THOSE THAT CAN, DO
‘No one ever teaches well who wants to teach,’ said Plato. He was utterly wrong, of course (as he was in so many other cases: the cranky old sourpuss wanted to do away with poets and artists altogether, if you recall). If you look at some of the most inspirational and successful piano pedagogues of all time – as I will be doing in the course of this article, and hearing from some of their students – you’ll often find that their passion for teaching has been well documented.
Good teaching is a mystery of talent and temperament between two people
But the mere desire to teach isn’t enough to make a truly great teacher. There has to be something else. Is it the ability to take an average talent, and mould it into a dazzling one? Probably not: the legendary Nadia Boulanger said that the pupil who has to be continually pushed, is the pupil who will never amount to anything. Is it the ability to show the best path, and push the neophyte away from the wrong one? Again, no: the forbidden door is always the most exciting. Is it someone who screams and terrorises their students into brilliance? There have been several who’ve tried this (and I’ll be naming a certain someone later) but it hardly
