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| I am not sure if i am venting...or asking for advice...or both. I am a young teacher (23 years old) and I have been teaching full time (10-15 classes per week) for almost 2 years now. I have worked long and hard on (detatchment) giving what I am capable of...being the best teacher that I can and letting go of the outcome. This was really really diffucult for me at first. I would become really emotionally attatched to the response of my students and the progress of my students. I guess I still am otherwise I would not be writing this entry. I think that in part this has helped me to grow as a teacher but it also fills me with a lot of negative energy. I guess I just want advice on how to detach from these feelings (or if i even should) and I want to know if other teachers ever feel this way...Examples are things like people trying class once and never coming back...people talking during my classes...and other things of that nature.
So I teach at a university, half the classes I teach are for a rec department (these are just classes students take for fun), half of the classes I teach, I teach for another department where the students receive college credit for taking the yoga class (1 Credit).
I absolutely love teaching for the department where students choose to come to class because they want to! It is the most rewarding amazing experience; I have the chance to share my knowledge and love of yoga with young people at a really affordable price. In the two years there I have built a large following of students who have been with me for a long time period. I know them on a personal level; I have watched them grow as students. I have been able to see yoga transform their lives…and I have been a part of it. These students always walk in the door and tell me how happy they are to be there. It makes me feel great, this is why I chose to teach yoga, because I found it to be powerful and wanted to share it with other people. It is rewarding to me, and I get the reassurance that I am a good teacher.
The other department I teach for, I take a lot of negative energy home from. This department offers 1 credit classes (yoga, sewing, cooking etc.) ...which are often used in the following ways, to boost GPA with easy course....to add one credit to stay a full time student and keep health insurance...or to replace a class that they are failing. (Some of the courses start in the middle of the semester). In general there are a lot of students who are not there for the reason of wanting to learn yoga at all. I feel like the attitudes of the students are very unenthusiastic. They are often rude and talk or giggle during class, or come late or miss many classes (which makes it really hard to progress). It always leaves me feeling badly, but I don’t feel as if it is in my control. The teaching style and methods that I use for the other classes really doesn’t seem to work well for these classes, but I don’t know what will work well. Getting tough with the class is really hard for me for a few reasons; I am in the same age group as these students, even younger than some of them. Also, I was just completely unprepared for dealing with this kind of a situation; considering the students in the class are adults, I never imagined that I would encounter the behavior that I often do. I chose to teach yoga to share with students something that I love, not to force people to do it and threaten them with a failing grade. And I get paid significantly more in this department, so leaving isn’t necessarily a great option.
Please tell me if you can relate in any way…or if you have suggestions for dealing with these feelings.
Edited by rara134 2008-10-29 7:54 PM
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| Hello Laura.
I'll try to respond to each of the things that you raise in a succinct way.
You would not be a conscientious teacher of yoga if you did not have regard for the growth or progress of the students you are charged with.
As you know from your studies, the Kleshas outline five obstacles to our evolution as yogis. Two of those are Raga (attachment) and Dvesha (aversion). There is no yogic concept of detachment for detachment IS aversion in disguise. So consider this: confront your attachments so they are released BUT do not shove anything away in the process. Be concerned for the growth of your students such that it enables you to empower them. When that concern creates suffering it is likely attachment or aversion.
The second element I'd like to touch on is personal responsibility. Why? Two reasons. One, we as yogis have a raised bar to live up to and two because the laws of karma, mindful choice, and the acceptance of outcomes (from our choices) is so deeply rooted in the yogic path. Having said this, the teacher who picks a noisy classroom, an energetically unclean studio, a safe/unsafe style of teaching, inappropriate language, or a class where students do not really want to be there has a yogic "obligation" to live in a responsible way with the outcome(s).
If you are sensing that negative energy is being absorbed into your body in either class, use those methods given in your teacher training for keeping your energy field clean. this should be done before and after teaching - no matter what class or what attendees you are working with.
When teaching, carefully watch the sense of "it makes me feel good". Remind yourself that it is about the yoga and the student. And while we as teachers are necessary, we are not very important. We are, in fact, merely the conduit. Your reassurance that you are teaching appropriately radiates from your bone marrow. We cannot rely on external sources to validate who we are just as we cannot rely on external sources to validate our teaching. We must do that through introspection and self-evaluation, in conjunction with a skilled senior teacher who can provide us with a clean view of ourselves. This is incredibly important and at the same time incredibly overlooked.
Pragmatically speaking there are some ways to deal with classroom issues like disrespect and talking. Be incredibly thoughtful and crafty in your first class of the session and in so doing, convey the powerful force that is yoga and the tools/harvest available to those who are committed, present and incredibly focused. Please also outline that just as students pick their teachers so to do teachers pick their students and disrespect, chatter, et al will be met with a request to leave. You can do this in a direct way without being "hard".
