#273 - Responsibility, the lack of

It's times like these that make me loathe being a karate instructor.  It's testing time and as usual I have students that aren't quite ready to test.  As an instructor, the hardest thing to do is tell someone that they are not qualified to be promoted to the next rank.  A lot of people take it personally, and I can't blame them for it because it is showing a personal failing on the part of student; however, others seem to be OK with it and learn from the experience.  What makes this dicey is when it involves children in the class and subsequently their parents.

Not fitting the bill

I have a group of students that wants to test, but they don't know all the material.  I wondered if it was my fault, but then I came to the realization that the blame really rested on the attitudes of the students.  They had two forms to learn.  The first form should have only taken 2 weeks to learn.  I say this because they actually knew over half the moves, it's just that they never put them in the order of the form.  In other words, they had the tools but not the schematics.  You could even cut the learning time down to 1 week if the students practiced at home.  The second form takes at least 3 to 4 weeks to learn (for children anyway).  Again, they have already learned the basic stances, blocks, and strikes, but they have to memorize the proper order.

The problem that arose this time is that 95% of the kids wouldn't try to learn the first form during class.  They would "space out" or get bored and simply not try to learn it, despite the fact that I (and my entire teaching staff) told them that they would have to learn 2 forms to be qualified to test.  They dilly-dallied and fiddle-farted around and half-heartedly performed; thus, the instructors wouldn't move forward to the 2nd form.  Suddenly, testing is 2 weeks out and these kids want to test.  That sets myself and my entire staff on "Scramble mode" to try and get them to learn both the forms in a short period of time.  Maybe only 1 out of 10 students will qualify after that and the reason for that is that this 1 student will actually practice outside of class.  The other 9 come to class and expect to be good at the material as well as learn it.  No dice. 

Parents of these children keep hounding me and my assistants as to their eligibility.  To be nice we keep putting them off, but next Monday there will be a reckoning.  I'm guessing that after I tell them, "No."  I will have at least 7 drop out of the class.  My opinion is this:  Good riddance!  If the kid is willing to quit (or the parent is willing to pull the child out of the program) because of their own poor attitude, then I don't need them.  It isn't my fault that they didn't heed my warnings and train seriously. 

A lot of parents have told me that if their kid doesn't test then they will get bored doing the same thing over and over and lose interest.  First of all, that's just life.  Life is full of repetition.  Second of all, repetition is the key component of practicing.  For every one time these kids practice a certain form, I've probably practiced it 100 more times.  That's how you get good at something.  When it comes down to it, I try and give them enough repetitions during class, but again, I have to balance teaching other things, too like sparring, self-defense, etc.  Class isn't just about doing your forms over and over.  Actually, my philosophy has always been:  The dojo is where you learn and home is where you practice.

The other argument I have with parents is this:  It isn't fair that so-and-so is testing and getting ahead of my kid.  My kid started before then.  I only have one response to this:  Life isn't fair.  Perhaps if their kid had practiced as much as he should have, then he might be ready to test.  It's a pretty simple formula actually:  Difficulty + Pressure = Mistakes.  The solution to this equation is:  Practice.  If someone practices, then a once difficult task will cease to be so.  If asked to perform something that isn't too difficult, then there will be less pressure.  This makes the inverse of my previous equation:  Practice + Confidence = Success.  At any rate, I don't care if someone gets ahead of someone else and the student shouldn't care either.  Perhaps by having the other student ahead of them, it will be a constant reminder that if you don't do what you're supposed to do, then you're going to get left in the dust.

Not responsible

There is one student (and parent) in particular that is really getting my proverbial goat.  There is previous history here and the long and short of it is that the student is irresponsible and the parent places the blame on us.  What has happened this time is that the student did not learn a weapon form and did not prepare a self-defense routine (which involves recruiting the help of another student to be the ukke, or self-defense attacker).  As far as the weapon form is concerned, the student has had ample time to learn the form, but never brought it to the attention of the instructors that he needed to learn it.  Only he knows what he knows and I've even seen the instructor ask the student, "What do you need to work on?" and the student just shrugged his shoulders. 

As far as the S-D is concerned, well, the kid just dropped the ball.  It isn't the instructors' job to make up the routine and assign partners.  That is up to the student.  The instructor watches the routine to make sure there aren't any unworkable moves, but the student has to find a partner.  The thing that kills me most about this situation is that the student had an older brother who was in the program and he would always wait until the last minute, too.  So anyway, the mom is in an uproar about it.  Frankly, I don't really care.  It's not like we don't remind the students to make sure that they have covered all their testing material.

A few people have criticized me saying that the kid is the innocent victim in all this, but if the kid really cared about his martial arts training we wouldn't be having these issues.  I'm betting if I asked the kid if he wanted to be in class, he would say, "No."  It seems like his parents are making him do it.  All I know is that he won't be moving forward unless he shows me he wants to move forward.

Have a heart

Another arguement I get from parents is, "Just let the kid test and if he fails, he fails."  No.  I'm not going to do that.  I refuse to set people up for failure.  That isn't right.  I'm not against the "whatever happens, happens" mentality.  In fact, if there is someone who has the ability to test but doesn't want to test, I'll often tell them, "Hey, I'm confident that you can do it.  If it doesnt work out, then the results would be the same and you'd have to test in the future anyway."  Essentially, it's the same arguement; however, in this case I'm trying to bolster someone's self-esteem and show them my confidence in them.  I refuse to let a kid I'm pretty sure is going to fail to have the opportunity to fail because I believe that is more devastating then having to wait.  Also, I don't want the slack person to feel rewarded for slacking.  In other words, the person isn't ready to test.  I let them test and then they just skate by.  An optimist will tell you that the student will learn their lesson and prepare better for the next test.  A realist will tell you that the best predictor of future behavior is past behavior and the student will wait until the last minute again.

Microcosm of society

I believe that the problems I am experiencing are the results of our current politically correct, entitlement laden, consumer culture.  "I'm paying money to be in this class so the instructor should bend to my will and let me be promoted even though I don't deserve it."  That seems to be the attitude of some of these people.  Well, I don't cotton to it.  If these people want to pay for a rank then they can go somewhere else and pay a lot more for it.  If they want to learn martial arts, they can stay in my class.

Another thing that's been bothering me is the whole "No Child Left Behind" attitude.  I have some families in the class in which certain members are doing well and other members aren't and the whole family is deciding to hold back because of one person.  Believe me, I can understand why they are doing it from a familial point of view, but from a martial arts point of view, this is not a wise decision.  The reason the one person isn't doing so well is because they aren't motivated.  Holding everyone else back only de-motivates the good people.  Why not test and perhaps the unmotivated student will see their family leaving them in the dust and start to get motivated?

Now I would only agree to this if it is an attitude problem rather than an ability problem.  Let's say you have someone handicapped in the family, it might not be fair to leave them behind.  I can see that, but if the problem is the person's attitude i.e. they refuse to pay attention or listen to instruction, I don't think you should punish the people who are actually doing what they're supposed to do.

I feel like "No Child Left Behind" has actually been transformed into "No Child Can Excel".  BTW, I understand that the No Child Left Behind program was really created to motivate teachers rather than students and although most of the educators I know dislike it, they are getting a lot of government money to pursue higher degrees.

So, after all this, what did we learn?  Picklez is a hard ass, and if you don't pack the gear, you'll be sitting in the rear.

END OF LINE