Episode 1013 - Does Teaching Children Require Special Training?

In this episode Jeremy and Andrew discuss whether special training is required, to teach children.

Does Teaching Children Require Special Training? - Episode 1013

SUMMARY

In this episode, Andrew and Jeremy discuss the necessity of specialized training for teachers of children, particularly in the context of martial arts. They explore the differences between teaching children and adults, emphasizing the importance of connection and understanding in the teaching process. The conversation also highlights the value of observational learning and how instructors can supplement their experience to become more effective teachers.

TAKEAWAYS

• Teaching adults and children requires different skills.

• Connection with students is crucial for effective teaching.

• Social emotional learning (SEL) is important for teaching children.

• Experience alone may not be enough to be a great teacher.

• Observation of other teachers can enhance teaching skills.

• Teaching methods should adapt to the age and understanding of students.

• Instructors should be aware of cognitive differences in children.

• Effective teaching involves understanding students' emotional needs.

• Continuous learning and adaptation are key to teaching success.

CHAPTERS

00:00 Introduction to Specialized Training in Teaching Children
02:35 Defining Specialized Training for Teachers
07:36 The Differences Between Teaching Children and Adults
16:38 The Importance of Connection in Teaching
24:37 Supplementing Experience with Observational Learning

After listening to the episode, it would be exciting for us to know your thoughts about it. Don’t forget to drop them in the comment section down below!

SHOW TRANSCRIPT

Jeremy Lesniak (02:31.426)

What's happening everybody? Welcome back to another episode of whistle kick martial arts radio. I'm Jan I'm Jeremy. I'm joined by Andrew I tried I think I just tried to combine our names. That's how much time we spend together We're not even separate human beings anymore. We're Jerk I don't know. I'll let the audience figure it out figure out what the contraction is here But if you're new to what we do Yeah, that's that's a pretty good glimpse into the attitude that we bring to our conversations on

Andrew (02:38.636)

you

Andrew (02:46.637)

Ginger.

Jeremy Lesniak (02:59.202)

traditional martial arts and all the things we do at Whistlekick. If you're new to Whistlekick, go to whistlekick.com. You're gonna find everything we do there. What do you do there Jeremy? Well, we host events and we make apparel and we have products, training programs. We have a book division. We do all kinds of great stuff for you, the traditional martial artists of the world. Our goal here is to connect, educate and entertain all of you because we want everybody in the world to do martial arts.

for at least six months. We think that would make the world a better place and so that is our mission. If that mission resonates for you, please make sure you get on the martial arts radio email list. Go to whistlekickmarshallartsradio.com and hit the subscribe tab up top. We're gonna send you emails a couple times a week just about this show, not anything else. We have other email lists if you wanna find out the other things, but if you like this show, you really need to be on that email list because there are behind the scenes and bloopers and more bonus material.

Because guess what? We don't hit record right when the episode starts. We hit record when we get on. And if you've spent time with Andrew and I, you know that we can often be silly. And that sometimes leads to some fun stuff. And you get a free book. I forgot about the free book part. Yes. We put together an exclusive book that you only get when you join that list. So there you go.

Andrew (04:07.758)

and you'll get a free book.

Jeremy Lesniak (04:21.428)

Well. So today's subject. Hmm, might stir the pot a little bit. You know, I say that from time to time, but rarely does it because I feel like the people who.

Andrew (04:23.021)

That's it.

Jeremy Lesniak (04:37.178)

want to watch, listen to pot stirring. They don't tend to come to our episodes because they're longer than 30 seconds. The people who understand that we produce long form content that is thoughtful and contemplative and considers a variety of perspectives doesn't leave a lot of room for angry disagreement. And we haven't said it for a while, so let's say it again here.

Andrew (04:46.645)

Yeah, that's fair.

Andrew (05:02.466)

Mm-hmm.

Jeremy Lesniak (05:06.592)

our goal is to get you to think. If you come in and you open your mind and you consider what we're talking about here, Andrew and I have different perspectives on most of what we talk about. There's a lot of overlap, which is why we work together and we're friends, but by no means is it completely the same. If you listen to what we say and you think, you know what? I get what they're saying, but I disagree. And I still believe what I believed before I checked out the episode. Awesome. Because that shows that you are

willing to change your mind, but doesn't mean you have to.

