•10:47 PM
My heart is full this week. In a good way.
It's a bit complicated, but I will try to keep it brief.
Last summer, I wrote a post in praise of my children's violin teacher. She is a mature, fairly recent immigrant from Russia, who is perhaps one of the finest violin teachers in our state.
Lately, as we have been looking at our expenses, the extreme cost of our violin lessons has been staring me in the face. Our teacher is contracted to teach us through our local Suzuki school, and the Suzuki school is the middle man, taking quite a chunk of money off the top for our lessons. To keep this post as short as possible, I will speak of apples instead of cash. As I explained it to our children (by analogy), each week, we pay 5 apples for violin lessons. Our teacher, Miss S., who does all the work, gets 3 apples, and the Suzuki school pockets 2 of the apples.
Our dear teacher, in addition, teaches independently of the school, charges her students just 4 apples, and gets to keep all 4 apples. But we cannot go to her directly, as I will explain below.
I told her this week about another music conservatory I researched nearby that offers violin lessons for just 2.66 apples. She asked who the teacher would be. I told her it would be Miss K., a teacher who she also respects as a decent and competent teacher. However, this teacher also teaches for the Suzuki school.
Now here's the catch. I cannot go to our teacher, Miss S., directly, nor go to Miss K. either, at the other music conservatory, because they both have an agreement with Suzuki school not to teach any of the Suzuki students privately apart from the Suzuki school. Not unless the student leaves the Suzuki school for an entire year and goes to some other teacher before coming back to them.
Therefore, as I and my children love Miss S., we are stuck paying 5 apples a week, with Miss S. only getting 3 of those apples. No, we can't go to the other conservatory at 2.66 apples, and no, we can't go directly to Miss S. for 4 apples (all of which she would get to keep).
It is a stinky situation, but that's the way it is. We've been putting up with it for several years.
Fast forward to yesterday. The phone rang, and it was Miss S. She had a proposal. We currently log in 75 minutes of lesson time with her a week to the Suzuki school. She wants us to reduce the registered lesson time to 45 minutes. Yet, she will continue to work 75 minutes with us anyway. In other words, we get the same instruction for 3 apples instead of 5. Of course, this means she loses 1.2 apples each week, but she is not concerned with that.
I am flabbergasted.
She also tells me that the time will come when she will have to pass Little Son on to another violin teacher, her ex-husband; that he is a "more professional teacher" than she is, and that he can teach by demonstration the more difficult concertos (like Mendelssohn's). Unfortunately, Miss S. cannot play violin for longer than five minutes due to arm pain; likely the result of a mastectomy of years ago.
Miss S. has taught and led many students right up to college. Many have received scholarships on account of their violin skills. Through the years, though, she has decided to pass a few of her students on to her ex-husband. They have gone on to win large scholarships and even become soloists. She does this for the good of the student, not for her own self-interest.
By now I have tears in my eyes.
By the end of the conversation, after much insistence on her part, we make a compromise. We settle on registering our kids for 60 weekly minutes of instruction, with her actually providing 75 minutes at no additional cost. In effect, this removes the price of the middle man for us. We will now pay 4 apples per week, instead of 5. But she will now only get 2.4 apples per week for her efforts, instead of 3. The amazing thing is that she was willing to work for even less.
No matter to her. She does it for the love of her students. She assures me the sacrifice is insignificant to her. And truth be known, she will probably teach our kids for longer than 75 minutes on many days, too. She will teach them right up until the next student shows up at her door. That's just her way.
So that is why my heart is full today. We are truly blessed to have Miss S. in our lives. Her integrity and selfless dedication are outstanding. I hope that we can find an opportunity to be a blessing to her someday, too.
It's a bit complicated, but I will try to keep it brief.
Last summer, I wrote a post in praise of my children's violin teacher. She is a mature, fairly recent immigrant from Russia, who is perhaps one of the finest violin teachers in our state.
