How do you teach?
How do you learn?
I don’t have a degree in teaching or education but I do have 74 years on this earth that have given me numerous examples of how I learn, both through deliberate, planned study and through the everyday of ‘life”: how I present information when I’m sharing something with friends and how I teach qigong both informally and formally.
Human beings are playful people and learn best through their own experiences. There should, in most cases, be some guidance and some boundaries, hence risk assessments that identify dangerous cliffs or dangerous ways of moving joints. But on the whole, I have found there is a limit to how long people can concentrate when sitting or standing still. And that that limit is much longer when people are moving and longer still when they are with other people who are also moving.
One of my favourite places to learn is Tai Chi Caledonia, which brings together teachers and students from all parts of the world. The teachers and students come from different ‘schools’ which have different moves and different names for the same moves or the same names for different moves. They are often teaching and learning in a second language and this slows things down as one or the other searches for the right translation. Some teachers will take the trouble to identify these issues early on, to find different ways of expressing what they want to say – and then use more than one expression as they go through the exercises, continually checking that no one is standing with a puzzled expression on his or her face. I love these teachers and I try to emulate them.
So if you come to one of my workshops, you can expect:
1) a brief introduction to the theory of what we are doing in simple language
2) followed by demonstration with self-paced practise and
3) finishing with an all-together run-through of the form we have been learning.
4) This will be backed up with a handout covering more of the theory for those who are interested, illustrations and explanations of the moves and, if appropriate, a link to a video.
