As school starts all around us, it’s easy to think back to our favorite teachers over time. I don’t know about you, but with a few (glaring) exceptions, I had wonderful teachers. Some were a kind of wonderful that I didn’t appreciate them until much later. Some made lasting impressions that arise even now, ever so many years.

This is especially true of my harp teachers – some as my “regular” tutors that taught me to play the harp (and so much more) and the ones I think of as “pop-ups” – those workshop teachers that gifted me with some nugget that pushed me a little farther along my path, or over a hump, or around an obstacle. I’m a lucky, lucky harper!

But not all teachers are brilliant. And sometimes a great teacher has a bad day. There are also some times that a teacher is just not attuned to what a student needs. Without more data I hesitate to call anyone a bad teacher – although I am sure they exist. But one of you shared that your teacher had compared your performance nerves to being like when a dog knows it’s going to the vet! You added, “Very discouraging, to say the least.”

I beg to differ. While yes, it’s discouraging, it is much worse. It is needlessly pointless. Worst of all – it was not helpful. Not having a solution to offer does not equate to saying something hurtful. There were so many other things to say in that moment, but the comment chosen certainly didn’t move you forward.

We can talk another time about ways to deal with getting shaky in the face of performing but right now, that comment just sticks out and I can’t leave it be.

When you get comments like that, they shift your focus – and not in a good way. Those types of comments take away from playing and growing. Those are words that push you down and can, left untreated, pull you under. Especially when they come from your teacher, the person meant to nurture your growth and development. What should you do?

When you get unhelpful (and hurtful) feedback, you will need to manage yourself and serve as your own substitute teacher. You can pick or nix the comments you receive. You might need a tool to help you determine how to use the feedback. One useful tool would be to make yourself a decision matrix so you can determine what of the comments is useful and what should just be canned as quickly as possible! Here are the questions for your matrix –

Is your teacher having a bad day?	(Can you ignore it?)
Are you having a bad day?	(Can you ignore the sting?)
Is this the first time you have heard something like this?	(Should you let it slide?)
Was there an element of “joking” in the air?	(Did the joke just fall flat?)
How proportional is this comment?	(How many positive vs negative comments have you received, how does this fit in)?
How could you take the sting out of the words?	(Was it just poorly stated)?
What can you take what was said and learn from?	(Is there something useful behind the sting-y words?)
What question could you follow up with to learn more that would be helpful?	(Is there a way to salvage the intent and stay focused on your development rather than on negative questions?)

You can probably think of even better ways to use the comments you get, even when they’re hurtful or poorly constructed – hope you’ll share them (you know the drill – email me a comment!).