When I started teaching voice at a community college six years ago, it was a simple matter to keep my students schedules straight. I only had four-and-a-half hours spread out over two days. When I bumped up to eight hours the next term, I found that my memory became a sieve. I kept forgetting exercises and assignments for individual students, and I needed a system for keeping track of attendance and makeup lessons.
The method I use to keep track of my college and private students has evolved over the past five years, as my teaching studio has grown and my performing schedule has heated up. This method is easily adaptable to teachers working from home or at more than one teaching venue. It consists of a three-ring binder with a tabbed section for each student, a Student Page, and a few pages of notebook paper for my notes on the lessons. When students need to work on a piece I don’t have, they bring me a copy, which I keep in their section of my notebook.
The Student Page helps me keep track of all the graded elements of the lessons as well as contact information, repertoire, and solo performances outside of school, such as church or community theater. When a student calls in to say that they’ll be late, or if they miss the lesson altogether, I make a note on their page. If a student routinely has “car trouble” or is “sick,” I have a record in black and white that helps in dealing with their attendance problem.
Similarly, my Student Pages help to keep me accountable. My performance schedule causes me to go out of town an average of two full weeks per term, plus the occasional day out for a local performance. I keep track of makeup lessons with my Student Sheets and can show the student or my boss that I have indeed taught or have been available for all of the contracted lessons.
The first couple of times that I was away for a week or two, I diligently got with my students and scheduled their individual makeup lessons. It was very difficult to prepare for my singing work out of town and find 10 to 14 free hours when I could make up these lessons.You can imagine my chagrin when only two out of six students showed up on the first makeup day. They either forgot, suddenly remembered that their job had them scheduled for work, or had some other sorry excuse.
Now I schedule a two-hour, group makeup class and pay for an accompanist. My students remember to come, since it is a performance opportunity, plus they learn a lot from listening to each other. I give individual makeup lessons to the one or two students who are unable to attend the group class.
Happily for me, my private students come to me through the Continuing Education department of our community college. Students are required to pay in advance for four or more lessons at a time. I simply check off four lessons as having been prepaid and then date the lesson when it is given. I keep a copy of the receipt right there with the student’s page. It is also useful to write down any referrals. I like to give my students a free lesson if someone they’ve referred to me signs up for my studio.
My notes on each lesson are pretty spare. I keep track of what exercises I have prescribed, why, and how they are going. For example an alto may have trouble getting through passaggio, so I’ll run her through lip trill arpeggios. It is helpful for both of us to look at past lessons and see that she’s been able to go up to high C. It is always good to be able to note progress! At the end of the lesson I take a couple of minutes to recap what we’ve done in the lesson and I note what the student needs to work on in the coming week.
Now that I am teaching six students a day, I find that I must consciously focus at each lesson on the student currently in front of me. In between lessons, I run for a drink of water or take a quick bathroom break to clear my mind and prepare for the next student. Recently, I have taken to starting each lesson with the question, “What did we work on last week”? Often I get a general answer like, “We worked on ‘Sebben crudele’ and we did breathing exercises.” The answer I am really looking for is something like, “We worked on getting my voice forward and I had to breathe for the highest note in the phrase.”
My goal is to train the student to think analytically about what, and more importantly, why we are doing certain things in the lesson. Referring to my notes makes it possible for me to do this. I close the lesson by reviewing the highlights of the lesson and ask the student to work on those specific things during the week, because at the start of the next lesson I am going to ask, “What did we do last week?” And I am going to know the answer!
