speech, right?

Well…I would. Except he called last night to inform me of the following:

  1. He’s met a new teacher.

  2. That teacher has made promises to him about opportinities she can provide him with local performing venues…promises that I know for a fact are false ones.

  3. That teacher has told him that he needs to withdraw from classes and come and study with her.

  4. He has already withdrawn and applied for transfer to her university in the fall.

And here’s the kicker: I know this new teacher by reputation. [disclaimer: I don’t know her personally]. She is known to make false claims about her career and credentials, she has a reputation for poaching students to bolster her recruiting stats at her University (different one from mine), she is known to make false claims about her experience rehabilitating troubled voices (that part I do have direct knowledge of), and…most importantly…she will not be able to get this student admitted to her university. There are other faculty members there with more sense than that.

So (finally)…what would you do in my shoes? Even though he’s been a difficult student I feel a responsibility to give him the best advice I can.

Do I:

a) wash my hands of the situation and be glad not to have to deal with it anymore, knowing that anything I say to him is likely to be ignored, and that anything I tell him about his new “teacher” will immediately get back to her and insert me into a grapevine war that I want absolutely no part of.

or

b) reach out to the student and his family (he still lives at home) and tell them what I believe, and at least give him a chance to not waste the next several years of his life chasing promises made to him in bad faith.

For now, I’ve chosen option A, because I believe in an adult person’s right to make up his own mind. I’ve told him he needs to follow whatever path he thinks is in his best interest.

But I worry that I’m doing the wrong thing.

Thanks,
~fig

2

I think A, let him go.

You’ve given him every opportunity to help him and he’s not taking those opportunities. Instead he’s looking for an easier way out.

He’s not leaving you because he thinks you’re the lesser teacher or because you are not offering him help. He’s leaving because he’s lazy. He’s not going to get any better through your teaching if he’s got such an attitude, so don’t sweat him.

3

My only misgiving about that choice is that I think he’s being used by his new teacher. He is definitely lazy, but he’s also naive. If he had just gone out and found this new teacher on his own and decided to go his merry way I’d agree with your point of view completely. But – and I guess I didn’t make this clear in my OP now that I think about it – this new teacher actively recruited him. For whatever reason (probably that between now and the fall when he doesn’t get into the new school she can charge him heavily for private lessons…a price he will pay based on false hopes), she saw him as an opportunity. That really bothers me.

4

This kid is looking for the musical equivalent of a miracle diet pill, and he’s already given up on you because you’re actually going to make him work for what he wants.

I think it’d be best to let him go at this point and move on.

5

How old is he? I’m sure his parents see their child as the greatest thing since sliced bread, but I think they’re the ones that need the wake-up call, particularly if they’re funding his study.

Get him hooked up with a journalism course and tell him his interest in opera would be best served by writing reviews for the local newspaper.

6

Early 20’s. Young enough that his parents still wield a lot of influence, but old enough that I would feel a bit odd about having to go through them to reach him. They definitely are footing the bill, however, so you make a good point.

7

Just because this student is delusional about his potential, doesn’t mean he deserves to be taken advantage of. If you have evidence in writing that this other teacher is prone to taking advantage of students, I would encourage you to share it with the student and the parents. (If you have mostly word-of-mouth, it becomes trickier. Sharing gossip may not do good things for your reputation).

8

Don’t waste any more time on this guy. You have students who deserve your attention, and you owe this kid nothing. No matter what happens, he’s going to end up blaming everyone else except himself for his failure to realize his pipe dream, and you’re gonna’ be one of 'em (I just hope you don’t hear back on that personally.)

I’m teaching part-time (English comp) at the local college and have done so for many years. I have all the time in the world, and I’ll even sacrifice my own personal time, for a student who shows promise and is willing to work as hard as I have to learn how to write for publication. But it’s college – there are too many students with too much talent and too much energy for me to waste a single moment with a slacker.

9

IMO, if you try to tell him anything negative about his new chosen teacher, you are going to come across as jealous and/or grasping at straws to keep him as a student. That would probably only inflate his ego further. Besides, if you make statements against this other teacher, and he goes anyway, what’s to stop him from blabbing to this woman that you were casting aspersions on her reputation?

