Teaching

[Author's note: This short article is dedicated to my wonderful daughter Nad, who
gave inspiration through another article she shared.]



Teaching, can you learn it? Or is one a borned teacher?

In addition to that article shared, when one teaches, one has to know more than what one teaches. I've always been led to believe, that a martial arts master will always hold back a thing or two, of whatever is being taught, just in case the student turns onto the teacher.

But in my life experience, in fact throughout my teaching experiences, no doubt that one has to know more than what one teaches, I've learned that in teaching, I've also learned a lot more from my students. But in my experience of teaching how to scuba dive especially, knowing more than what's being taught is definitely a prerequisite, not because the student might turn onto the teacher but more so because the life of the student is in the teacher's hands. The teacher can't be panicking along when a student suddenly panics deep underwater when just at the fringe of visibility, lurks a shape resembling a shark or worst still, thoughts of a monster from the denizen of the deep, actually more the deep imagination than the ocean. So the imagination which embroils from the fluidity of the mind has to be attuned to the dependable adage of "Stop, Think and Act", rather than the age old habit of reacting.

When a student doesn't do something physical or technical as taught, the teacher must be able to identify at the onset before it escalates to something beyond repair. Nip it in the bud they say?

Having said that, it's obvious that learning how to teach can be taught rigorously under specific principles, but only to a certain extent. If you study the teacher's methods, you can see that standards and standardization can easily be maintained throughout a class.

But for a student to come out of the class totally enriched, and happy with the knowledge learned, would require a certain flair from the teacher, one that could only be obtained, not from learning, but more from consciousness, from being borned with it.

A student may dislike a teacher despite having high standards of teaching, whereas has a liking towards another because that teacher has passion and devotion towards teaching.

So, can a person learn to be a teacher or be borned a teacher? Only the student could could say so.