Andrew (05:39.115)

Yep, absolutely, absolutely. So today's episode, does teaching children require special training? So before we dive into it, already might be, we might already have a different opinion on that.

Jeremy Lesniak (05:55.938)

Well, think, you as we were talking about what the title is, I think it comes down to, and this is the nerdy part of me, and those of you who know me well may have seen this coming, it comes down to our definition of training. If training is formal in a classroom with.

Experts telling you what to think or say or do in the context of teaching children. That's one thing but if it is Hey, you've spent a bunch of time working with children. You understand children You learned from making a whole bunch of mistakes with children. That is also training. I Think there are a lot of people that would consider the first definition as the official one when we when we think about

formal education. If you want to teach second grade, does that require specialized training? Well, in the current educational model, yeah, you have to go to school and pass tests and check boxes and.

Andrew (06:56.267)

Yep.

Andrew (07:00.601)

You can't be, you know, one of the things that that martial arts has, I'm not gonna say going for it. One of the things that happens a lot of martial arts is, and we've talked about this on the show, is you get to a certain rank and like, boom, you now have to teach. You know, if you want to be a second grade teacher, you can't say, I've been to second grade so I can teach second grade.

Jeremy Lesniak (07:22.668)

Right. Right.

Now, theoretically, if we just take it from the perspective of the material, if you've learned all the material in second grade and you've learned it really well, you should have the competency, assuming you also have the ability to teach, to teach that material. Right. And this is this is one of the great debates in traditional martial arts is does having the knowledge mean you should be teaching or can be teaching? And people argue about this all the time. And, you know, of course,

We have a perspective here at Whistlekick because we have a teacher training division. Shout out to those of you who've been to MADEC level one or two or some of the other courses. And we have other courses in development right now. Because learning how to teach is a specialized skill. And learning how to teach children is even more difficult than learning to teach adults, according to most people that I have worked

Andrew (08:15.007)

Absolutely.

Andrew (08:23.405)

Mm hmm. Yep. Yep. I would agree that you can be a very good teacher of adults and not a very good teacher of children and vice versa.

Jeremy Lesniak (08:39.286)

I'd put myself in that group. I think I'm a very good instructor for adults. I think I am a.

Andrew (08:43.053)

Mm-hmm.

Jeremy Lesniak (08:46.426)

decent instructor of children. And the younger you get, more that word decent should be applied.

Andrew (08:48.161)

Yep.

Andrew (08:53.239)

Sure. Yep. And it can go the other way as well, that you can be a very good teacher for children and not a great teacher for adults. Although I think I suspect that happens a lot less than it does the other way around.

Jeremy Lesniak (08:56.887)

Look.

Jeremy Lesniak (09:06.93)

I think it happens less, but I think the people for whom it is true are very passionate about that. We've known, and we know some people in common that love teaching children, and they really don't enjoy teaching adults. And that's okay.

Andrew (09:13.963)

Yep, that's fair. Yep. That they would prefer.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yep. Yep. But that doesn't mean they're bad at teaching adults, other than because they're not passionate about, they're not as excited or engaged. But definitely, you can be a good teacher and not be able to teach kids well.

Jeremy Lesniak (09:26.198)

Right.

Jeremy Lesniak (09:30.56)

Right, sure.

Jeremy Lesniak (09:38.306)

True story. So the question at hand is, is there special training required? And that suggests that teaching children is different than teaching adults. And so let's go there first. Andrew, is teaching children different than teaching adults? Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And we could come up with a whole bunch of reasons why it's different. They are a different size.

Andrew (09:56.768)

Yes, I would say yes, it is. Absolutely.

Andrew (10:08.077)

Yep.

Jeremy Lesniak (10:09.512)

you they have a different vocabulary

Most of them don't fully understand why they want to do things. So there's an element whereby maybe they are at martial arts class because they've been told they have to.

Andrew (10:27.297)

Yep, yep, they're not there of their own free will.

Jeremy Lesniak (10:32.02)

we can assume that on a day an adult shows up, especially if they drove themselves, they wanted to be there. Can't say that every time about kids. So usually you have to, I shouldn't say usually, sometimes you have to.

get kids excited to be there. Because they often forget that they had a good time a week ago.

