DS1 is nearly 7 and so I decided that as a lot of his classmates will be starting music lessons at school in September (he is on a long waiting list) I'd arrange a trial guitar lesson at a local music shop.
The teacher, who I'd not met, was a university student. The point is, from the moment we arrived it was clear he didn't want ds1 there. First thing I asked him was whether a cheque was OK or would he prefer cash. Response, 'cash cos otherwise I won't get paid.' It went downhill from there. He put a piece of paper on the floor showing various dots on a picture of a guitar fret (where the fingers are supposed to go) and basically said, 'do that.' I couldn't believe it. He was 'teaching him' by facing ds1 with his guitar and asking him to copy. There were long periods of silence with no instruction from the teacher whatsoever. Ds1 was waiting to be told what to do at one point when he was told 'make an effort will you.' I could see ds1, who had been really excited about his lesson, getting really upset. The main problem was that Ds1 wasn't pressing his fingers down hard enough on the strings to make a clean sound. Instead of showing him what to do (or even telling him why he needed to press down so hard) he kept shouting at ds1. At the end, he said to me 'well how do you think it went'. I said that I'd talk to Ds1 about it at home ie. I'm not going to stand here in front of Ds1 and say he was completely shit am I'm knobhead. When I said 'well done' to DS1 the guy laughed. He actually laughed! I've never wanted to scream at somebody as much in my entire life, but restrained myself because I didn't want to give him the satisfaction of seeing me lose my temper. Ds1 said to me after we'd left that 'the teacher couldn't wait to get rid of me could he mum?' I'm so so mad.