Modern Social Thought
Teaching Young People in Chicago
Part 2
Weeks 3, 4, and 5 of the Cascade Program: March 2011
-Sheridan Lardner
This Tuesday, I finished up my Self-Defense class that I was teaching to high school students from Chicago’s South Side. The program was offered through the University of Chicago Splash/Cascade organization, which gives interested UChicago students a chance to teach something they are passionate about. My co-instructor, Alex Brandt, drafted a proposal with me, and our program was one of a few that were accepted. Below is yet another list of observations, comments, and thoughts I had since beginning to teach the class. It is my hope that this gives ideas to other educators, martial or otherwise, about teaching young people in Chicago. I write these lessons with great certainty and directness not because I am sure that these ideas are correct, but because it is easier to convey ideas this way. Overqualification is the bane of education as it is, and I do not want to contribute to it.
(Image courtesy of UTAustin Recreational Services Website)
Let students lead the review
It is always a good idea to review previously discussed material at the beginning of a class. Review gives teachers an idea about what their students are learning, and it gives students a chance to recap important take-home points. Generally, there are two ways to go about this. The first is directed by the teacher. I lecture, write some notes down on the board, and my students nod their heads sagely. Such an approach has limited interaction and is not a proper test of what the students know (and more importantly, what you have taught them).
A much better way to do this is to let the students tell you what they have learned. Ask leading questions such as “Alright everyone, so what did we learn last week about legal self-defense?” If you did a good job teaching them the material, they should be able to answer it without too much prompting. If not, then their silence indicates a failing on your own part. From a purely self-evaluative perspective, letting the students do the review is a perfect gauge of your own ability to convey material. This is probably why some teachers, especially those with large and/or fragile egos, do not let their students do this.
It also gives the students themselves a sense of agency and accomplishment. By asking simple questions that they feel they know the answers to, you instill in them a sense of confidence and accomplishment when they answer correctly. For example, yesterday I asked “What are the dangers when doing this block” (a boxer’s shielding block on the side of your head). When one of my students correctly replied “You gotta keep your arm close to your head or you are gonna get hit,” I affirmed this by incorporating both his name and his language in my next comment: “That’s exactly right. As Anthony [pseudonym] said, if your bicep and forearm aren’t right next to your head, you are going to get hurt bad.” This made Anthony feel like he had contributed to the discussion, and encouraged other students to jump in.
Never just ask “What do you guys want to learn?”
This is a dangerous trap that otherwise good teachers can stumble into. I think that I am offering my students a chance to express their interests and make the class more tailored to them. In reality, I am giving them way too much responsibility. First, I am suggesting that the entire class will be following the desires of one lone student. That is a heavy burden on that individual. A student might be worried that they pick something that is boring or too hard, and then they will be to blame for that. Do not put them in this ugly position.
Second, in many cases, the students have no idea what they want to learn. Especially at the high school level, students are still exploring so many possible life goals and educational options. If they are in your class, they want your expertise (at least, if you are in charge of an extra-curricular or after-school program that they are voluntarily involved with. I have no experience in other settings).
Instead, give them stricter parameters around which they can customize the class. “Today we are going to work on punch defenses. Has anyone here seen any fights or attacks that involved punches? What did they look like?” In just three sentences, I have narrowed the field from effectively infinite topics to a far more manageable range that my students can choose from. This lets them customize the material, but also does not give them too much overburdening responsibility in choosing something “dumb” or “wrong”.
YOU pick the partners
I call this the Kickball Hierarchy Theory. Back in middle school, when my schoolmates and I endured gym class, there were invariably some people picked last. Even though I was about as coordinated with a ball as a bear is with a typewriter, I was at least fast and agile, so I was a solid middle 50% pick. But others dreaded being the last picked, and their whole athletic experience was sometimes ruined in the first minute of team selection.
In my martial art classes, most people are either friends or at least can get along as civil adults. But friends tend to gravitate towards friends, which invariably leaves, in a class of ten, about 6 people who just do not know where to go. They amble about awkwardly for a few seconds before mortifyingly asking someone to be their partner. Then it might take another 5 minutes for them to get comfortable recovering from that experience. This is especially pronounced in larger classrooms.
You, as the teacher, can easily avoid this pitfall. Because you know everyone’s name and their strengths/weaknesses (right?) you can make the pairings on your own. This avoids the initial awkwardness that happens at the beginning of every class, especially in the martial arts. After all, it is sometimes hard to transition to the hands-free, peaceful outside world to the combative gym, even for veteran fighters. After they have drilled for a few minutes, you can then rotate partners around randomly, so people get to work with new opponents.
