After thinking about it for a while, I've decided I'm not teaching hoop any more. Well, maybe not for a couple of years.
I'm just not ready for it.
I know that might sound silly, since I taught my first class when I'd been hooping for just six months. I'm happy to teach informally, as I do at the River City Hoopers, but I don't want to teach formal classes any more.
I've noticed that it is acceptable for any one who can swing a hoop to set themselves up as a teacher. That's what happened with me. That's the ad hoc way the hoop community operates; and there's nothing wrong with a hoop enthusiast teaching interested people how to hoop [especially in a place where there are no other hoop teachers].
But for me, personally, it doesn't feel right any more.
I have been hooping for just over two years - I'm hardly an expert. If I'd been learning ballet or football for two years, I'd never think of setting myself up as a teacher. I consider myself an intermediate hooper, and I probably will be for another couple of years. I am still very much finding my own flow, my own language, within the hoop. For now, I want my own learning to be my main focus.
The other issue I have with teaching hoop is that I haven't yet learned to teach authentically. Hooping is so much more to me than just physical exercise, but I find it difficult to communicate this to others. I want to learn how to do this before I teach again. May be I will take some teacher training to help me with this.
Of course, this doesn't mean I will never teach any one any thing to do with the hoop, ever again. If I meet some one who wants to learn from me, I'm not going to turn them away. The more hoop love there is in this world the better!
Happy hooping,
Anne-Marie x
I've been thinking over this post all morning, and I've decided that I'm not sure I entirely agree with you. I think, when you're teaching, everything depends on the position you teach from. As you know, I teach at the university, and feel entirely happy with doing so: I have the credentials and experience to do teach my subject with authority. But when I was asked if I would preach at the local church, I felt deeply uneasy: I'm not a theologian or a biblical scholar - nor an exemplary human being. So how did i have the authority to preach? What i decided, after long thought, was that I would preach from a non-authoritative position. So, when it comes to preaching on a particular text, I start from the position of a lay person/non-expert: how does this text make me feel, what does it make me wonder about or puzzle over? Then I take the congregation down the path I've taken in trying to understand the text.
ReplyDeleteSo, I guess what I'm saying is that I think you can teach something from a non-expert perspective, as long as you know, and communicate, that that's what you're doing.
None of this, of course, is to say you've made the wrong decision: it may be entirely right for you - you know best. But I suppose I just wanted to question the implication in your post: that you need to be an expert to teach. My experience is that teaching makes me learn - it makes me learn about my subject, but it also helps me learn how to teach.
Just food for thought, dear sister xxxx