Lately I have been seriously thinking about the instructor’s burden: the duty an instructor of life-and-death topics has to his or her students.
How to Be a Good Student
Today I’m going to turn the instructorship articles around and talk a bit about the other half of the student/instructor equation: the student. I honestly don’t know what I’ve done more of in my adult life: teaching or being a student. As an adult I have spent thousands of hours in the student seat, and my learning has never stopped. It has slowed down significantly, and the chances I get to be a student these days are precious. Below are some tips on how to be a good student. This might be a standalone, or it might be a Part I….we’ll see.
The Myth of “Go As Fast as the Slowest Student”
My recent article, “Lessons Learned as Professional Instructor” was a reasonably popular article However, it also drew some pretty vitriolic criticism. Today I’m going to respond to one particular criticism that popped up several times.
Lessons Learned As A Professional Instructor
I have spent the better part of the last ten years as a professional, full-time instructor. I’m not a “presenter,” “speaker,” or “lecturer” – I am a (capital “I”) Instructor and I take great pride in my craft. People walk away from my classes with quantifiable skills. I’m not an expert on many of my interest areas, but professional instruction is a topic on which I consider myself extremely well versed. Today I’m going to share some generalities and observations I’ve picked up over the years. Before I do that, I’m going to talk about my experience. I don’t want to belabor the point, but I do feel it is relevant to the topic at hand.