Today was what will probably be my last lesson with Cindy. As usual, her eyes lit up when I walked in the door and she ran to the piano room to prepare the latest thing she wanted to show me.

I'm really glad that I decided to tell them in person. Cindy was very sad as it was, and I think she would have been crushed if I'd just told the mom and not seen her one last time. Plus I got to learn about the mom's latest antics, which I've already warned the new teacher about ;) This time the mom listened to the CD of her classical book and went and marked all of the songs she wanted Cindy to play. They were not songs that Cindy liked, but the mom doesn't care about that.

Since having to play difficult songs that you don't like just because your mom wants to hear them doesn't generally help foster a love of music in my opinion, I was glad for having learned about this from Cindy and being able to warn the new teacher ahead of time. As I told her, all she has to do is "play the association card" and say that she wants Cindy to stick to the curriculum she has, and that will be the end of that. Its very clear that the mom considers testing (and having her child play at higher levels than the relatives') of utmost importance. In truth the teachers have a lot of freedom, but mom doesn't need to know that ;)

It was awful to watch Cindy's face drop as she realized the news, but she quickly bounced back and started asking me what I was going to name my baby and things of that nature ;) I think its going to take a little while for it to sink in that I won't be teaching her anymore: she asked more than once if I would be teaching her for a while yet, since the association testing isn't until March, but as I told her, I think the new teacher will probably want to start with her asap, and that her mom will probably want that as well. She expressed her fears about ending up with a teacher like her cousins have in Menlo Park, who pushes them really hard and yells at them, but I assured her that the teacher I'd recommended lives in Sunnyvale and I told her about how I'd called around to find her a nice one.

We had her lesson as usual, and it was great to sit back and think about all the progress she's made and listen to her tell me about how much she likes the songs I've been having her work on. I'm going to miss her.