When You’ve Outgrown Your Teacher
By Sami DeSocio
The bond between an acting, vocal or dance teacher and their student is a sacred bond. As an artist, you are putting your trust and livelihood in the hands of someone you believe knows more than you do and can show you the way. But, any good teacher can be outgrown when the student has learned all that they need to from that person.
First and foremost, the work should always be challenging. Acting, singing, dancing and creating art is a hard task. As artists, we never fully and completely master the craft and are always seeking to reach the next level. When a teacher is no longer challenging you, then it’s time to say goodbye. There’s no sense in doing the same work over and over again, because then there’s no growth. It simply becomes routine.
When you sense you are no longer getting the attention you need for the money you are paying – let’s be honest here, creating art takes a bit of money, and we want to make sure that if we’re paying good money for classes then we should be getting our money’s worth. Fifty dollars for a one hour class that offers you nothing new is not worth the money. Go elsewhere and find someone else whom you feel you can actually learn from! You’ll be doing yourself and your (former) teacher a favor.
If the teacher is constantly concerned about tuition payment. Now, of course as artists we do not want to work for free (though we will). Teachers of the craft are no different and should absolutely be paid for classes. But if you’re starting to sense that they really just care about the money, then their only motivation for keeping you as a student is to continue their own means – not to further you in any way, there’s no need to return to that type of person for artistic expression or guidance.
And finally, when you are no longer getting any joy out of the assignments that you are given. We all go into a class for anything theatre-related knowing we’re going to work hard. Probably harder at this than at anything else we’ve ever tried to do -that’s part of the craft. But on the other side, you should get joy out of the class. Smile at the thought of going and interacting with your peers and instructor. Look forward to creating characters, moments, and scenes together. The minute you begin to dread going to the studio to work, then you have a problem and it needs to be addressed.
There are a lot of people out there who will take advantage of an artist and offer “help” and instruction. Please be careful, and if something doesn’t feel right – it probably isn’t. There are other teachers out there, keep looking until you find the person who makes you feel right, and challenges you to create the best work your craft has to offer!