Being A Teacher Is Like Being A Bodybuilder

This past Wednesday I finally got my first JA teaching session done. It was my first time teaching students, ever. I'm glad I finally got to test the waters and see what it's like to be in the teacher's shoes, because it's a lot more difficult than I had originally thought. It's not like standing in front of your peers in your class and giving a presentation on a subject you researched. It's much different than anything else I've tried. Although, it was a very rewarding experience for me, because I learned a little more about myself and what I need to improve.

In one of my original statements or blogs, I listed a few reasons why I chose to pursue a career in teaching. One of those reasons was because I had a few teachers who were very bad at their job. Some were like robots on auto-pilot; they only cared about getting through the subject matter or curriculum as fast as possible. They didn't care about students. Some of those teachers didn't know how to make sense of the material to their students, nor did they care. A few of my teachers didn't like students in general; they should have chosen different professions. That's why I wanted to become a teacher, so that my students wouldn't have to go through the same batch of bad teachers that I went through. I wanted to be an example of a good teacher, the exact opposite of a bad teacher.

The first thing I noticed about myself when I began speaking to the students was that I didn't feel quite like myself. When I am with my friends, I feel like myself. When I am at home, I feel like myself. When I am in class, I usually feel like myself. While I was commanding attention and speaking in front of a bunch of strangers who were my students, I felt very awkward. It's probably because it was my first time doing something which I have never done before. With more practice and time, I should be able to overcome it. The closest feeling I can compare this to is the first time I competed in a bodybuilding show. I was almost naked, with fake spray-tan all over my body, oiled up, and wearing nothing but a teal-colored Speed-O. I had to go on stage with a bunch of other competitors who were just like me and flex for a handful of judges and a big audience in an auditorium. Not only did I have to do that, but for the individual posing round, I had to pose to my own music during my posing routine

Being a teacher is like being a bodybuilder: You have to make sense of something that people don't understand or care about. In a typical bodybuilding show, there are four rounds. The first round involves comparison and call-outs in the "relaxed" posture. This simply means that the judges compare all of the competitors to each other while they are just standing on stage with their feet together and arms to their sides. The second round involves the same thing, but with the mandatory poses. The judges will call-out several mandatory poses for the competitors to perform (Front and Back Double Biceps, Front and Back Lat Spread, Side Chest, Side Triceps, Abs and Thighs, and Most Muscular). The third round involves each competitor posing on stage one at a time to their own routine and music. The fourth is called the posedown; it involves all of the competitors posing on stage at the same time.

It's the third round of a bodybuilding show that makes me think of my teaching experience on Wednesday. The individual posing round is a chance for each bodybuilder to go on stage and show the audience their creative and artistic side. They choose a piece of music to pose to, and the audience is supposed to enjoy it and become inspired. For my first show, I picked Andre Rieu - Bolero De Ravel, and I had 90 seconds to pose to it. To get an idea of what I was doing, download and listen to the song, and while listening to it try to picture a bodybuilder flexing and performing aesthetic poses which synchronize to the music. The song I chose was a slow, beautiful, yet powerful classical music piece, so my poses and transitions were slow. To the people in the audience who had never been to a bodybuilding show, they probably didn't fully understand what I was doing on stage. But to the few people in the audience who knew what I was trying to do on stage, they were the ones who were able to fully appreciate what I was doing. Now try to picture yourself being in the shoes (or Speed-O) of that bodybuilder on stage who is doing this for his first time. It must be very confusing at first and awkward to that bodybuilder to do this in front of an audience and make sense of it.

Teaching a bunch of strangers in front of a classroom felt kind of like posing as a bodybuilder to a wide audience on stage, to me. I didn't feel like myself at first; I felt very awkward and unsure of myself up there. Also, I wasn't sure if I was making sense to my students (audience). Some of them could probably understand what I was trying to do and appreciate it. Others probably had no idea what I was doing or talking about, and were confused. In order for me to become the best teacher I can be, I will have to make sense of the material to my students so that they can fully understand it, much like how a professional bodybuilder with a powerful and monstrous physique can pose slowly to classical music and make it look beautiful.