I’ve now had every student at least once since getting home from our trip. Sometimes I feel as if I just can’t deal with teaching … and then the students show up and I’m really so very glad they did. They really are quite the blessing!

When students come in I usually go through my questions … “How are you?” “How is school?” “How’s the oboe?” Sometimes I just get one word responses, and sometimes I get a few sentences. A former student who has since moved on to college would go on for the longest time when she was younger, and it was always quite entertaining.

This week one said, in response to the oboe question, “I didn’t practice as many days. My mom was away and she’s always the one to remind me to practice.” I smiled and said my mother was also the one who would remind me to practice so I understood completely. After all, that’s a mom for you … right?

I’ve had students tell me about fights with friends, fights with siblings, and fights with parents. I’ve had some come in and almost immediately burst into tears they are so stressed. Or tired. Or scared. A few times we’ve simply stopped doing oboe work and just talked things through. At least three times I’ve had students who were sobbing so hard and so stressed about oboe that I talked their parents into allowing them to take a break. One came back from her break, only to start sobbing again. I think oboe can do that to a person! Another never returned, but I saw her later at a concert I was playing and she looked so relaxed and joyful I knew stopping the oboe was right for her. I had to tell one mother that I’d take her daughter back when her daughter said she wanted to play oboe because the daughter had told me she hated it and mom was making her play. (This was after I saw them both arguing in the car because the daughter simply didn’t want to come into the studio.) I never saw them again. As any teacher can tell you, we often become counselors for a time.

I’m down to only five students now (at one point I had twenty I think), and five is just fine by me. They range in age from eleven to eighteen. And I’m grateful to have them here each week.