Kyle Aaron
Active member
As I said, that statement about the deadlift was surprising to me. How can something hardly anyone does be "overrated"? When I get a chance I'll ask him about it. Many things which sound stupid or crazy when you first hear them, once you ask a bit about them, it makes more sense.
Generally, my impression is simply this: the teacher's knowledge is often deep but not broad. That is, they know a lot about their specialty, but not a lot immediately outside that specialty.
This applies to all teachers, and people in other professions, too. I'm reminded of the article how to be an expert. In this, she says that the people who say "I suck at this" remain bad at it, they give up. The people who say, "I do alright, and now that I know how to do it I'll keep doing it the same way," reach a level of competency but don't get really great. The people who say, "I do alright, but is there some other way to do it?" get great.
Markos talks about this in a recent newsletter in the context of growing your muscles - you have to keep giving them new challenges. This I think applies to most abilities and knowledge we have. To improve, we must seek out challenges, must be willing to fail.
Lots of people don't do that. They either fail early on and give up, or they reach a certain level of competence and relax there.
In the case of TAFE teachers, many of them are hired because they already have successful businesses, so the school thinks they'll have useful insights for us - and they're right. But between running a business and teaching classes and dealing with bureaucracy, as well as their own personal lives, they simply don't have time to broaden or deepen their knowledge - they reach a certain level of competency and stay there.
We just don't have enough time in our lives to improve all our abilities and knowledge, to constantly challenge ourselves in everything. So we specialise, our knowledge becomes deep but not broad.
This gives us moments like I've described, "what are 21s?" and "why do they use those chains with the weights?" and so on. Now, we laugh, but we must also remember - We students are still asking them more questions than they're asking us. So, they learn a little bit from us, and we learn a lot from them. That's how teaching goes.
I like to think that in the case of the fitness industry, I'll be the person who says, "I can do it alright, but I wonder if there's another way?" I'll keep seeking new challenges, trying to both deepen and broaden my knowledge.
For example, when we have to partner up and practice training each-other, I often try to partner up with the people in the class who I don't get along with very well, or who are difficult in some way - people who challenge my ability to explain things clearly, remain friendly and so on. Because I can avoid them in class, but won't be able to avoid them in the gym, so I better learn to deal really well with them!
In the end, school is only the beginning of your education.
Generally, my impression is simply this: the teacher's knowledge is often deep but not broad. That is, they know a lot about their specialty, but not a lot immediately outside that specialty.
This applies to all teachers, and people in other professions, too. I'm reminded of the article how to be an expert. In this, she says that the people who say "I suck at this" remain bad at it, they give up. The people who say, "I do alright, and now that I know how to do it I'll keep doing it the same way," reach a level of competency but don't get really great. The people who say, "I do alright, but is there some other way to do it?" get great.
Markos talks about this in a recent newsletter in the context of growing your muscles - you have to keep giving them new challenges. This I think applies to most abilities and knowledge we have. To improve, we must seek out challenges, must be willing to fail.
Lots of people don't do that. They either fail early on and give up, or they reach a certain level of competence and relax there.
In the case of TAFE teachers, many of them are hired because they already have successful businesses, so the school thinks they'll have useful insights for us - and they're right. But between running a business and teaching classes and dealing with bureaucracy, as well as their own personal lives, they simply don't have time to broaden or deepen their knowledge - they reach a certain level of competency and stay there.
We just don't have enough time in our lives to improve all our abilities and knowledge, to constantly challenge ourselves in everything. So we specialise, our knowledge becomes deep but not broad.
This gives us moments like I've described, "what are 21s?" and "why do they use those chains with the weights?" and so on. Now, we laugh, but we must also remember - We students are still asking them more questions than they're asking us. So, they learn a little bit from us, and we learn a lot from them. That's how teaching goes.
I like to think that in the case of the fitness industry, I'll be the person who says, "I can do it alright, but I wonder if there's another way?" I'll keep seeking new challenges, trying to both deepen and broaden my knowledge.
For example, when we have to partner up and practice training each-other, I often try to partner up with the people in the class who I don't get along with very well, or who are difficult in some way - people who challenge my ability to explain things clearly, remain friendly and so on. Because I can avoid them in class, but won't be able to avoid them in the gym, so I better learn to deal really well with them!
In the end, school is only the beginning of your education.
