Anxiety is
real for those of us who suffer. I have suffered all my life! From the age of 5
I remember trying to mentally escape from the world around me. To this day when
I catch myself doing the same thing. The causes of which are numerous and I’ll
not go into that now!
I often get
asked why do you not show it, when your teaching, the simple answer is, I’m in “CONTROL”,
I know the “SUBJECT MATTER” inside out! Plus, I love doing it, it’s not a
chore. And I “BELIEVE” in what I am doing, and why I’m doing it. Not reading
from a script verbatim.
So what do I
think are my best attributes as an ADI. Listening,
Empathy and able to adjust/adapt a lesson plan at
will, and adjust to them, and keeping clam when there’s issues. All of these
help’s my gain trust and rapport with the pupil. They often tell me I’m good at
teaching, after replying, I am just doing my job, I ask why. Because your easy
to talk to and have a calm way of teaching, not pushy and REAL! And last Intuition
Why Listening. Through listening you will find out their
fears and opinions. It also lets them get anything off their chest in a none
threatening environment. You’ll find out if your pushing too hard, or even if
they a getting bored, both not good, for learning, and more besides, so next
time you see an ADI at the side of the road for a bit, they may be listening to
their PUPIL.
Why Empathy? It’s quite shocking the number of young
people of both sexes that suffer from anxiety, and because I have suffered all
my life, and have put in my own mechanisms in place, either from other
people/TV, whatever, I can understand how it feels to be in blind panic or
worry about something that’s completely nothing. Even if you haven’t just LISTEN, it’s important to them, and it’s
not your lessons it’s THEIRS!
Why Adapting to them/and the lesson. It’s no good pushing
ahead with your lessons plan if they having big issues with something. An
example is teaching a turn in the road. So you have driving to the site, and
they have stalled twice because of the pressure of traffic behind them. I go
about this in 2 different ways.
11) The more traditional, change the
lesson plan to busy places and maybe some hill starts, with lots of help
22) Keep the lesson plan, but fix the
stalling issues when going from point A to point B
Each way
has its benefits, and can be very pupils specific, as one way will not work with
everyone. But my favourite, and the pupils from what I can see is option 2.
Why? In my opinion they are not thinking too much about the issues of stalling
as I have not dwelled on it by making it the main focus, thus keeping their anxiety
low about it, they have fun learning something new, and help with the stalling
issue’s on route to a new Turn in the road area. For me this works as YOU the ADI have not made
to much of a big deal of it, and have adapted to the anxiety. I have changed
the lesson plan, but in a subtle way.
Slight
clutch issues too can be sorted by subtle changes, one of my favourite is to change
to route to slow traffic and keep them talking about them, music/anything. They
don’t overthink therefore they don’t panic and stall.
Now your
saying this is daft because every pupil is different, yes agreed, but that’s
where Rapport comes in and only you
the ADI will know if this will work with a specific pupil. Remember these are
my own opinions as to why I am successful at what I do, and I do respect that others
will disagree.
I have spent a lifetime dealing with anxiety
and have made HUGE mistakes because of it, and probably still will. Here are Three
things that really helped me personally.
One thing I
left till last, is intuition
.I Spent 10 years in the SCUBA industry, and it is here where I believe I have
honed my skills, these include the above, plus intuition. If you get it wrong
in the water, then it can go bad, very bad, because I recognise the signs of
panic, I got people to do things, they never dreamed of doing. A bit like I do
now.
The support
of my wife, I’ve dragged her around the world as Diving instructor’s, and have
a guitar addiction. But without her as a sounding board, nothing would have been
possible.
Life and
amazing people. I have learnt from other’s, one of the biggest for me the Anxious
ADI. The person who trained me, Thanks Matthew Bell. And Graham Hooper and his
team for my BTEC 3.
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