Andrew (11:01.133)

Kids also suffer from other cognitive neurological things or ADHD or things more so than adults. Now I'm going to put a pin in that. That is not to say that adults don't suffer from ADHD and other things. However,

adults generally have a much longer time understanding how to cope and deal with it and they've come up with their own mechanisms on how to work with it that children don't. They haven't had the experience to figure out how to work through those issues. So that makes it very different.

Jeremy Lesniak (11:46.598)

We I think we could lump that under the brain doesn't fully develop until 25. And so. That. On that that that development not being final coupled with a lack of experience, just being in their body. Makes a lot of things different, both emotional or including emotionally, mentally, physically, and it means that as instructors, if our job is to reach them and help them learn, we need.

probably more tools than we need for adults.

Andrew (12:21.249)

Yep. Yep. And learning how to connect with your students, whether that's an adult student or a child, doesn't matter. Instructors who connect with their students find that their students do better. Right? That's just the way it is. And connecting with a child is very different and is a lot different than connecting with an adult. And so learning how to do those things.

Jeremy Lesniak (12:39.595)

Absolutely.

Andrew (12:51.159)

can be vastly different and difficult for the teacher if they've not learned how.

Jeremy Lesniak (13:00.194)

So now that we've, I think we've framed this enough, let's go back to that kind of definition piece. Does it require specialized training? And I think that almost everyone would agree, yes, it does. But the question at hand is, is experience adequate as specialized training? Or does it require some kind of external education?

that would not be gleaned simply from time involved in those classes.

Andrew (13:34.082)

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I would, I would say does teaching children require specialized training? No, it doesn't require it. It is not like, it is not state mandated, like being a public school teacher is. so it doesn't require. However, you would be better off if you had that specialized training, whether it is.

Jeremy Lesniak (13:35.735)

What do you think?

Andrew (14:02.557)

an actual course on how to work with and deal with and connect with and communicate with children or whether that specialized training, specialized training, putting in air quotes is through just observationally and doing. But I think it's not required, but you're going to be way better off if you do that.

Jeremy Lesniak (14:24.214)

Yeah, I think.

You know the question as it's framed. Doesn't suggest that there's a.

scale for teaching competency and of course there is you can be a Bad teacher of children. You can be a great teacher of children. There is a difference. What is the difference? the difference is Skill weird as that skill come from does some of that skill come from experience. Yes Can all of that come from experience? Yes

Andrew (14:40.309)

Mm. Yeah.

Andrew (14:48.685)

Mm-hmm.

Jeremy Lesniak (15:05.94)

Is it likely to know it's incredibly unlikely I would say statistically it is close to impossible that you are going to become a great instructor of anything simply from doing it.

So whether that is the courses that we do or the courses that other people do, because there are some wonderful materials out there. I'm not going to shout anybody out, but some of you probably know who I'm thinking of, because it's not an endorsement, because I don't want to endorse a thing. I haven't participated in. But there are some fantastic people out there teaching you how to teach, and some who are teaching you specifically how to teach children.

I think when you take a look at the people who are the best in the world at anything, whether we're talking about martial arts or anything else, what do we know? We know that they're constantly considering the opinions, the experiences of others. They're reading books, they're attending courses and seminars and Ted talks and all this stuff. And when we think about the best martial artists in the world, the majority of them, however you define that, they tend to, at least at some point in their martial arts career,

learned from a bunch of different people. They had a bunch of perspectives. When we think about the best martial arts instructors, the ones that I know that are the best instructors, they have teaching skills that have existed outside of their own four walls. Whether they are teaching public school, private school, preschool, or maybe they are teaching martial arts to people who are not yet martial artists. You know, they're going into the schools and teaching martial arts or

Andrew (16:18.295)

Mm-hmm.

Jeremy Lesniak (16:45.398)

They're teaching self-defense corporate seminars. They're doing some things that allow them to use their skill sets in different ways. Right? And in a microcosm way to consider this, teaching the same material to a black belt versus a first aid white belt is a completely different experience. And you need a different set of skills. You need to know how to convey depth to black belts. You can't just say, all right, well, here's how we make a fist. Of course, we know how to do that. We've been doing that for years.

Andrew (16:54.433)

Hmm. Yep.

Andrew (17:09.366)

Absolutely.

Jeremy Lesniak (17:15.298)

But the white belt, you can't go into depth because they're not ready. They don't have the foundation so you can layer that depth nuance on top of it. And if that is true, then we have to consider what teaching children looks like. You brought up a really important point, Andrew, and it's one that I wish was reflected more often, and it's about connecting with students. think it is absolutely necessary to connect with youth students.

before you can get them to learn anything.

