Teaching Kids

[Jeffrey]

After reading Sensei8's post about teaching I thought I throw together a few thoughts of my own not wanting to hijack his thread.

Teaching is an art. Teaching Adults vs Children is also an art. I really liked PS1’s idea about sending or providing scholarships in education but for some this will not work. Our clubs are run by volunteers who come to class every night and teach. Most sports have this in place weather it be Karate, hockey, soccer or any other sport. Only a select few offer any sort of training to teach/coach. Most of this is left to us to find courses that will help us grow as an instructor. There a different methodology to teaching separated by age groups. You can be good at teaching kids and horrible at teaching Adults depending on your mind set and what you have been taught over the years. I believe some sort of leadership course should be taken or provided by the organization to help its instructors learn how to teach. And that being said not everyone can teach. It’s an art and not everyone can do it. For myself I teach the younger kids because that’s were I have had the most training. I enjoy teaching the younger students and it has taken a long while to be effective in doing so. I can provide a little insight into teaching children. It is my hope this small piece of writing will generate some discussion of ideas as well. There is a lot of experience out there to draw on.

Most of us have had some experience either as an instructor, assistant instructor or a young student; and at some point in time in our Martial Arts journey we will be called upon to teach children, as most Schools have some sort of kids programs. Little Ninjas/Dragons being the most common. Teaching a young age group can be the most challenging tasks you have ever done; forget about how hard it was to get that new belt or compete in the last tournament. Now you must teach a 6 year old how to perform a proper turn followed by a low block/punch. I don’t want to focus on gross and fine motor skills as you could write pages on this subject and children, but more on teaching and class structure needed to fill your students with enthusiasm for the Martial Arts. Teaching children, more specifically the 6-8 year groups the structure of Martial Arts is not only challenging as an instructor, but rewarding in its constant changing atmosphere to each individual taught.

First, I’ll give you a little background on myself and the experiences I draw on that helped me become a more effective instructor. I first started teaching children swimming at the YMCA. My age group was the 4-8 year olds; I was a horrible teacher. No matter how well conceived my lesson plan was it never turned out the way I wanted it to. Was I knowledgeable about the subject? Yes. Did I understand kids? No. Somewhere along the line I forgot what it was like to be a child, to be able to laugh at silly things most of us adults don’t understand anymore without getting labeled with A.D.D. Now I have over 20 years of coaching/instructor experience and I still think I have another 20 years to go before I’m any good. Over the years I discovered that too many places offer skills in a variety of sports but never do they offer skills to pass this knowledge on. It took a few leadership courses on teaching/coaching children and opportunity to learn by teaching for many years. My greatest teacher was the kids themselves. I could ask a thousand questions of other instructors but the kids are what motivate me to learn and grow. Ask the kids what they like and what works and they will tell you. Surprising it was those answers that helped the most. To this day I learn something new every time I get in front of the class.

We can all learn to become skilled practitioners in what ever art we choose; but how do we pass this on? Martial Arts have a ridged structure based on tradition filled with complex techniques that require both strength and agility. When teaching children in this modern age I found that breaking from traditional class structure helps. I’m not saying that we forget our lineage and traditions but to create an environment that makes learning enjoyable so the kids will not be dreading the next class. What you don’t want is for your new student to go home fearful of attending the next class; kids need constant stimulation so throwing punches for 10 minutes you’ll lose your audience. Standing there explaining the traditions of the art for any length of time and you will start to see the yawning of young faces. Many instructors are constantly telling their students to focus, but we must bare in mind child psychology tells us that the average 6 year old has the attention span of about 2-5 minutes. Doing the same old drills week after week will do little to motivate those growing minds.

Now how do we accomplish this task?

Stop teaching children like we would teens or adults should be on the top of your list. Consider your energy level; every Student will feed off of what you bring. If you come to class with low energy your students will also have low energy. Focus on the basic fundamentals of learning to pay attention, courtesy and respect for each other and the Instructors. Lastly limit the amount of time you spend on task. Switch it up.

Little tasks like a bowing before you enter/exit the Dojo can be hard to enforce to this age group. I start with walking the class to the door and having them all line up and bow and exit. Once out we all line up and bow again and enter. I like to repeat this for the first few classes. It's does not matter what rank they are. This needs to become a habit.