Mixing up partners
Only later in the class, after everyone has fallen into their training mentality, can you tell students to find their own partner.
But even then, do not say “Find a partner who you haven’t been with.” That’s like telling students “Find someone who you don’t know well and awkwardly try and be friendly.” Instead, give specific parameters for them to follow. In martial arts, “Find a partner who is bigger than you. Bigger guys just stay put and wait for someone to find you,” or “Find someone who is about the same size as you.” This keeps things objective and not personal, and it lowers the overall tension of the partner-picking process.
If students sit/stand, you sit/stand
This is a matter of respect and equality. To an extent, you are the teacher, and that means the students look up to you as an authority. But this relationship is more nuanced than that. You also must not look down on your students, and that means both in the figurative and the literal sense. You want students to feel like you are talking with them as valued peers who can benefit from your knowledge, not as if they are just pupils in a classroom.
This is particularly true in martial arts. There is already an overwhelming amount of hierarchy in martial practice, much of which is either arbitrary, absurd, or both. In my self-defense classes, we have no belt or ranking system, and the only clear division is between me as the teacher, standing facing my students, and my students, lined up standing in front of me. If you sit while they stand, you appear bored and disinterested in being involved in their training. If you stand while they sit, you appear pedantic and lecturing. The same is true in a more conventional classroom setting. In a philosophy seminar, if the professor sits at the table with students, the conversation is one of peers (albeit some with more knowledge). Obviously, this is impractical in some settings (the mega-lectures of freshman science classes), but in many after-school programs, it is ideal.
Don’t embarrass latecomers
Everyone is late sometimes. Unless you have a student with chronic lateness problems, then you do not want that student feeling embarrassed for his tardiness. He is embarrassed enough as it is just by walking in after the class has already begun and shamefully shuffling to the back of the row. Welcome him to the class, but do so with a low-key and respectful tone. “Hey Brandon,” with a small nod, is all it takes to make that student feel welcome. Do not loudly announce his arrival like an English court herald (“WELCOME BRANDON. THANKS FOR JOINING US!!”) This only causes resentment and teaches students that if they are late, they should not show up at all, for fear of further embarrassment.
Once my student comes in late, I, as a teacher, have a mind to help him out and get him up to speed. I want to recap what I just talked about and make him feel included. The way to do this is NOT to shout it out in front of everyone. This is deeply embarrassing, and makes the student feel like he is a nursery scholar being reprimanded for taking someone’s toy truck. Instead, let the student just stand there unobtrusively for a few minutes until you finish your talk, and then walk over to him individually. Greet him by his or her name and ask if everything was ok. If Brandon says “Yeah sorry I was late, my bus was delayed” then leave it at that. Immediately launch into a quick recap of what you talked about, engaging him individually while everyone else works. This makes him feel like he was special enough to warrant personal attention.
Thanks to Alex Brandt for teaching the class with me. I am honored to have him as a friend and comrade-in-arms. Thanks to Prentiss Rhodes for teaching me how to be a warrior.
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Teaching Young People in Chicago
Part 1
Weeks 1 and 2 of the Cascade Program: February 2011
-Sheridan Lardner
In recent weeks, I have been teaching a class on Self-Defense to high school students from Chicago’s South Side. This program is offered through the University of Chicago Splash/Cascade organization, which gives interested UChicago students a chance to teach something they are passionate about. My co-instructor, Alex Brandt, drafted a proposal with me, and our program was one of a few that were accepted. Below is a list of observations, comments, and thoughts I have had since beginning to teach the class. It is my hope that this gives ideas to other educators, martial or otherwise, about teaching young people in Chicago. I write these lessons with great certainty and directness not because I am sure that these ideas are correct, but because it is easier to convey ideas this way. Overqualification is the bane of education as it is, and I do not want to contribute to it.
(Image from the UChicago Taekwondo Club. Ratner Dance Room pictured)
Learn names
A more abstract piece of advice might be “respect your students”, but learning names is a concrete way of getting at the heart of the respect issue. Learning someone’s name shows that you took the care, time, and mental effort to remember them. It gives you a personal connection to them and sets you apart from those who do not know them. Strangers do not know your name, and by learning those of your students, you show that you are not a stranger. Similarly, do not say that you are “bad with names”. Set aside the time to learn and remember their names, and do not make excuses for yourself. It is better to say a name incorrectly once and get it right a second time than it is to use ambiguous terms when referring to students. At least when you tried to remember their name, you showed that you cared enough to try. When you get it, that makes it all the more meaningful to the students.