Five different teachers in four years should be a wake-up call to both student and parents, but there isn’t anything you can do if they choose not to hear. Wish him well, and let him go.

10

My money is on the parents being behind the whole fiasco. They’re going to grow themselves an OPERA SINGER, damn it! “And if that teacher can’t do it, we’re gonna find one who can!”

11

You can be vauge. Warn him to be carful becuase you have heard of teachers at other universities that fleece students into paying for expensive voice lessons only to leave them high and dry when it comes to admission to the program. You can even tell him you’ve known students with more experience and skill (avoiding the whole talent/work ethic, since he believes he has the former and has convinced himself he will soon develop the latter) who were rejected by that other program.

12

Frankly, that’s what occurred to me too - Fig, I’d let it go - Option A all the way.

13

That’s the case, unfortunately. And I value my reputation too much to risk being seen as petty or unprofessional. Not that I would put it that way…but once you say something to anyone you lose control over how it gets repeated to others. And this student is not trustworthy that way.

I hear that.

Thank you. That’s a great perspective.

14

I think this dilemma is easier than you think.

Firstly you have a student with a poor track record and almost zero prospects in a highly competitive field.
(I’m surprised you took him on, actually. Weren’t there other, more suitable students?)

Secondly he has failed to catch up under your tutelage (“he’s skipped more than half of his lessons and made almost no progress”).
(Why are you still spending time on him at your University?)

Thirdly some private teacher has made claims that given enough money, she can do amazing things with him. You doubt this.

So you should be relieved that he is no longer at your University.
(Presumably you have told the student (or his family if they are paying for him) how badly he is doing.)

If they ask you for advice, feel free to tell them any facts you know about the other teacher. Not gossip or rumour, just the facts.
If they don’t ask you for advice, they don’t want it. They sound deluded about their son’s prospects and my experience (I’m a teacher) is that some parents are blinded to reality.

15

::Sigh:: I tend to be stubborn about treating adults like adults, and so I’ve probably underestimated this angle. It’s significant to me, with that in mind, that his parents are so intimately involved in his decision making (and they are…I hear about it from him) and yet they have never spoken to me directly about any of this. And they have spoken to other members of the faculty, including my department chair (who supports me completely, by the way, and is possibly happier than I am to see “student x” go). I have always assumed they reached out to her because I’m only adjunct, and she’s easier to get hold of, but if I follow this line of thinking to its logical conclusion it’s easy for me to arrive at: “they’ve decided to make me the problem.”

16

Something is unclear to me here. If this teacher is such bad news, then how can any gossip about her reflect badly on you? Does she actually have a good reputation among the clueless?

17

At the undergraduate level it’s fairly common to give people time to “blossom” before approving their bids to be performance majors. There is usually a “junior standing” jury that results in an up/down vote from the faculty. It’s meant to discourage people with little prospects for success from wasting their time. Student X was still in his first year, and he was definitely going to get a pre-emptive “don’t even wait until your junior year” message come spring.

Indeed I have. Very honestly, and very supportively.

18

Ah. Nevermind my last question. The most ethical thing you can do at this point is take care of yourself and let others tie their own nooses.

19

Is the teacher licensed/credentialed/whatever by the state or overseeing body of the profession? If so, I think your only option is to wish the student well.

20

To answer your first question…simply because saying anything negative about anyone tends to come back to bite you eventually, even if it’s true. The world is indeed small, you never know where/when you’re next going to encounter the other people in it, and for that matter you never know if what’s said about you is true. (Off-topic example: I was once in a near-fatal car “accident”…if that’s what you can call having a wheel come off at highway speed…on my way to perform a concert. I called the promoter immediately and explained why I would not be there on time, and he was very understanding. I made it there eventually. Years later, I learned he had immediately called all of his contacts and told them not to hire me because I was “unreliable.” I lost a lot of work because of him.)

At any rate, I already know that I’ll be co-judging a local competition for high-school students with the distasteful teacher in question. Like it or not, I have to coexist in a small professional pond with her.

[on edit I see you already got your answer…but this is still relevant I guess]