Instructor Courses

[MJS]

We hear about them all the time, offered thru various organizations. Fly out to their location, train with them for X amount of time, which usually isn't long at all, and you're given a cert. that allows you to teach. How is this possible and how or why would anyone even think that after a short amount of time, that they'd be remotely capable of actually teaching anything? I have to wonder how often these people go back and continue their own training.

What are your thoughts on this?

 

[Blindside]

It probably depends on how big the curriculum is. Alot of organizations are big into the "train the trainer" or "study group" leaders. If the certification is basically that you are qualified to pass on some basics, I don't really have a problem with that. I have seen some Pekiti training advertised in the Phillipines with a focus on a particular aspect, like knife. Those sessions are week-long, quite frankly if someone is getting 50 hours of training in a particular format, with good reptition and curriculum design, you could get alot of good information out and good skill building.

What I would be curious about is if anyone actually fails these types of instructor programs or if they are mostly money makers.

 

[Miles]

The Kukkiwon offers Instructor Courses which are week-long affairs. To be admitted, one must already be at least a 3rd dan but to be certified, you must be a 4th dan. The Course is now being offered outside of Korea with KKW officials being dispatched to various countries to do the training. I think when I attended the Course in 2004 in Korea, the passage rate was about 65% so a fair number failed.

 

[wushuguy]

I was tempted to go for that a few times, but never went along with it. If I'm able to express knowledge to some one in a way that they can comprehend and use in the proper way then I don't see a need a certificate from a course.

On the other hand, a certificate from an instructor's course will put those students at ease who look only for teachers who are "qualified" by a grand master. As to the quality of the course, I think it would depend on the schools advocating them.

I've seen some courses where you pay a fee, show up for like a week or two of classes, then you have a certificate. Some cheesy ones do the week course without previous experience (but perhaps costing more)! Other instructor courses I feel are more reasonable, taking up to a year with minimum durations and tests, before one is qualified to teach that system... basically an accelerated course focusing on the most important points.

Before I began teaching, I thought taking an instructor's course would be a good idea, helpful to be established, but looking at the price of the course and the material studied, I felt it was way overpriced.

IMO, experience makes a good teacher, not a week long course. so if your sifu was good, and taught you well, your understanding is good, and you can express what you learned clearly so the students can learn, then there's no point for a certificate.

One that might be useful though, rather than certifying for a whole system in a short time are those specific courses, like taking a week long course to learn a certain form, or certain set of techniques, then being qualified to pass on that knowledge...

 

[jks9199]

It depends on how it's done. The Kukkiwon approach, where it's focused (at least in theory) on taking skilled practitioners, and providing some focused training on successful teaching as well as making sure everyone's up to date is a good set up; it's comparable to going to firearms or defensive tactics instructor schools as a cop. You start out with the skills, and then learn how to teach them.

But going somewhere, paying $500 or $5000 for weekend "instructor certification" class with no prior exposure? Not something I'd trust, unless it's a very focused & narrow spectrum of the art.