Thank you Lisa--I needed to hear that message!

If you still haven't officially accepted him as a student - you should talk to previous teachers. They may have met with much parental resistance. They may have been young, new teachers also.

It takes experience to teach students with special needs. You need that many more tricks up your sleeves to try - and you need to understand the variables of "normal" and how kids learns, to help you adapt to something different.

Thanks again so much! :-) Forums are such an invaluable online tool.

FLN

I agree w/pianoc.
If you read the MTNA code of ethics you will be encouraged.
In my neck of the teaching woods, we always call one another as a courtesy when a call is received from another teacher's student.

musicmom - Forums are great. Our jobs can be very isolating.

This may not help with the current situation, but I still want to give a shout-out to what I think are the BEST student interview forms on the planet. Natalie Wickham from Wichita, KS has a great site called Music Matters Blog.

I find it hard to navigate with the search engine at the site, so google

Natalie Wickham Student Interview Form

and it will take you to the site. You can then download PDF's to use for your ownself.

The only improvement I would add to the transfer student form is to ask two additional questions: What worked with the previous teacher? What did not work? Interestingly, when one gets the typical nutty mother who is a chronic teacher switcher, and of course Precious is always right and the teachers wrong, the answers will often contradict each other, a sure sign of a crazymaker or el kuckoo situation. When that happens, you will immediately know that you are "not a good fit for what she is looking for in a teacher" and steer her elsewhere.

Thanks so much for the info on the evaluation form, Lisa. How I wish I had interviewed a few of my transfer students a little more extensively.

Every parent thinks their child is a budding Horowitz!

I've taught 2 dyslexic students in the 12 years I've been teaching. It DOES require a lot of extra work on your part, and, as with many other special needs, you really do need to have a complete understanding of their needs to be able to help them effectively. It seems like her previous 4 teachers didn't have a good grasp, or didn't want to have a good grasp. It's so much more than the notes being confusing for her to read - and for music lessons to work, you'll need to know exactly what causes her difficulty.

I made good use of a forum like this one which you can link too off of http://www.voy.com/171328/ it's for classroom assistants, but as they are the ones who are working one-on-one with children with dyslexia all the time they are a good resource for questions that are not music specific. It takes quite a bit of reading and research to understand each particular child's difficulties as often not even the parents have the answers.

Of course, if you're not into putting this much effort in, then I would let them know before you start with her and realize that it's too much. It's hard on kids to be bumped from teacher to teacher.