"since you do learn a lot just from teaching. "
You learn immensely from teaching.
Used to teach elemetary school music, teaches you about yourself and what you are doing.
Good suggestions MonkeyKing.
Our kwoon also has students teach, and for the most part it has done very well. Sifu sometimes has to fine tune what has been taught, but those who help instruct are learning for themselves as well.
Originally posted by MonkeyKing
[B]Commitment, and something else that I’ve seen happen before is whether or not the students feel like they’re getting quality instruction. Sometimes we have students hit and miss that are committed, but what happens is they don’t always like the instructor. That’s something else that we all should be doing on a regular basis too, is evaluating ourselves to make sure that our students are receptive to what we have to teach.
If no one likes you as an instructor it’s hard to retain good students. After reading some of your posts on this forum, it’s plain that your very opinionated and aggresive with that opinion. If your this aggresive in your instruction maybe your turning some 'customer’s off to what you have to teach. They can ‘sense’ the fact that you hate their lack of committment and hit/miss attendance. I’m not trying to be flaming or critical, but constructive criticism does help sometimes, and this is just my observation based on what you’ve presented here. So that might be something else to consider, if your having attendance problems, try listening to what your students have to say about your instruction. Ask them for a critique of all instructors at your school and submit them anonymously, that way you allow them to express their feelings without putting them on the spot. AND this is a great way to get into their heads and find out what they want that you may not be providing.
This is some of the things we’ve done at our school, and it’s really helped get some word of mouth going about how approachable and flexible we are as a school by adapting to the learning curve of various students. Our ‘regular’ attendance has been much better, and our committment level from our students has doubled, because they now see us as committed to THEIR training. To quote someone I don’t know, “People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.” About their goals. [/B]
I appreciate your constructive criticism. I understand what you are saying, but I don’t think this is the problem here. I pride myself at making people feel good about themselves under my instruction. I praise any small improvement I see them make, and I do it in front of others. On the other hand, I don’t sugar coat it. If I see something that needs fixed I tell them so. But I make a point to explain why I am correcting them. I know they are a good martial artist and that they want to be doing things correctly. And that they will make a fine instructor some day and I know that they want the knowledge they are passing on to be accurate. I am familiar with your quote. I’m sure I have read it in the numerous books on leadership and business, the best being “How to Win Friends and Influence People.”