Win-Win For Everyone: How I Help Students Develop Healthy Practice Habits

I never needed any prompting from my parents to practice the piano. I couldn’t wait to get my fingers on the keyboard and work my lessons. This put me at a disadvantage as a teacher, however. I was quite surprised to find that self-motivated students are in the minority and for a while, I was at a loss as to what to do for those who weren’t. After all, I couldn’t draw from my own experience.

Fellow teachers made it clear that it was not my responsibility to get my students to the piano to practice any more than it is the classroom teacher’s responsibility to get their students’ homework done. That, I was told, was for the parents and the child to work out.

I wasn’t so sure.

Some parents use shame and threats and punishment, all for what they perceive as the greater good. After all, it is true that if you can get a child to practice often enough they will improve their skills and it is also true that the better they get, the more likely they will actually want to practice and take pride in their progress. Still, I can’t count how many adults I’ve met who tell me they hate the piano, describing it as a medieval torture device, shuddering at their childhood memories of being forced to practice.

I can’t abide the thought of my beloved instrument being perceived as a torture device and I really don’t want to be a part of ay system that might contribute to that. I’d rather not teach!

I decided that if I was going to continue to teach, I would do everything in my power to help my students develop a happy, healthy relationship with the piano, which meant I would have to find a way to inspire them to practice without parental reminders. Thankfully, I found the perfect system.

Ninety-five percent of my students are self-motivated and their parents are thrilled to report they never have to remind them to practice. There are a number of things that I have developed to bring that to pass but they all hinge on a Points + Reward system called Star Bucks.

Point Reward systems have been used for quite a while by many parents and an increasing number of teachers, both classroom and private. I have benefited from the experience of others and customized my own system. Star Bucks are fake “money” that I print in denominations of Ones, Fives, and Tens. These are then turned in to purchase “prizes” from a catalog.

The catalog for 2019 featured a fun pencil with a cute eraser for 1 Star Buck, a bamboo flute or a two-tone sound block for 2 Star Bucks, a red harmonica for five Star Bucks, etc. The prizes included rasps, maracas, jingle bells, hand drums, conductor batons, finger symbols, triangles, tambourines, all the way up to 50 Star Bucks for rain sticks or kalimbas.

HOW IT WORKS

Each student receives a personalized card with a short list of things to practice, and a recommendation to practice 3-5 times per week.

On the flip side of the card is a Star for them to color or check off, every time they practice at least 5 minutes.

They receive one point paid out in chips (5 cents) each time they mark a practice session on the card.

They can also earn a Silver Star worth 5 chips, a Gold Star worth 10 chips or even more at lesson time depending on what kind of challenges they have taken on during the week or how attentive they are at lesson time — or any number of things, completely at the discretion of the teacher.

Finally, they trade in Star-Bucks for one of 18 prizes from the catalog.

This system has really worked well. The key to its success is the fact that unlike stickers, the prizes are substantial and they get a catalog to help them dream of their own success — and there’s nothing more motivating than that!