Let me close by telling you that all teachers have felt the way you do right now. Each of us as had a number of stories just like the ones you are sharing. They are part of our work, part of our personal refinement as human beings, part of our tests to encourage our growth in yoga, and part of the process of cultivating teaching skills over time. Perhaps there is a senior teacher in your area that you might apprentice with so that you will have a mentor for just these occasions.
I'm certain I can speak for my brethren here and say we are here to support you.
Edited by purnayoga 2008-10-29 11:56 PM
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| Hi Laura,
When people talk in my classes, I often ask them to hold the tip of their tongue to the roof of their mouth. This is usually taken with an element of fun and is also very effective.
It sounds to me that you like the one class because they act like you think that they should and that gives you the feelings that you want. It also sounds like you don't like the other class because they act differently than you think that they should and their actions result in your feeling bad about yourself. They probably pay you to teach yoga, not to feel good.
As a teacher, you need to totally accept each and every student exactly the way they are right now. Once you are with them, you can slowly lead them to somewhere else. This is easy with the "good" class but difficult with the "bad" class. Think of your "bad" class as an opportunity to grow as a teacher, NOT as a pain in the ass. If your students are not engaged, you have not engaged them. It is time for you to get creative and let go of everything that you "know" so that you can find a new answer that will work for the "bad" class. Your current class is obviously not working for them. I think that a lot more humor and fun and a lot less judging your "bad" class by some arbitrary standard might help. Your "bad" class is a challange. Don't beat yourself up about it, do something about it. Try new things. See what works. Do new poses. If you do flow, speed it up or slow it down. If you don't do flow, try it; get more movement. If you play music, try some totally different music. Get creative!
I do not think that detatchment is good during a class. You need to be totally involved so that the students follow your example. Once the class is over, you need to let it go.
I don't worry about it when people don't come back. I do my best and if my class works for someone, great. If it doesn't work for someone else, also great since my class cannot be the right thing for everyone all the time. I try to focus on what I do, not on the results. Just teach the class; don't judge yourself or your students. Both negative and positive feedback are useful. Use them to modify your class so that it works for the people in that class without changing the basic thing that you are trying to teach. Keep the message, but change the words so that your class understands.
I hope that this helps in some small way.
Namaste,
Jim |
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Expert Yogi
Posts: 8442
    
| Oh - you have been gifted by the Universe with a HUGE learning opportunity, haven't you? I had to smile when I read that you get paid more for the class that doesn't behave the way you like. It seems that we often get thrown those double whammy situations, doesn't it?
I have often marveled that my worst behaved students are most often teachers themselves. A wonderful irony... You have been given some great advice. There are as many ways to handle this as there are yoga classes, I think. With my silly classes, I sometimes just go with the flow and get silly myself and that sometimes actually smartens them up a bit. Sometimes, I just make the class so challenging they don't have energy or time to do anything else. I teach Iyengar yoga so there is a lot of detail and students really do have to listen. I spent a good two or three minutes last night taking one of my chattier classes into each simple standing pose. The room became (now that I think of it) dynamically still. It felt like my instructions were going straight to the body part I was addressing at the time. And I had gone into the class with dubious energy levels myself, after a challenging day at work, over an hour of driving back and forth to a funeral between work and teaching and it was my second 90 minute class in a row. It turned out to be a really good class and I went home with a feeling of real satisfaction.
Random thoughts: BKS Iyengar says you should not be too hard on your students but be ruthlessly hard on yourself as a teacher. Try to reproduce the "error" (he means in a pose, but you can work on the attitude) in your own body/mind and see what you need to do to fix it.
We all teach people of our own age and we also teach people older and younger than we are. So what? If one of my own teachers was in my class she would expect to be taught the same as anyone else. Uhh...if you think I wouldn't be a little nervous about that, think again!  But I would seriously tell myself to get over myself and do the job I am there to do.
Detachment is not the same as disinterest. It is also a practice, not a permanent state of mind. If you didn't have emotions about these things, you would make a lousy teacher and probably a lousy individual. Or, for those who watch "House" you would have whatever that weird father and daughter had on this week's episode. They were so creepy!
Having a sounding board is good. If you don't have peers in yoga to discuss these things with, feel free to come here and discuss.  |
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Expert Yogi
Posts: 1738
Location: right where I'm supposed to be | This is a great thread and the teachers that have replied here gave some great contemplative advice. I know I certainly can benefit from listening to experienced teachers.
Teaching yoga is awesome, especially if you truly love it from within.
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negative energy/detatchment/