Teaching Techniques can be the worse tasks because most students despise the repetitiveness of performing the same task over and over. What I came up with is having a student in the group come up and help teach the technique with me for a couple of minutes. I noticed that children like the idea of being a helper and also the other students tend to listen when one of their peers are helping. I rotate the helper about every 2 minutes till everyone has had a chance. This can allow you to spend more time on certain techniques. It also lets the students take on a larger role and build a little self confidence being at the head of the class. A suggestion when doing techniques is to mix them up a bit with other skill sets. For example, take a stance and add a punch then do a block change the stance and repeat. Mixes thing up a bit and lacks the repetitive nature of the drill.

Another challenges I had to face like so many others before was Kata. I can still remember getting ready to go teach the Tuesday Kids class knowing it was Kata night and getting this feeling of dread; “Ok from the beginning count by count” I would say only to see a yawn on one of the faces before we had even started! You can’t get upset over a young student for this knowing what was to come, so I put on my “outside of the box” hat one night and broke it down into a game. Stances was the focus of the night; I would count out the Kata and stop and check stances, anyone caught not in a proper stance had to do a pushup, simple and effective. Now Kata was a game. Next I asked everyone to put their hands in the back of their belts, do the Kata with just legs only, then just hands, and added the pushup game into it as well. After a week they were asking me to play the Kata Pushup game! No tight fist, do a push up; No one wanted to be caught so they all excelled at an otherwise boring (to them anyway) teaching and I had the best Kata group ever!

Sorry for the length but once I got going it was hard to stop. Please feel free to share any ideas or drills that have worked for you as I am always on the look out for fresh thoughts on teaching.

[Zen Kamikaze]

Excercices with swimming noodles can help in teaching little fellows some basic stuff with fun and without the danger of getting hurt. It's a great way to make training a game and it will catch kid's attention without losing his interest after a few minutes of boring repetitive drills in the air.

Here are a couple of videos with that kind of exercices.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f4eV5gAVFWU

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pjLNmmslsH0

[Kevin Wilson]

I have been hunting the web for more kids idea. So far Jeffrey you have by far been the most helpfull.

I knew I had to break it down and keep it short to stop attention straying. Now I know ten mins might even be too long.

I also agree with the break a little from tradition, trying to explain this to my sensei is a little touchy though...

[sensei8]

After reading Sensei8's post about teaching I thought I throw together a few thoughts of my own not wanting to hijack his thread.

Teaching is an art. Teaching Adults vs Children is also an art. I really liked PS1’s idea about sending or providing scholarships in education but for some this will not work. Our clubs are run by volunteers who come to class every night and teach. Most sports have this in place weather it be Karate, hockey, soccer or any other sport. Only a select few offer any sort of training to teach/coach. Most of this is left to us to find courses that will help us grow as an instructor. There a different methodology to teaching separated by age groups. You can be good at teaching kids and horrible at teaching Adults depending on your mind set and what you have been taught over the years. I believe some sort of leadership course should be taken or provided by the organization to help its instructors learn how to teach. And that being said not everyone can teach. It’s an art and not everyone can do it. For myself I teach the younger kids because that’s were I have had the most training. I enjoy teaching the younger students and it has taken a long while to be effective in doing so. I can provide a little insight into teaching children. It is my hope this small piece of writing will generate some discussion of ideas as well. There is a lot of experience out there to draw on.

Most of us have had some experience either as an instructor, assistant instructor or a young student; and at some point in time in our Martial Arts journey we will be called upon to teach children, as most Schools have some sort of kids programs. Little Ninjas/Dragons being the most common. Teaching a young age group can be the most challenging tasks you have ever done; forget about how hard it was to get that new belt or compete in the last tournament. Now you must teach a 6 year old how to perform a proper turn followed by a low block/punch. I don’t want to focus on gross and fine motor skills as you could write pages on this subject and children, but more on teaching and class structure needed to fill your students with enthusiasm for the Martial Arts. Teaching children, more specifically the 6-8 year groups the structure of Martial Arts is not only challenging as an instructor, but rewarding in its constant changing atmosphere to each individual taught.

