What are we doing and why?
Mastering the crisis - 5 steps for teachers
Mastering the crisis - engage the community

Inspiration & Problem Description

The Corona Virus crisis has hit the arts sector hard. For many musicians, closed studios and concert halls as well as public and private schools means that their (primary) source of income now depends not only on their ability to teach their instrument, but also to do so effectively online.

We have conducted interviews with independent music teachers and learned that some have lost up to 60% of their students. Add in the lost gigs in orchestras, quartetts and recitals this is an existential crisis for most of the independent teachers. But if music doesn't survive the crisis, what are we fighting it for?

In addition we have learned that even if they transition to online teaching they often face issues with the technology available as well as with the differences and limitations of online teaching vs. onsite teaching.

So in summary there are 3 major challenges for music teachers right now:

How to teach online from a technological standpoint?
How to adapt the „hands on“ teaching style to the new online setup?
How to attract new customers to generate a sustainable income?

As many people are stuck at home with not much to take their mind off of the crisis, this is a great opportunity to take the time at hand doing something useful and exciting. Visible in social media, people have started learning languages, creating art and coming back to their instrument after a break or even learning an entirely new instrument all over the world. This is a unique opportunity for teachers, to attract a whole new target group of adult and curious learners.

Solution Description

The solution will be twofold: It will consist of a „Tool Box For Teachers“, providing technological solutions and tools which help with adapting to online teaching. The other part will be an „Online Directory Of Teachers“, a database of music teachers who are available for lessons, paired with a campaign to raise awareness in local communities.

Impact of the Solution

The „Tool Box for Teachers" will help teachers to move to online teaching immediately. It will explain available tools and teach teachers how to transition their business from offline to online.

The Online Directory and campaign will raise awareness in local communities, informing them about the predicament teachers are in and the chance to bring a musical class into their virtual classroom at home, leading to revenue for teachers.

Solution Implementation

The Tool Box for Teachers will be a series of articles available online, to make access as easy as possible.

The Online Directory will be built as a Website / Directory that will provide a self-registration process for music teachers and a directory / catalog with browsing and search capabilities for everyone who is looking for music education.

As Covid19 is a global issue, we see the need globally. The Tool Box for Teachers will start in German but can be translated to any language under the Creative Commons License (CC BY-SA 3.0 AT).