How many times have you decided to learn something, found a class, paid your tuition and books and equipment, and attended only to find that the first two or three classes were ineffective?
What do I mean by ineffective? I started a class and the first session, the instructor used so many acronyms and so much jargon that all the material went right over my head. I was mad and frustrated and not sure I could get up to speed before the next class. I took another class where the first fifteen minutes had me snoring because he assumed that nobody in the class knew anything about his subject.
How does the teacher assess the starting point of a class? Most times, they simply make an assumption.
A. Entrance into the class is by the mirror method…you know. “Here breathe on this and then sit over there.”
B. You sometimes have to have a prerequisite class to qualify you for the material. These classes are not uniform across the country, so you may have studied the material on a much higher level than the class you’re planning to take. You also might have studied the bare basics and will have to run to catch up.
My husband had to coach a golf team at one of the schools where we taught. I taught him how to hold the club by using a mop as a substitute. He was woefully unprepared to teach them, but as a brilliant educator, he was just right for coaching them. He had the team members work with each other to teach new material, but to improve, he asked them for self-assessment.
- “How does it feel?”
- “What did you do differently?”
- “What would make this more efficient?”
- “Which change did you make that resulted in better performance?”
My basic assumption is that Nobody starts from zero. Only You can determine your entry point. I will show you how to identify this, and how to use it to your advantage.