The Business Center: Teaching

 
 Eliminating Teacher Bias
The idea of eliminating teacher bias does not concern prejudice as far as racial or gender or age discrimination is concerned despite the necessity for that kind of education. A good martial arts instructor would not allow himself to bias against students because of their race, religion, gender, or age. If they are biased in such a fashion they should stop teaching. The teacher bias I am talking about is concerned with how instructors teach their students.

To start, I will simply say students mimic their instructors. 

For an example of bias, let's take a knife technique like Glancing Lance. The initial moves of the technique regard you parrying away the knife and then controlling it and checking it as you execute a right kick followed by a right eye hook. When you learned the technique, you learned it well and liked the parry and the grab but felt uncomfortable with the kick and eye hook. The end result of this usually revolves around you liking the initial move of the technique but not the follow-up move for a few reasons.

  • What if the attacker pulls their knife back, your hand and arm may be cut.
  • If you miss with the kick, they fall away instead of falling in and you may again be cut.
  • The eye hook seems a bit ridiculous as it your response to their knife thrust. You'd rather back knuckle their head off.
Therefore, when you teach this technique, you will teach the parry and grab options and stress those as the viable factors of the technique. Sure, you may teach the other parts of the technique so students will have the technique, but the importance will be placed on the initial parry and grab.

That is teacher bias. You don't like a part of a technique so you don't teach it as a useful tool. You teach it as a part of a technique and leave it at that. The end result is that students have learned a technique they don't believe will work. This does not look good on you and does not make your art look good either.

Recognizing bias is the first step in fixing the problem, but it is difficult to do. Watch how you explain things to your students; if you find yourself dismissing portions of techniques and forms as "that's the way it's done" instead of having viable useful reasons, explore those gaps of knowledge. That is what learning is all about.

In order to resolve this problem, you, as the teacher need to look into every aspect of the technique or form. Don't dismiss a part of it because it doesn't work for you. Look into it so you can understand the movement better. We in Kenpo have the benefit of an art that was created around scientific principles. If you can't get a technique to work, you are often doing something wrong. Maybe it isn't your first choice as a response, but it can work. In order to fix this, work with other people. When you go to a seminar or camp, participate or at least ask an instructor about the technique. Maybe they can help you or maybe they don't like the parry but like the follow-up, just the opposite of you. Compare notes there. 

If you can work out the problems you have been having with a technique, then you can explain it to your students. And everyone can learn and teach the complete benefits of the technique.

The Internet is also a great tool despite its limitations. You can go to web forum much like the KenpoNet Forum and ask a large diverse group of people for help.

Works Consulted

  • Martial Arts Professional. National Association of Professional Martial Artists- NAPMA