Been told I was unkind and disrespectful, AIBU to think not?

[AmIUnkind]

This will be a long OP because I don't want to drip feed. Also I have namechanged as the circumstances are very specific but I've been posting on Mumsnet since 2006.

Trying very hard to be succinct:

A little while ago I saw a thread on a local forum or FB page from a music teacher advertising vacancies for the instrument I play. I had clocked this teacher before and read a few threads singing her praises over the past couple of years, but didn't contact her as I had my own teacher in the same subject I was relatively happy with. But now I want to move teachers so I contacted her.

She offered me a trial lesson, so I went. I decided I really liked the whole set up (primarily she teaches in person rather than online unlike my previous teacher), only teaches adults and organises musical events amongst them, and I just liked her and got a lot out of the trial lesson she gave me.

However, she is very popular so I had to commit to future lessons with her pretty much immediately. I decided to go for it.

I contacted my current teacher by email as soon as I could (it was another 6 days before I was due to see her online), gave her the requisite 4 weeks notice to stop lessons, and wrote only kind and complimentary things about her and her teaching and my learning with her up to date. I said I felt I wanted to move on and I really felt I would benefit from in-person lessons rather than online.

She replied by email the next day - very distraught! Saying she couldn't sleep and had she said or done anything to upset me? [I was quite surprised as I would have thought she had pupils coming and going all the time over the years]. She also said she would find it too awkward to give me the 4 lessons of my notice period.

So I said that's fine, you don't have to give me the lessons but I will pay you. She said "let's have our next scheduled lesson anyway" so I went online and did that.

This is when she told me I had been unkind and disrespectful and that the normal thing to do in these circumstances would be to apologise. I was honestly so surprised - and a mixture of quite angry at being lectured to and really upset. I apologised wholeheartedly for upsetting her (although of course I never intended to). After the call I felt it had all been A BIT MUCH really. I had lessons with her for over 5 years, then I chose to change teachers, I gave notice according to her T&Cs expecting to pay for 4 more lessons. And yet this was unkind, disrespectful and I owed apologies?

Honestly - that's the shortest I can make it! But I've probably left something out.

AIBU?

It would have been more tactful to tell a white lie thay you were 'having a break' rather than you were going to amother teacher

But why? OP was very respectful about it - she didn't say "You're a crap teacher, so I'm moving to a half-decent one".

Over two years after lockdown, I would have thought that only teaching music lessons online is unnecessarily limiting. It sounds rubbish to me. Surely, if that's all you offer, you'd be amazed that more people wouldn't want to move to a standard music teacher who can offer proper practical lessons.

I'd much rather people just said what their intentions were rather than this "having a break" stuff. When I first started out, I believed the "having a break" stuff and kept people's slots open because they claimed they'd start again in a couple of months. Soon got wise to it though and these days if they say they are having a break, I say that's not a problem, wish them well but make it clear that I can't hold their slot open for them.

You might think it is more tactful, but it really isn't helping anyone. The OP stated in a kind and clear way what her plans were. It's the teacher who has reacted badly and that's on her, not the OP. She needs to be able to handle the comings and goings of music teaching and if she can't then she should find a different job.

Sounds like she has difficulty distinguishing personal relationships from professional ones. This is her problem, not yours.

From what you have said, you have behaved entirely decently and you've actually gone over and above what's reasonable by offering to pay for the notice period even if she didn't want to teach.

She may have other stuff going on and this has tipped her over the edge in some way. That's very sad but not your issue to worry about. You've done what you can to ease the blow. Hope you enjoy the sessions with your new teacher.

No, it's not weird to have a contractual agreement with terms and conditions.
Just because you haven't come across it, doesn't mean it isn't very common practice.
I suppose it also depends when you had your lessons (times have changed) and whether they were on an ad hoc basis (ie. just a couple of times a month) or perhaps those teachers weren't relying on it for a steady income stream.
I have lessons with someone on one of my instruments and it's ad hoc with him and it's not his main income - he plays professionally in an orchestra.

