more on teaching
We are three weeks into our semester and I’m very much enjoying the teaching this year. My class, Graph Theory, seems to be going well and I’ve given a talk in the undergraduate seminar which seemed to attract some interest.
And the aikido teaching is also going well. We have some new members of the club and so I’m starting the process of learning to fall. I always find this process interesting, because falling well is something that can always be improved.
I don’t think there’s a specific reason why. Perhaps it’s that we’re a few years out from the hard years of the pandemic and students (and staff) are more comfortable. Perhaps I’ve just started seeing new things in the material and am enjoying sharing them.
Interestingly, I don’t view myself as a natural teacher; my memory of my days when I started teaching are not especially happy, but I do feel that I’ve made myself into a good teacher over the years.
And this is something I believe, that anyone can make themselves into a good teacher. It takes some practice and reflection, but it is a belief I hold, in part arising from my own personal journey.
The same holds for me as a teacher of aikido. As with math, gather and develop some experience and expertise; reflect on the good lessons and the bad, and I don’t think we pay enough attention to the lessons from the bad sessions; and steal from all the good teachers and all the bad, because there is so much that can be learned from all.
And so we move forward. We learn how to be better at the things we do, whether they are the things we do for ourselves or the things we do for others, walking the halls of the house of kaizen.
multijimbo 