Besides how you describe sailing and teaching from a Zen point of view, I’m fascinated by the process of teaching sailing and have often wondered how OCSC handles that with its instructors. The school has a reputation for being demanding, and for teaching everything by a carefully prescribed program – maybe moreso than other area ASA schools.

I love your posts that describe on the water sessions with students.

Zen Proverb

T-man
Small children do turn into older big ones …:-)

fair winds!

I’m not any sort of Zen practitioner. However, I also instruct basic keelboat students in the SF Bay area, and I have instructed adults in a number of other disciplines both academic and vocational for a number of years.

Yet even after all of that experience and even with some fair success at teaching, I still feel like I’m learning how to do it every time I stand before a class. I am fearful that my students will present me with a teaching challenge that I cannot readily overcome with teaching skill. I am fearful that I will not quickly recognize when a student does not comprehend the lesson or skill at hand. I worry about the balance between teaching the big picture and then showing the proper grip on the tiller handle, to use your fine example.

I believe that your Big Picture (I like to call it the underlying form, with the implication that the form is not easily recognized) is important and the grip on the tiller is equally important, and that the one can’t exist without the other. Paradoxically, sometimes I get at the Big Picture by teaching the finite skills (and let the students realize that they have the doorknob to understanding in their hands). And other times it seems more useful to point out or comment or illustrate the underlying form and let the students connect the Big Picture to the requisite finite skills.

As for heaping praise where none is warranted: I don’t agree that instructors are rated negatively for not praising poor or mediocre performance. I do find that praise can be a powerful motivator and can help students pay more attention to their learning. Therefore, I do look for notable actions and learning as opportunities to keep my students more relaxed and more in the game. Obviously, one has to look harder with some students than with others.

I love your metaphors and images. They are very creative and simultaneously precise. Well done!

Finally, I offer you this quote that is usually attributed to Abraham Lincoln:

“You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can not fool all of the people all of the time.”

Relax. Pointy end in front. Water on the outside. Have fun. Look good doing it. The Sailing Big Picture lurks in there somewhere.