Yoga teaching issues (2)

[Guest guest]

Long soliloquy on teaching, part

2:<br><br>"HIERARCHY MISPERCEPTION" continued<br><br>I have often

attended workshops with senior teachers at which my

current teachers were also attending as students. I see

no problem at all with this situation. At times it

has actually deepened my respect for the teachers

concerned, because I get to see the effort that goes into

their practice, and because I realised that although

they may be less experienced than the famous senior

teachers, they were just as good at teaching and just as

committed. And in my first few months I studied with two

teachers who attended each other's classes as students

without managing to confuse anybody.<br><br>I have also

been taught by people who were normally students in

the same classes as myself, who were temporarily

covering the classes while the regular teachers were away.

I didn't have a problem with this situation, nor

did anybody else in the classes as far as I could

see, and both the people concerned did a good

job.<br><br>I have never witnessed people being taught

adjustments in a normal class situation. I don't think it

would be a good idea, except in an expressed teacher

training context where the students had explicitly

consented to be adjusted by an inexperienced teacher. But

of course, any student in a class with a teacher

they don't know is implicitly taking a risk of being

adjusted by an inexperienced, clumsy or inept teacher. And

there is really nothing a new student can do about this

until they have enough experience to be able to

perceive it. Which is a different issue and a very serious

one.<br><br>Teacher in a self practice group with students. Hmm.

Another interesting one that I haven't personally

experienced. I guess it would be ok with a teacher and long

term students who know each other well, as long as the

students already have a reasonable level of independent

self practice, and as long as everybody understands

and accepts that this isn't a teaching situation.

Would be difficult for the teacher if either they or

anybody else there had any confusion about the situation.

Which, once again, comes back to all the participants

being reasonably mature in their attitude.