But for me, and many other teachers like me, our sole income is music teaching and we need to protect that income stream as much as possible. That means making sure clients don't take the piss and sadly over the years I have been teaching, people in general (not everyone of course) have become more unreliable. I had to put a contract in place with strict terms and conditions because too many people were cancelling lessons for their children for all kinds of random reasons which meant I was losing money all the time and had slots being used for people who were maybe only there for half the time. I do teach some people on an ad hoc basis - mainly in the mornings - but I'm fully booked in the afternoons and have a waiting list. I absolutely cannot afford to have people constantly cancelling. Before my terms and conditions were in place I was often losing a quarter to a third of my income every week because of unreliability.

I have a notice period in place too because some people just stopped coming, giving no reasons, stopped paying, didn't reply to messages asking if they wished to keep their slot and I'd be holding an empty slot, wondering whether people were coming back or not and whether I should fill it with someone else. So again, losing money.

And with music teaching, no matter how enthusiastic you are, how good you are at teaching etc, the fact is that a lot of people will start the instrument and then not like it as much as they thought they would; don't really have time to practise; didn't realize how hard it was going to be; want to do something else and so on and so forth. So it means there a lot of comings and goings.

TL:DR - It's not weird to have a contract. OP did exactly what the contract required of her. The teacher should have accepted the ending of that contract with good grace.

She's being ridiculous. It's perfectly reasonable to move onto a new teacher after a few years. You've done nothing wrong, and the new teacher sounds great. I think there is limited scope for teaching a musical instrument online. I think it's better to teach in person IMO

You weren’t unreasonable at all.

Do not accept her accusations. You have behaved perfectly reasonably.

I apologised wholeheartedly for upsetting her..

If you had behaved badly then an apology would have been justified but in this instance I would take the view that she was upset rather than you had upset her. Her upset was not your responsibility.

Bizarre. Agree with everyone else, with the added comment that most people only spend a few years with a particular music teacher then move on. You benefit hugely from a different approach and style and can easily get stuck in a rut if you stay with the same teacher too long.

You've been lovely-over and above what you needed to be. She is either a bit bonkers or has a lot going on right now that's making her respond in such an extreme and inappropriate way. But that isn't your problem.

You weren't at all unkind. The teacher was unprofessional and manipulative. She seems to think you owe her a form of emotional support far beyond that of a professional relationship and that she did not reciprocate.

The idea that you should have been more "tactful" by telling her you were taking a break is ridiculous and, as general advice, is really unfair on the small business owners who aren't so unprofessional. Telling her you wanted something else and, in particular, that in-person tutoring was preferable is important information that most businesses would want to know. Binning her off with a lie leaves her unable to make sound decisions about her livelihood and is a poor and unkind way to treat a professional you've had a good relationship with.

It seems like this happened a while ago and you've been stewing on it, I hope the responses here will enable you to put to rest the idea that you treated her badly. From your post I would say that the reverse is true. I hope things are going well with the new tutor.

Totally misses the point but do you NEED an more lessons?! You should be a pro after 5 years lol

It’s not you, it’s her.

OP, on the surface it sounds completely unhinged on her part.

All I can wonder is if there was something in the way you phrased the message that she could have misunderstood..... any chance you could paste it here?

Otherwise, she is utterly out of line and a bit batty. It must be hard going through life being her if these kind of normal things send you through such a loop. But it's definitely not fair on you and you should not have had to deal with it. I hope you didn't pay for the other lessons!

@curaçao but it is useful feedback, to say that OP is changing to a teacher who offers in person lessons

You did nothing wrong. I had to give notice to DS's excellent music teacher when his school insisted he learn with their (also excellent) teacher. I could tell she was really upset (he adored her lessons, always practised, she was brilliant and I was very sorry to let her go) But she said nothing, just that she understood. Even though she looked sad. That's professionalism.

If she refuses to do the lessons, don’t pay her