Journey from A to B
Jan. 20th, 2012 04:35 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pktechgirlbackupMy tiny ninja's are exclusively female and fall in the 11-14 age range, but recently I worked with a different class that was mostly male, ranged from 6-13, and probably had a lower average SES. This has led me to the realization that martial arts is good at teaching kids two very different things: how to find their voice/stand up for themselves/assert that they deserve space/have self confidence/leadership/etc, and respect for authority/how listen to orders/temporarily subsume their individuality to a larger cause/how to respect when others take up your time/sit down and shut up/followship/etc. You have to admit, that's a pretty neat set of life skills for one activity to teach, especially when you consider that we're also teaching them left from right.
Individual results may vary, and I'm working from a small sample size, but I'd say I do a lot more voice finding in my middle school girls' class, and a lot more respect mah authoritay in the elementary + middle school co-ed class. I find the voice finding way more rewarding, but I think everyone enjoys coaxing a kid to kick harder over yelling at a kid to stop kicking other children in the head after class. You don't have to be all mean, and success is more tangible.
But it still makes me nervous. To explain why, I need to take a major digression to A Song of Ice and Fire, of which I have just finished book two (A Clash of Kings). One of the main characters is Arya Stark. I started disliking her fairly quickly early on because we're so clearly supposed to love her. Arya is awesome and eats bugs and plays with swords, unlike her helpless sister Sansa who only cares about romantic stories and dancing and marriage. Sansa is clearly a stupid girl and we hate her.
But I think Arya's sheer awesomeness may be blinding people to the fact that she, for example, has people who annoy her killed. Or casually kills a guard who was on her side in the war, but would have stopped her from stealing some horses. If one of the not-awesome male characters killed someone on their own side, we'd find them monstrous, but it's Arya, so it's cool.
The thing is, given the choice, I'd much rather be Arya or have her as my daughter, than be or birth Sansa, who is an idiot.* But as a teacher, I seem to prefer teaching the Sansas to fight to teaching the Aryas to seriously, stop stabbing people, or at least do so more strategically. Which is, in some ways, reinforcing the value of being Sansa. Having spent some time complaining that my high school resented me because they had a saving people thing and I didn't need to be saved, this feels hypocritical. I worry that I enjoy teaching my girls violence because they're so cute when they do it, and that by teaching them a skill that requires cuteness to be socially acceptable, I'm inadvertently reinforcing the cuteness>
Digression the third: One of my mom's better parenting moments was when she told me (age five or six) that you don't get strong, assertive women from cute, compliant girls, and my parents were going for the strong assertive woman. I forget what the context was, my first guess is I mouthed off to a teacher, and I think but don't remember for sure that the lesson was "seriously, don't do that one thing you just did, but keep the spirit that led to it, and if you screw up again, no biggie." Seven or eight years later she added some subtlety to this, noting that the costs for being too assertive are immediate and obvious, but the costs for not being assertive enough are dispersed and delayed. So better to start off too assertive, because you'll correct faster and suffer less in the long term, even if right now it feels like you're being punished.
So I want to create an environment where my students can not only become strong and assertive, but one where it's safe to overshoot, while at the same time remembering that assertiveness and aggression are not the same thing. Without letting them hurt their fellow students, physically or emotionally. And still be fun to teach. While coping with the fact that they still don't know left from right.
*This is false. Were I an actual noblewoman I would undoubtedly prefer my daughter be like Sasnsa, because the culture will crush Arya and she would bring shame upon our family. But as a modern woman, go Arya!
Individual results may vary, and I'm working from a small sample size, but I'd say I do a lot more voice finding in my middle school girls' class, and a lot more respect mah authoritay in the elementary + middle school co-ed class. I find the voice finding way more rewarding, but I think everyone enjoys coaxing a kid to kick harder over yelling at a kid to stop kicking other children in the head after class. You don't have to be all mean, and success is more tangible.
But it still makes me nervous. To explain why, I need to take a major digression to A Song of Ice and Fire, of which I have just finished book two (A Clash of Kings). One of the main characters is Arya Stark. I started disliking her fairly quickly early on because we're so clearly supposed to love her. Arya is awesome and eats bugs and plays with swords, unlike her helpless sister Sansa who only cares about romantic stories and dancing and marriage. Sansa is clearly a stupid girl and we hate her.
But I think Arya's sheer awesomeness may be blinding people to the fact that she, for example, has people who annoy her killed. Or casually kills a guard who was on her side in the war, but would have stopped her from stealing some horses. If one of the not-awesome male characters killed someone on their own side, we'd find them monstrous, but it's Arya, so it's cool.
The thing is, given the choice, I'd much rather be Arya or have her as my daughter, than be or birth Sansa, who is an idiot.* But as a teacher, I seem to prefer teaching the Sansas to fight to teaching the Aryas to seriously, stop stabbing people, or at least do so more strategically. Which is, in some ways, reinforcing the value of being Sansa. Having spent some time complaining that my high school resented me because they had a saving people thing and I didn't need to be saved, this feels hypocritical. I worry that I enjoy teaching my girls violence because they're so cute when they do it, and that by teaching them a skill that requires cuteness to be socially acceptable, I'm inadvertently reinforcing the cuteness>
Digression the third: One of my mom's better parenting moments was when she told me (age five or six) that you don't get strong, assertive women from cute, compliant girls, and my parents were going for the strong assertive woman. I forget what the context was, my first guess is I mouthed off to a teacher, and I think but don't remember for sure that the lesson was "seriously, don't do that one thing you just did, but keep the spirit that led to it, and if you screw up again, no biggie." Seven or eight years later she added some subtlety to this, noting that the costs for being too assertive are immediate and obvious, but the costs for not being assertive enough are dispersed and delayed. So better to start off too assertive, because you'll correct faster and suffer less in the long term, even if right now it feels like you're being punished.
So I want to create an environment where my students can not only become strong and assertive, but one where it's safe to overshoot, while at the same time remembering that assertiveness and aggression are not the same thing. Without letting them hurt their fellow students, physically or emotionally. And still be fun to teach. While coping with the fact that they still don't know left from right.
*This is false. Were I an actual noblewoman I would undoubtedly prefer my daughter be like Sasnsa, because the culture will crush Arya and she would bring shame upon our family. But as a modern woman, go Arya!