Constant eye contact with everyone
As you talk to a class, make sure your eyes move around from person to person and briefly meet each of them. Even though you might be lecturing, this is only by necessity of large class sizes. If you had it your way, you would probably want to talk to each student individually. Logistically, that is not possible. Making eye contact with all of them lets them, and you, feel like you are in a personal conversation with them. It also gets back to the idea of respect. Looking in someone’s eyes indicates that you are paying attention to them. If you pay attention to your students and talk to them, then they are more likely to feel welcome in a class and learning setting.
Never describe anything as “easy”
It is easy to fall into this trap, and I have done it myself. When describing a technique I might say, “Alright guys, really easy part of the move…” and then go on to explain the specific part of the defense. I fail to realize that it is NEVER as easy as I think it is. As a fairly experienced practitioner of my subject, martial arts, I can forget that something easy for me might be far harder to someone with not even a day of in-gym experience. More importantly, when you call something easy and then the student cannot do it, they feel incompetent or even stupid. This is especially true if other students are capable of figuring it out, leaving those that did not to feel even more inept by comparison. Such a situation is one of the worst possible teaching environments, and you can go a long way to preventing it by avoiding use of the phrase “it’s easy”.
Work directly with students
As the teacher, you are the resident authority in the classroom. Students look up to you as a source of information and expertise. If they did not trust your authority, they would almost certainly not be in your class in the first place (NOTE: this is not necessarily true of students in a school, where class attendance is mandatory. While this observation might still apply in a school setting, it would have to be limited by other factors. In martial arts, or any after school programming, this is definitely not the case). When you directly work with the students, you show them that an authority figure respects their abilities. Given that they have probably spent the whole class, and maybe even extra-class time, strengthening their abilities, this is a deep compliment.
For example, this past Tuesday I taught a defense against a pushing, two-handed choke. After my students learned the technique with a peer partner, I went around the room and took the role of attacker. This let my students use their technique against an opponent with more force and resistance behind the attack, but also enough control so they would not get hurt. When every single one of them successfully defended against the move, they knew that they had really done it. They knew this because their teacher, the presumed authority source in the room, had been both the attacker and their training partner. As anyone who does a partnered activity can attest to, partners only go with those of relatively equal skill. The students know this, and are thus honored when you train with them.
Specific compliments
Most people in a teaching capacity probably understand the value of complimenting students. When a pupil does something correctly, you should definitely praise them for it. This shows them that you are monitoring their progress, and affirms their growth in the lesson. That said, you should not use generic compliments. These include “nice job” or “good work” or “very well done.” Generic compliments apply to one student no more or less than they apply to any other student. If you compliment them this way, your students might think that you consider them this way: as all the same people.
Instead, be specific in what you compliment. Every student is different, so if you compliment them on personal specific (positive ones, of course), then you will naturally generate diverse compliments. For example, when I went around the room to check out student punch technique, I made sure to tell them each what they personally were doing correctly. I praised one student’s rear foot rotation and another student’s ability to keep his opposite hand guarding his face. I encouraged one student’s quick speed and accuracy, and another student’s strong eye contact on the target. This shows that I pay attention to each student as an individual, not just as a single piece in my puzzle of a class.
Criticize everyone equally
You are the teacher, and you yourself probably cannot execute the technique flawlessly in 100% of all situations. If you can take criticism for your experienced and trained techniques, then you can definitely give students criticism for their freshly developing ones. Point out specific things that they are doing wrong, and suggest ways that they can improve.
This is basic teaching advice, but many teachers I have seen (not my own thankfully) do it unevenly. They focus on the students who are doing the worst and those who are doing a middle-ground job. They only offer praise to students who are doing above average. Even above average students are probably doing lots of things incorrectly, or at least have plenty of room for improvement. Remind them of this, and you help your class in two ways. First, you show that everyone, even the “good students”, has something to work on. This encourages constant improvement. Second, you demonstrate that all students are in it together, and no student is just “better”. This keeps people training as equals, not as superiors and inferiors.
In the weeks to come, I will hopefully get some more observations about teaching, students, and the martial dynamic in classrooms.