Andrew (17:47.566)

And one of the things that has within the last few years become a huge talking point within school systems. I'm not talking martial arts for a second, just I'm talking public private schools, but working within teaching children is SEL. And if you, if you're listening to this and you're a school owner and you're like, I don't know what SEL is, I'm going to encourage you to research it. And SEL stands for social emotional learning. And

Jeremy Lesniak (18:16.578)

We actually have an upcoming seminar for Whistlekick Alliance on that subject.

Andrew (18:17.502)

If you

Andrew (18:21.281)

Yep. It is such a huge topic on, and one of the things that it is greatest for is being able to connect to your students, learning and understanding how children are go, what they're going through socially, what they're going through emotionally and how they learn social, social emotion, emotional learning, is huge. And it will, without a doubt, make you a better instructor of children. If you can understand this.

Jeremy Lesniak (18:50.402)

Most of us have heard the phrase and I'd say it's even a cliche people don't care how much you know until they know how much you care and Children exemplify that and that is absolutely what you're talking about with SEO is you you have to convey that you care They have to believe that you care. Otherwise, they're not going to take a risk Because being there is risky following your instructions is risky doing something they've never done is risky But if they like you they can trust you

Andrew (18:58.125)

Yep, that's good.

Andrew (19:17.25)

Yep.

Jeremy Lesniak (19:22.252)

they'll take some risks.

Andrew (19:23.393)

Yeah, absolutely, absolutely.

Jeremy Lesniak (19:26.37)

All right, so.

Have we answered the question? Is it a requirement?

Andrew (19:33.901)

It's not a requirement, but...

Jeremy Lesniak (19:38.228)

Unless you define experience as.

Jeremy Lesniak (19:43.554)

training.

Andrew (19:44.779)

Well, but even still, it's not a requirement to teach children, but you're just going to be a bad teacher.

Jeremy Lesniak (19:47.628)

Well, I guess you know, you could do it. You could do it really badly. Yeah, you could pluck somebody off the street and give them a lesson plan and say teach this even if they didn't know martial arts and they'd never seen a child before they could do it. But they would do it horribly. And if the goal of an instructor is to convey information. And help a student progress. Then no, they would not be doing that. So, you know.

Like most of our conversations comes back to definitions. Now, let's, because this hasn't been a lengthy episode, let's take a few minutes and let's talk about how someone could supplement their experience with training that is not go to this course, right? Because we have a course, there are other courses we'd love for you to come to the MADC training. But we are not so naive as to think everyone's going to be able to do that.

Andrew (20:37.431)

Yep.

Jeremy Lesniak (20:46.218)

or want to do that or have the resources to do that. And unfortunately, there are some schools out there that don't want their students learning from people not within their system. And that's a bummer, but we can't change that. So if that is true, what could we do for people to help them develop as instructors?

Andrew (21:05.015)

So the first thing that I think of is connecting with a youth organization that, and I'm actually thinking it should not be martial arts, a youth organization that has been involved with schools that is not a school. Here's what I mean when I say that. Here in my area of southern New Hampshire, there are a handful of groups

Jeremy Lesniak (21:11.202)

Hmm.

Jeremy Lesniak (21:17.259)

I agree.

Andrew (21:34.528)

that go to different schools for a week. is obviously those that know me know that I work for a dance institute, the New Hampshire Dance Institute and HDI, and we go around to different schools working with these schools and have been for 30-ish years. So the organization has been working with the local school districts for years and the schools know us, they trust us, we go in, we work with the kids and

talking to those organizations and the leadership of those organizations will certainly help. But that's just one. There's also a circus group that comes around and they do they'll go to this school for a week and all of the kids will learn these circus skills and put on a show at the end of the week. Then they'll go to this this other school and work over there for a week and then they'll go to this other school. And it's a week long or sometimes a two week long residency program. And

I think if you do some research, you'll find that these types of things happen a lot. And these people have been involved with the local school system and children for years and have really mastered or I can't say they have because I can't speak to what's in your area, but have likely mastered dealing with the local school children and the population on how to work with and connect with children. so just

getting out and talking to other people who are doing it, who are connecting to children on how they do it and getting some of those teaching tools, I think can be huge.

