Rising to Expectations
Many many years ago, I attended a class about student retention. As I listened to this “expert,” my skin crawled. His recommendations? Remove board breaking from the testing requirements because they might not break it. Do not critique forms or technique too closely because the constant correction will make students doubt their ability. When it comes to sparring, make sure you pad them up completely, including chest protectors, and do not let them make any contact to the head at all. Sparring, after all, should be just a fun game of tag and not used to learn self defense principals. Lastly, everyone should always pass testing no matter how they did that day. While he was giving us these little “pellets” of wisdom, he kept telling everyone how this change increased his retention in “this” area and made him “this” much money and how “that” change allowed him to do private lessons and make “that” much money. In other words, his plan was to dumb down the program as a whole and then charge for private lessons and special classes to make more money.
As I left the seminar completely dejected, I walked over to as ask my instructor to ask him what he thought of the seminar. Before I could ask him myself, someone else asked him the very question. His response? “Students rise to the expectations gently placed upon them. A student with no expectations will achieve little.” (Yes, I think this a paraphrase of two different Confucius quotes.) His distaste for what he had heard was palpable. That one sentence saved the entire seminar for me and put into sharp clarity what makes our program different. My own philosophy as an instructor has been challenged by my feelings for my student’s. I once had a student who didn’t break his boards at testing 7 times in a row and he had to come 8 times! Of course I felt just as bad for him as any other person. While that many no changes in a row are rare, after each testing I could have taken one of three courses of action.
The first, of course is to avoid or reduce the obstacle. This is the one chosen by most people. Why? Because it is the easiest. Just stop trying. Or better yet, reduce the challenge so there is no difficulty at all and thus ensuring success. This one is used far too often. It is the reason we have a generation of entitlement caused by accolades that were not justifiably earned. Yes, in the short term, the child doesn’t have the pain of disappointment. But in the long run, they fail to learn just how much they are truly able to accomplish and thus sell themselves short when they encounter difficulties later in life. Needless to say, I didn’t pick this path.
The second, and one I am now seeing far more often, is placing additional pressure on the student to succeed. I could have forced him to come to class even MORE and have him break nearly every day. But in doing so whatever physical gains that could be made would be negated by the increased stress. The pressure he felt would eventually inhibit his performance and lead to resentment of the very thing he once loved. This is not “gently” placing expectations on the student. When this happens, accomplishments are no longer greeted with pride but with relief. Again, nothing is learned because the student doesn’t see the accomplishment as their own because they were “made” to do it by their parents. No, I didn’t pick that path either.
The third is to maintain the standard, be supportive of their efforts and let them do it for themselves. Achieving goals and overcoming obstacles should be about learning the process of success not just the results. With that sort of positive support, you can take away the worry when the success will occur. You reassure them that success will happen and this frees the mind of a lot of the mental clutter and stress that get in the way of peak performance. Then, the student does it for his/herself and the accolades and glory are all theirs. Needless to say, this is what I did. And it worked. Not just the day he finally broke his boards. But in the way he now approaches all of his challenges using the skills and toughness he learned overcoming that obstacle on his own.
The day Thomas finally broke those boards I was proud of him and myself. It was hard for him. But what he didn’t know is that it was just as hard on me. Why? Because I took the tough route. I let him do it on his own. And for an, Instructor, coach, teacher or parent, there is nothing harder to do than to let them go and succeed or stumble on their own. Oh! Did I mention that Thomas is now a 4th degree black belt and owns his own TKD club?
