Rocky Izumi

At some point, all chief instructors are instructors of people who will someday, hopefully, become instructors themselves. My job these days is to create good instructors. With that in mind, I realize that behavioural modelling is important in learning how to teach. However, so is practice. As such, I must ask the lower ranked person to teach while I practice so that I can observe how he or she teaches, then, after class or after the teaching period, I need to provide the lower rank with feedback on what they did. Lower ranks need to teach at times. If the chief instructor doesn't teach them how to teach and let the person practice, the chief instructor will never be able to take a break and go to teach a seminar somewhere or do other things. Students may pay me to teach. Usually, instead, I pay to teach. But even if they do pay, part of that payment is for the feedback after the person teaches and I can comment on what he or she did. Letting a person who is trying to learn to become a good instructor flounder around because I haven't given him or her decent feedback after observing his or her performance is quite wasteful of both of our times.

Rock