Jeremy Lesniak (23:09.846)

Yeah, I think I think you're absolutely right. And I think we can express it even more simply. Put yourself in a situation where you can observe children being taught.

both martial arts and non-martial arts. And if you are observing versus participating, you have a completely different experience, bring a notebook and a pen, and I would encourage you to look at what am I seeing that is working, and even more importantly, what am I seeing that is not? Human beings learn best by making mistakes, and if you observe people doing things that you see as a mistake, and...

you explore that and you understand what they're doing and why it's not working, you're probably not going to make that mistake.

Andrew (23:56.802)

Yep, yep. Here is a perfect example. We at the New Hampshire Dance Institute, we hired a group of professionals from New York City that were, that specialized in teaching an adaptive dance program. So we're talking about teaching dance to children in wheelchairs or have cognitive disabilities or physical or neurological problems.

Jeremy Lesniak (24:15.874)

Mmm.

Andrew (24:26.675)

and they came specifically to teach us how to do that better. And we were asked, rightly so, to just observe them teaching a class to some of the students up here. in dance, they, are, okay, pause, I'm not dancing or teaching dance, I'm doing music, but I'm in these dance classes. And when the teaching artist will get, you know, the

students ready to dance, they'll count five, six, seven, eight. You've probably all heard that. Getting ready to dance. Ready? Five, six, seven, eight. And they dance. And this one of the professionals that we hired from New York came up and was trying to get the room going and was getting ready to say five, six, seven, eight. And she said five, four, three, two, one. Because she was getting ready and realized not everybody was ready.

Jeremy Lesniak (25:22.582)

Hmm.

Andrew (25:22.765)

And by counting down rather than counting up, it brought the whole room into like, oh, okay, we have to pay attention now. And I had never seen that before. And what a, and she did it on the fly and I watched her do it and was like, that was brilliant that she went in and wanted to do something, but saw that not everyone was ready and pivoted so quickly to count down from five rather than counting up to eight.

Jeremy Lesniak (25:36.898)

Hmm.

Andrew (25:53.226)

And I would not have noticed that if I hadn't been sitting there observing how she was teaching. Now that is just one small, tiny example, but that observing is important.

Jeremy Lesniak (26:08.022)

Yeah, I think the best teachers continue observing and think about it. If you go and you are an education major in college, there's an observational period. They want you in a classroom. Yeah, they want you working with the children, but primarily you're observing what that teacher is doing. We know that observation is a powerful way to learn how to teach. And if you have not spent time recently,

observing other people teaching could be people in your own school, right? Hey, you've got me teaching, but you know, a couple times a month, I'd like to just sit out with a notebook and watch you teach so I can get better and better observe what you're doing without having to do or, you know, manage the students. And that I think is is probably the simplest thing you can do to get better at teaching anything, not just martial arts.

Andrew (26:57.954)

help teach.

Andrew (27:05.857)

Yeah, yeah, I would agree.

Jeremy Lesniak (27:08.084)

All right, anything else that we should add on here, Hinder?

Andrew (27:10.891)

No, I think if people have other thoughts, they will certainly let us know, or they can let us

Jeremy Lesniak (27:15.522)

They will let us know. can. Yeah, we've got the Facebook group. Martial arts radio Facebook page, rather martial arts radio. If you find the behind the scenes, that's the old one. Don't join that one. Join the other one. You can email us, Jeremy or Andrew at whistlekick.com and definitely join the martial arts radio email list. We're going to send you a free digital book that we made just for this. It's it's a cool book. We put a bunch of time into it.

Andrew (27:40.333)

Yeah, that's pretty cool.

Jeremy Lesniak (27:40.77)

And you're gonna get direct links to the video and the audio for every episode right in your inbox. We're not gonna send you other stuff It's just about martial arts radio. And if you want to support us remember we have a patreon pat or eon.com slash whistle kick for as little as five dollars a month Know what's upcoming get behind the scenes information If you're in the $25 tier, I just sent you six new books like last week, so Lots of value there. I'm all about the value

And I appreciate you spending some time with us here. Thank you, everyone. Thank you, Andrew, for a great topic. And let's close it up until next time. Train hard. Have a great day. I knew you were going to point at yourself, and my brain was like, no, keep going. Keep saying words. I'm like, no, don't keep saying words. It's Andrew's turn to say words.

Andrew (28:22.039)

Smile.