You Are Not Teaching What You Think You Are
As mentioned in the previous essay; there are many ways to execute the same technique — as an example, look at two world class boxers, pick whomever you would like, and study their different approaches to the same attack or defence techniques. You might realize that there are many ways to skin a cat.
In this regard, technique might internally be viewed as one’s own approach to a continuous, sometimes tedious physical practice. Externally, technique might be viewed as an expression of someone’s approach to a continuous physical practice.
I say this because the one common denominator between all professional athletes or physical performers is continuous practice, beyond any explanation or breakdown of technique is the fact that you have to train for hours, months or years in order to get better.
So while technique and technical cues might be viewed as the be-all and and-all of learning, practice is more likely the be-all and end-all of learning,
with technique being a more accessible approach to that practice.
With this in mind, I would like to bring up a fairly radical notion, at least in the eyes of some people:
All you corrections as a teacher are based on imaginary scenarios that are only slightly rooted in reality!
What do I mean by this? You ask.
Well, allow me to elaborate.
Let me answer the question by posing another question: How statistically valid is a single occurrence?
Most people who are familiar with the basics of statistics would answer; not at all.
A one time occurrence in a specific sphere is not indicative of general occurrences within that sphere. In spite of this, teachers very often tend to look at an execution of a technique, find a mistake that they are dissatisfied with (or a thing, they believe, the student could improve) and then correct it, for when the technique is carried out next time.
Just to be clear, I am not innocent of this. I have made this mistake in the past and will probably fall into the trap again from time to time. I find it important to acknowledge this, in order to develop one’s practice and move on.
Here is the problem with this approach: A single occurrence is not indicative of a general tendency. Almost everyone will agree to having experienced, that fairly complex actions vary from execution to execution; we all go from remembering A and B while forgetting C to remembering B but forgetting A and C etc. Only very rarely do we seem to include A, B and C at once, making the action seem perfectly executed. Therefore, as a teacher, it takes quite a while to get to know a student well enough to recognize their habits and yet, many teachers I have had say things like: “You tend to…” after having only had you in class once.
Some teachers might disagree with this. A lot of people might actually disagree with this.
In this case, I suggest you read Black Swan by Nicholas Nassim Taleb and Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahnemann, to get a basic understanding of concepts like ‘regression to the mean’, ‘Black Swan occurrences’, ‘’confirmation bias’ and the lack of statistical evidence to support the validity of most premonitions by most so called experts within a vast array of fields.
Now, for those of you who are onboard with the idea, that a single occurrence in the past is not indicative of what happens in the future, let us continue by asking the next question:
What then are we correcting?
Well, we are not correcting the past, because the past cannot be changed. So even though our correction is anchored in what we saw in the past, we can not make the student change that.
We are rarely correcting what happens in the present, especially with movement, since it often goes to fast. At times, most teachers have experienced shouting a correction at a student, right before the student performed whichever technique they are working on. Sometimes, this makes the student apply that correction without judgement to the joy of both student and teacher.
However, as we already discussed, this is a one time occurrence and not necessarily an indication of a general change in the student’s habits.
Furthermore, this is not correcting the present but attempting to correct the future, since there is no telling whether the student would have applied that correction themselves or not.
So we are correcting the future then?
Well, no, but this is what most teachers are trying to correct, not realising that this is what they attempt to do.
Can we predict the future? No. So what do we do? We do what all humans do, we use the past as an indication of what we think will happen in the future. In other words, we IMAGINE a future based on past occurrences. A teacher watches a student executing a certain technique, often a statistically insignificant amount of times, the teacher then imagine how that student will perform this skill in the future and gives corrections based on that.
First of all, we have no honest idea as to what the future holds. Secondly, we are teaching people who are on an ongoing learning curve and we do not know if the technical cues we throw at them, is not something they themselves would have done on their next attempt.
All this being said, I am not sure that there a lot of ways around this kind of thinking, which is why this collection of writings is about assessing one’s teaching methods and not about changing them.
By making oneself aware of the “fact” that the corrections we give are often, if not always, based on imagination and fantasy, I hope to exceed the inherent limitations of this.
In my next article I will post my current approach to evaluating what kind of imaginary scenarios I project for my students and how to deal with those scenarios.
Coming up: The tools!