Why I Want to Teach DIT
Many therapists want to teach at some point. I have heard some old-timers ask, what is your motive? Why do you want to teach?
It is important to check our ego and make sure that our reason for wanting to teach is not just to hear ourselves talk and make ourselves feel important. Some people want to teach for the money, but most massage therapists struggle with the idea of getting paid for what we do, so I doubt that many therapists want to teach just for the money. Some therapists want to teach because their hands are tired and they need a way to make a living. This can be a valid reason, especially if they have a lot of years of experience and something valuable to share, and some teaching skills to make it enjoyable for people to learn from them.
When I decided to start teaching at a massage school (which I did for over 10 years), my motivation was to learn. I had had an amazing Anatomy and Physiology teacher (Russ Sinclair) when I was in massage school, and I had learned so much from him, but felt like I had forgotten most of it. It turned out I was right.
Somewhere I read that when we read something, we retain roughly 10% of the information. When someone teaches us something, we retain roughly 25% of the information. But when we teach something, we retain 90% of the information!
I reasoned that if I taught Anatomy and Physiology for a few years, I would learn a ton. That proved to be true. At the time, I was married to my mentor, so as I learned things I could discuss them with him and we could figure out together how to apply treatment principles to the systems of the body that I was teaching, and learning, about.
That’s one thing about learning anatomy and physiology. Take a bone for instance. If you want to study a bone, take a model of a bone and run your fingers along it and around it with your eyes closed. Feel the ridges, the bumps, the holes, the depressions. Ask yourself, what does this bony landmark do for movement? I think starting with the femur would be a great idea. The linea aspera alone can teach you so much.
Anyway, eventually my A&P class changed to an online class rather than a classroom experience. I really missed teaching that class in person. The questions that would come up in the classroom always made me dig deeper, so I was continually learning (one thing I have realized is one of my strong values), and that fed me and made me enthusiastic about teaching.
Once the A&P class was all recorded, I really missed teaching at that level. I did two more years or so of teaching in the classroom at the massage school, reviewing what they had learned on their videos about the muscles and the therapeutic applications, and then helping the students palpate the muscles or do the therapeutic techniques, and it was fun for a while. One day though, I thought, if I have to explain the difference between contract/relax and reciprocal inhibition one more time I might…
…and then I knew I needed to teach something more engaging for me, where I could share something that is important to me, something I am passionate about.
I lolly-gagged around thinking someday I would get started. Even Rebecca at the massage school was telling me I needed to get going on teaching continuing education. Then one of my very keen and treasured students, Paula Bauer, now LMT, gave me just the nudge I needed. She really needed help learning to feel the innate rhythm of the body that I talked about so often. She just wasn’t getting it during the little time she had to practice it in class during their one hour trades, as she also did a full-body massage.
I’m kind of the opposite of the Kevin Costner movie and the idea that “if you build it they will come.” I’m more of a, if someone needs me to do it, then I’ll do it type of person. So this was just what I needed to commit to a date to teach my first Craniosacral Therapy Introduction class.
Looking back on that class, I’m so glad I did it. AND, it was probably terrible compared to what I do for that class now. The first time teaching a class is always a little rough around the edges, because you don’t get a chance to find all the ways this information can come together until you start teaching it. But the very first continuing ed class I taught, I didn’t even provide a good manual. It was the same student that urged me, at a few classes, to make a nice manual and write out all of the techniques. Then she wanted an index of the techniques. Then she wanted pictures of the anatomy. Then she wanted pictures of me doing the techniques. So on and on I have gone, trying to improve the classes each time I teach them. And I am so glad I have had this student to encourage me to be better and better and better. It has kept me engaged in the teaching process, so I don’t just phone it in. So far I’m not tired of explaining any of the things that I teach in my classes.
And now that I’m a more seasoned teacher, writing my own curriculum and manuals, I doubt that I will ever get bored, because now I can let it be organic and get every student’s questions answered in the class each time, which makes the class different each time I teach it.
So my original motivation to start teaching—to learn—is still happening for me today, and every day that I am working on a class, or teaching in the classroom.
And for that I am eternally grateful.
