The teacher puts all the responsibility for learning and practice on the student (without teaching them how)

Red Flag #3

This is so key.  No one is born understanding how to practice.  Telling a child to “Go home and practice” is about as useful as saying “Go home and learn algebra.”  

Sometimes a teacher will say things like, “Practice is just doing something over and over again until it’s correct.”  And - sure.  Ok.  

But for a student, this is both terrible advice and terribly discouraging.

First of all, saying that practicing is doing something over and over again until it is correct communicates that you are done practicing when something is correct - once.  So a child then practices a passage of music and does it wrong, and does it wrong again, and does it wrong again.  Say they do it wrong nine times before they do it correct.  Once they get it correct, they stop.  Mathematically, having done the thing incorrectly nine times and correctly once gives them a 90% chance of getting it correct the next time they play it, and only a 10% chance of getting it right.  How frustrating for the child then when, the next time they play it, they get it wrong even though they “practiced”!

Secondly, doing something over and over again is boring.  It’s frustrating.  It’s literally the definition of tedium.  Worst of all, it doesn’t teach the character trait of Joy in Hard Work.  

A great teacher will spend time helping you and your student understand the work that’s expected of them - and how to do that work well. They won’t just say “Go home and practice;” they will design assignments that are understandable and able to create Joy in Hard Work.