Lately, as we have been looking at our expenses, the extreme cost of our violin lessons has been staring me in the face. Our teacher is contracted to teach us through our local Suzuki school, and the Suzuki school is the middle man, taking quite a chunk of money off the top for our lessons. To keep this post as short as possible, I will speak of apples instead of cash. As I explained it to our children (by analogy), each week, we pay 5 apples for violin lessons. Our teacher, Miss S., who does all the work, gets 3 apples, and the Suzuki school pockets 2 of the apples.
Our dear teacher, in addition, teaches independently of the school, charges her students just 4 apples, and gets to keep all 4 apples. But we cannot go to her directly, as I will explain below.
I told her this week about another music conservatory I researched nearby that offers violin lessons for just 2.66 apples. She asked who the teacher would be. I told her it would be Miss K., a teacher who she also respects as a decent and competent teacher. However, this teacher also teaches for the Suzuki school.
Now here's the catch. I cannot go to our teacher, Miss S., directly, nor go to Miss K. either, at the other music conservatory, because they both have an agreement with Suzuki school not to teach any of the Suzuki students privately apart from the Suzuki school. Not unless the student leaves the Suzuki school for an entire year and goes to some other teacher before coming back to them.
Therefore, as I and my children love Miss S., we are stuck paying 5 apples a week, with Miss S. only getting 3 of those apples. No, we can't go to the other conservatory at 2.66 apples, and no, we can't go directly to Miss S. for 4 apples (all of which she would get to keep).
It is a stinky situation, but that's the way it is. We've been putting up with it for several years.
Fast forward to yesterday. The phone rang, and it was Miss S. She had a proposal. We currently log in 75 minutes of lesson time with her a week to the Suzuki school. She wants us to reduce the registered lesson time to 45 minutes. Yet, she will continue to work 75 minutes with us anyway. In other words, we get the same instruction for 3 apples instead of 5. Of course, this means she loses 1.2 apples each week, but she is not concerned with that.
I am flabbergasted.
She also tells me that the time will come when she will have to pass Little Son on to another violin teacher, her ex-husband; that he is a "more professional teacher" than she is, and that he can teach by demonstration the more difficult concertos (like Mendelssohn's). Unfortunately, Miss S. cannot play violin for longer than five minutes due to arm pain; likely the result of a mastectomy of years ago.
Miss S. has taught and led many students right up to college. Many have received scholarships on account of their violin skills. Through the years, though, she has decided to pass a few of her students on to her ex-husband. They have gone on to win large scholarships and even become soloists. She does this for the good of the student, not for her own self-interest.
By now I have tears in my eyes.
By the end of the conversation, after much insistence on her part, we make a compromise. We settle on registering our kids for 60 weekly minutes of instruction, with her actually providing 75 minutes at no additional cost. In effect, this removes the price of the middle man for us. We will now pay 4 apples per week, instead of 5. But she will now only get 2.4 apples per week for her efforts, instead of 3. The amazing thing is that she was willing to work for even less.
No matter to her. She does it for the love of her students. She assures me the sacrifice is insignificant to her. And truth be known, she will probably teach our kids for longer than 75 minutes on many days, too. She will teach them right up until the next student shows up at her door. That's just her way.
So that is why my heart is full today. We are truly blessed to have Miss S. in our lives. Her integrity and selfless dedication are outstanding. I hope that we can find an opportunity to be a blessing to her someday, too.
3 comments:
Wow. You really have found an amazing teacher. What a sweet story.
I remember my mom talking, teary-eyed, about how grateful she was to other adults who had truly loved and mentored her kids. It sounds like your teacher is one of those people.
Wow. How wonderful that your violin teacher was willing to do that. Obviously she is someone who cares more about the students than about money or status.
I understand that whole business about her not being able to take Suzuki school students as private students. My hubz is self-employed, and in business it is called a "no-compete clause". It is good for the business but not always so great for the independent contractor & the customer!
Our piano teacher has been very flexible w/us, too. We get a $1/lesson discount for having more than one child in lessons, and my 18- & 13-y/os are at the point where they can take every other week, which saves us some "apples".