Teaching is a lot like parenting: the proper goal is not merely to instill obedience, exercise control, or make someone into a carbon copy of someone else; rather, it is to assist in the development of a new personality, and to render that personality ultimately independent and autonomous.

The first thing to do, then, is to foster autonomy in every way possible. A good start can be made by simply insisting that the student learn to be personally responsible for everything on the page. Does this sound obvious? Well, it should--but one of the most common and persistent failures in teaching occurs when the teacher sits in the lesson and constantly corrects misreadings as the student plays: "that's a C-sharp," "F, not A, in the bass," and so on. This is not teaching; it is merely doing for the student what he ought to be doing for himself, with the result that ninety-five percent of the lesson time is spent telling him to do what's right there on the page in front of him. What an awful waste of time!

Even elementary students can learn to be meticulous enough to notice the things that they know already. Accidentals are perhaps the most common example: how often do players miss sharps or flats that occurred earlier in the measure and are still in effect when the same note is played again before the bar line? Here is a perfect opportunity for the teacher to say, not, "that's a C-sharp", but, "you missed something there--see if you can find it." Then perhaps the next week's assignment could include going through the entire piece at home--preferably away from the piano--to find all similar places and mark them.

What about the tempo and character indications at the very beginning of a movement? Every music student should have a good music dictionary, look up the markings in his music, and write translations in the score if necessary. Even if the piece is still being played under tempo the player should have an idea of what the composer has in mind, so that he will aim for something more than just hitting the right keys at the right time. It's deplorable how often these markings are ignored, even by advanced students, with the result that the ears get used to simply doing without them. I once taught a master class in which a graduate student performed Debussy's Evening in Granada with beautiful accuracy, control and phrasing, but utterly without the essential rhythmic character because she had failed to notice the all-important directive at the beginning: "In tempo de Habanera". This entire work is based on the rhythm of that Spanish dance, which continues throughout and ties the whole thing together, but she hadn't bothered to look it up, nor had the teacher bothered to mention it. (I played the habanera from the opera Carmen for her.) A little autonomy here would have transformed the whole performance.

If it could be clearly understood from the very beginning that the pupil is not allowed to force the teacher to do things for him that he can do for himself, and that the the teacher will not spend lesson time saying the same things, or hearing the same mistakes, week after week, think how much faster the progress would be! It does not have to be done in a hardnosed, confrontational fashion at all, but it should be made a part of the very structure of teaching. Only then can truly efficient practice skills be developed.