COLUMNS and taught alone for like the last 20 years . And thankfully , because of the pandemic , he went online and found our community and now he has coworkers . He said , ‘ I have coworkers now I ’ m not isolated , I can enjoy the interaction with these other people around the world . And finally feel like I have people to ask questions , I can problem solve , I have community because we see each other face to face through these calls .’ And that just made me feel so good , providing that space so that we don ’ t have to feel that isolation anymore .
Manage Your Time
There ’ s time management . I always list out everything I hope to get done in a week . And I usually get it done . Because I tell myself , this is the time given to me to get this done . And I figure it out . That means we have to be less perfectionist about things . Creating templates , batch creating social media posts — I teach on the Teach Music Online podcast , and I have two episodes all about time management , helping teachers figure out how to do all their lesson planning on one day a month , all their social media , all their marketing on one day a month , so that they ’ re not feeling this to-do list that ’ s just never ending in your head . That doesn ’ t have to be there , but it does take effort to get ahead of it and to plan .
Realize Your Impact
The impact we have on communities , on homes , on families on students is huge . I just think we are so lucky . I think we have the best job to be able to bring music into the homes of our students and families . And when you can realize that and remember why we do what we do . It makes it a lot easier ; it makes the figuring out of the business side more fun , because it means you can impact more people . And that ’ s what I ’ ve always wanted , how I ’ ve wanted to approach my teaching . But now as teachers , you know , as a community of teachers , it ’ s how we hope to approach teaching and building businesses . It ’ s about the student , and think about students — how many one-on-one mentors do they have in their lives ? On one hand , they can count how many one-on-one mentors . And as a teacher , you can think back to the mentors you ’ ve had ; I still think about my teachers all the time , like my favorite college professors , my piano teachers growing up , my choral education teachers , they had a huge impact on my decision making . And I don ’ t know that we think about that enough as teachers , or we maybe just forget , but remembering that can help you remember that it ’ s worth all the work because it sure is a lot of work .
Carly Walton studied piano at Berklee College of Music in Boston . After finishing her degree , she opened a piano studio in Arizona and taught choral music in local charter schools . In 2013 , after some of her piano students moved out of state , she decided to experiment with teaching piano lessons online . She can be reached at
carly @ teachmusic . online .
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