The teacher clearly cares more about themselves than your child

Red Flag #1

This is an unfortunate reality.  And, it’s also an unfortunate byproduct of our current music education system.

Many music programs in our school systems are not designed to develop the character traits of musicians, inclusively welcoming everyone as musicians.  They are designed to exclude, to create professional musicians who measure themselves only by how much better they are at playing or singing than someone else is.  

What this means is that many “successful” musicians have been told that their highest good is to be a performer.  

But… we don’t need that many full-time performers.  So what is a person with a music degree to do for money?  

Teach.

I’ll be bold and say that, for the most part, people whose main priority is to make themselves a performer shouldn’t be teaching.  Their focus is in the wrong place.

That doesn’t mean that the teacher you find can’t perform.  They should! What it does mean is that you should keep an eye out for whether there is a passion in the teacher to invest in their students, and they aren’t teaching just to make ends meet.

If you find that either the music teacher at your child’s school, music program, or private studio is spending most of their time trying to build up their performance career, keep an eye out.  Teaching is probably not their passion - and therefore, they might inadvertently do more damage to your child than good.