We avoid all of this and use the teachers at the Boys and Girls club. Teachers are surprisingly well trained – daughter’s piano teacher went to the Peabody Conservatory at Johns Hopkins and has a masters in music composition. Many of them are part time instructors at the middle school and high school level (CCA and Torrey Pines) – which makes it nice for the kids. Overall, the teacher is important, but the kids have to be self motivated. Mine bugged me for lessons for quite a while before I gave in.
