The Time I lost $1,000+ on Piano Lessons (My First True Experience of Extreme Loss as a Teacher)

I recently went through an experience that I never thought I would ever have to go through as a piano teacher. When covid happened in the very beginning of the pandemic, I offered some free lessons for my students. I understood the hardships that everybody had to go through and I wanted to be there for my students. Not having lessons for a couple of weeks or months can really push back a student’s progress. They would have to spend extra time relearning everything again. Now that I look back on what happened, I regret offering too many free lessons. I should have put a limit on the number of free lessons that I provided. I didn’t do that however because I thought that my students would only need a month or so to get back on their feet. There

There was a particular mom that needed lessons, but they couldn’t continue to afford them. I offered some free lessons because they were already my students beforehand. I thought that they wouldn’t need a lot of time to be okay financially again and I was also promised repayment once they had more financial income again. Therefore, since I was promised repayment, I knew that they were going to pay me for all of the lessons that I gave during the pandemic. As we already know, the pandemic lasted a lot longer than everyone expected. Piano teachers had to switch to virtual lessons instead of in-person lessons. All of the lessons I gave to them were through facebook messenger video chat. We continued having lessons for months. In the midst of these lessons, I told the mom my concerns about their youngest daughter. I told her if she would consider having two lessons a week for her ebcause she wasn’t grasping the material. The mom agreed and I was still under the impression that I was going to be compensated for all of the work I put in.

I don’t want to talk badly about anyone because they are genuinely nice people. I enjoyed teaching the kids and I didn’t know what was going to happen in the following weeks. I got the first installment of the payment early this year in 2021. It was $25. I think I was in disbelief when I saw the amount. I charge $40 for two lessons. I went to go check my cashapp, but i’m still downloading the storage to my google photos so I can’t check completely at the moment. It was still upsetting, but she told me that the amount was more than she could give at the moment. Please keep in mind that she only made one payment so far that was only $25. I continued to give them three lessons a week despite knowing this information. I don’t know what I was thinking. I legitimately thought that I was eventually going to be paid. Even during the lessons, I thought that I was actually making money but I wasn’t. During the entire fiasco, I was being misled.

During the end of one of the lessons, she told me that she was going to give me another payment. I was surprised, but very relieved to hear that I was going to receive payment for my work. Again, I was naive and I can’t believe I trusted her. A day or two days go by and I received no payment from her. I waited a week and a half to finally text her to ask about the payment. I’m going to check later in the app, but I don’t think the payment was more than $40. Keep in mind that I have been giving her three lessons a week and two lessons a week, all for free, for a year and a half at this point. I think that my brain was going to explode at this point. This final payment was during the time when I was extremely upset about how my student’s parents were treating me. Not all of my students are like this, but there’s sometimes one student that treats me horribly. Therefore, during this time, I was already clearing out my roster of students. I was letting some students go that I didn’t want to continue teaching anymore and I decided to let these students go. The mom continued to text me about lessons. Why would I continue giving her lessons when she has barely paid me for them? I’m not naive anymore. I think I finally woke up and saw what was happening. I don’t think anyone could actually believe that this happened to me. I funal

I finally let them go and a huge weight lifted from my shoulders. I was free from their abuse. Over the next couple of weeks, the mom continued to message me. She was never angry and she was extremely nice. It was jarring to see her continue to try to get back in my good graces again. I never responded to her messages. There’s nothing much to say. I wasted a lot of my time and effort for nothing in return. The person that did this to me doesn’t think that they did anything wrong. yesterday was my birthday and she texted me happy birthday. I cannot understand how she can continue bothering me when I already cut ties with her.

During the period when I finally let them go, I wasn’t posting any piano videos or anything for my music studio page. I didn’t want her to continue to message me because I don’t want to have anything to do with her anymore. An entire month goes by and I was hiding from her. I didn’t post anything and I only used social media to look at posts. I never posted anything of my own. I would definitely attribute some of the loss I experienced with views due to me having to hide from her. Not only did I lose my money and time, but I also lost my viewership. I can’t truly explain what it was like having to go through this. I hope that other teachers never have to go through what I went through. Time is valuable and I lost a lot of it. I will never get the time I wasted back, but I hope that I can rebuild myself to where I was before. Thank you so much for reading.

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