The Difference

The opposite of a bad teacher is often another equally bad teacher.  For example, let's imagine a teacher called Permissive Patty.  She's very sweet and kind, but she doesn't know when to say when.  When she's worried about her student's state of mind, she pretty much lets them play whatever they want, however they want.  She wouldn't want to cause them anxiety!  The result is a student who is playing too many pieces, who doesn't know much about proper posture, hand position, or any of the details that make a confident performer.  

Another common bad teacher is Strict Susan.  Susan is the opposite of Permissive Patty.  When I was a child, this teacher often had a stick -- she used it to avoid touching grubby student hands and if they didn't practice, like my brother, she would swat him with it!  Strict Susan loves entering her students in competitions.  She forces them to be in recitals whenever possible.  She gets mad at them if they don't win or at least come close to winning.  She has no problem making  other people, especially children, cry.  

My goal is to be balanced somewhere between the extremes.  Though I would never allow a student to walk all over me like Permissive Patty, I definitely have no interest in Strict Susan's egotistical urges to live vicariously through her tortured, pressure cooker students and their domineering and misled parents.   There is a happy medium and my goal as a teacher is to achieve it.