First, I’ll give you a little background on myself and the experiences I draw on that helped me become a more effective instructor. I first started teaching children swimming at the YMCA. My age group was the 4-8 year olds; I was a horrible teacher. No matter how well conceived my lesson plan was it never turned out the way I wanted it to. Was I knowledgeable about the subject? Yes. Did I understand kids? No. Somewhere along the line I forgot what it was like to be a child, to be able to laugh at silly things most of us adults don’t understand anymore without getting labeled with A.D.D. Now I have over 20 years of coaching/instructor experience and I still think I have another 20 years to go before I’m any good. Over the years I discovered that too many places offer skills in a variety of sports but never do they offer skills to pass this knowledge on. It took a few leadership courses on teaching/coaching children and opportunity to learn by teaching for many years. My greatest teacher was the kids themselves. I could ask a thousand questions of other instructors but the kids are what motivate me to learn and grow. Ask the kids what they like and what works and they will tell you. Surprising it was those answers that helped the most. To this day I learn something new every time I get in front of the class.

We can all learn to become skilled practitioners in what ever art we choose; but how do we pass this on? Martial Arts have a ridged structure based on tradition filled with complex techniques that require both strength and agility. When teaching children in this modern age I found that breaking from traditional class structure helps. I’m not saying that we forget our lineage and traditions but to create an environment that makes learning enjoyable so the kids will not be dreading the next class. What you don’t want is for your new student to go home fearful of attending the next class; kids need constant stimulation so throwing punches for 10 minutes you’ll lose your audience. Standing there explaining the traditions of the art for any length of time and you will start to see the yawning of young faces. Many instructors are constantly telling their students to focus, but we must bare in mind child psychology tells us that the average 6 year old has the attention span of about 2-5 minutes. Doing the same old drills week after week will do little to motivate those growing minds.

Now how do we accomplish this task?

Stop teaching children like we would teens or adults should be on the top of your list. Consider your energy level; every Student will feed off of what you bring. If you come to class with low energy your students will also have low energy. Focus on the basic fundamentals of learning to pay attention, courtesy and respect for each other and the Instructors. Lastly limit the amount of time you spend on task. Switch it up.

Little tasks like a bowing before you enter/exit the Dojo can be hard to enforce to this age group. I start with walking the class to the door and having them all line up and bow and exit. Once out we all line up and bow again and enter. I like to repeat this for the first few classes. It's does not matter what rank they are. This needs to become a habit.

Teaching Techniques can be the worse tasks because most students despise the repetitiveness of performing the same task over and over. What I came up with is having a student in the group come up and help teach the technique with me for a couple of minutes. I noticed that children like the idea of being a helper and also the other students tend to listen when one of their peers are helping. I rotate the helper about every 2 minutes till everyone has had a chance. This can allow you to spend more time on certain techniques. It also lets the students take on a larger role and build a little self confidence being at the head of the class. A suggestion when doing techniques is to mix them up a bit with other skill sets. For example, take a stance and add a punch then do a block change the stance and repeat. Mixes thing up a bit and lacks the repetitive nature of the drill.

Another challenges I had to face like so many others before was Kata. I can still remember getting ready to go teach the Tuesday Kids class knowing it was Kata night and getting this feeling of dread; “Ok from the beginning count by count” I would say only to see a yawn on one of the faces before we had even started! You can’t get upset over a young student for this knowing what was to come, so I put on my “outside of the box” hat one night and broke it down into a game. Stances was the focus of the night; I would count out the Kata and stop and check stances, anyone caught not in a proper stance had to do a pushup, simple and effective. Now Kata was a game. Next I asked everyone to put their hands in the back of their belts, do the Kata with just legs only, then just hands, and added the pushup game into it as well. After a week they were asking me to play the Kata Pushup game! No tight fist, do a push up; No one wanted to be caught so they all excelled at an otherwise boring (to them anyway) teaching and I had the best Kata group ever!

Sorry for the length but once I got going it was hard to stop. Please feel free to share any ideas or drills that have worked for you as I am always on the look out for fresh thoughts on teaching.

Very solid post Jeffery!!