Update from Jillian's lesson

On the way to her lesson yesterday, I asked Jillian about the frustrations she had told me about earlier. "Do you want to talk to your teacher about these things, or shall I?" In answer, I felt a finger jabbing me in the back of my head (she was riding behind me in the car), which I took to mean that this was going to be my job. "No worries," I told her, "We'll talk to her before your lesson starts."

Jillian's teacher is a tiny woman, probably not as old as she seems (she seems maybe 50-ish), who is painfully shy. She is unable to make eye contact with us when she talks to us, which is basically never. I feel bad when we DO talk to her, because it seems so uncomfortable, but there are times when we must. I am very tall, so I've found it best to be sitting when I talk to her. So when she came out to greet us, I sat down and told her what Jillian had said.

She felt awful for her, and even a little alarmed. She wanted to know which pieces Jillian had been having so much trouble with, since, as best she could recall, she HAD written fingering instructions on everything she wanted Jillian to practice. Turns out the pieces Jillian was so stumped by were things that she hadn't (yet) been assigned. We all agreed that she's doing just fine, and they went into their class.

I'm worried about my little perfectionist daughter, and will be monitoring this closely. This is, above all, supposed to be fun, and I am going to keep reminding her of that. Of course, she also said she wanted to practice 30 minutes a day, so there is a fine balance we'll have to manage here.