A Teaching Handbook for Wiccans and Pagans (15 page)

If you are teaching a basic class, keep the description simple, avoid jargon, and make it clear that yours is a 101 class. If you are teaching a higher-level class, you might want to include some more specific terms—which can signal potential students that the course is not for beginners—but still avoid using too much jargon.

Humor in titles is okay as long as it's still clear what the topic of the class is. It's better to be a little serious than to be unclear. Stephanie Raymond told me about recent experiences using humor to name a class:

The title can make a big difference in your attendance. I remember for Beltane one year we wanted to do one that was about sacred sexuality. And we could have called it Sacred Sexuality, because just the fact that it had the word “sex” in it is probably attractive to enough people that we wouldn't have to worry about attendance. But we also thought, “Well, if we just say sacred sexuality, that could also be really a snore.” So we called it Sex: Now That We Have Your Attention… just to kind of play light with it. It's kind of like Skiing the Magical Bunny Slopes [the 101 class taught by Our Lady of the Earth and Sky]. Why do we call it that? Because we wanted it to be a compelling title, yet be a nonthreatening course title.

Syllabus

If you are teaching a class with more than one session, it helps to hand out a syllabus to students that includes:

• Dates and times of each class session
  
• The learning objectives for each class session
  
• Assignments that will be given at each class session
  (if appropriate)
  
• Your contact information, and how and when (or if)
  you prefer to be contacted
  
• Any texts, equipment, or materials that students
  will be required to provide for themselves
  

Handouts

Handouts can be very useful references for students both during and after your class. Before you go through all the work of creating them, however, make sure that you know exactly how each one will be used and if it's really necessary. Unnecessary handouts can be distracting, and we all want to use less paper and save more trees, right? Many of the “rules” for slide presentations also apply to handouts: limiting the number and sizes of fonts, not cramming too many words on a page, and keeping the graphics simple. Other things to consider are:

Break up the text for easier reading.
Use heads, subheads, and
bullets
.

Number the pages.
This is especially important if you will be referring to the handouts during your class.

Consider making handouts that go with your activities.
If you give students a handout with instructions for an activity as well as give the instructions verbally, they have a reference to go back to during the activity. If you're having small groups answer a question or series of questions, putting the questions on a handout will help them remember the questions while they are doing the activity.

Provide references.
A list of references can be very helpful for students who want to follow up and learn more about your topic after your class. A recommended reading list is a great idea, too.

Decide when you want to pass them out.
Some people pass out handouts all at the beginning, while others pass them out as they're used or keep them until the end. The advantage of passing them out at the beginning is that it takes up less time than passing out each individually (this is more of a consideration for larger classes than for smaller ones). The disadvantage is that if students have all the handouts up front, they might flip through them and stop listening to you. For this reason, it's best to pass out reference handouts that won't be used in class at the end of the session.

Homework

Ah, the dreaded homework. Yes, the idea reminds us all of late-night cramming for our high-school biology test, and yes, you're (probably) teaching adults, not children, who might not take too kindly to the idea of assignments. But don't be afraid to assign homework. Homework is one of the best tools in your teacher toolkit.

Homework is a way to extend your teaching beyond the bounds of your class time. Like handouts, homework and take-home activities give students a concrete reference to remind them about what they learned in the class and a chance to practice and review skills and concepts (and therefore have a better chance of retaining them).

Brian Rowe told me why he assigns homework:

Sarah and I attempt to have some type of a takeaway from it. We've found that a lot of people are able to learn better if they have something to reflect on, so if we do a worksheet, or if we do an activity on shielding, we might have a physical piece of paper that they can take away and write their thoughts on. If we've done a series of chakra meditations, we might ask them to create a physical item that represents each chakra and bring that back to the next class—something that tries to make it more substantial or physical, so that it's not all just in the mind.

If you have longer-term students, homework and take-home activities are ways for students to stay connected to you and to the class material between classes. When students bring completed homework back to class (this is far from guaranteed, but don't let that stop you), you can discuss their work together as a class, which gives students immediate feedback and allows them to hear each other's answers and ideas, and therefore teach each other.

T. Thorn Coyle talked about the assignments she gives to her long-term students and why she does it:

My long-term students all have the following requirements: daily spiritual practice; weekly or monthly homework; a personal project such as a painting series or rune study; community service; a physical exercise program appropriate to their particular body; some reading and intellectual study; monthly astral work. They are also required to check in to our online forum. The homework requirements, of course, fill in many aspects of human spiritual development, including self-examination, psychic skills, and work with the Gods. Our primary goal is full human health and integration, leading to consistent union of our divine nature with all of our facets.

As Thorn points out, the continuity, opportunity to engage with the material, and practice of skills that homework assignments provide help students integrate the material into their lives.

Here are some tips for assigning homework:

Vary your assignments.
Just as you include opportunities for both active learning and listening in your class, make sure that the homework you assign allows students to learn and practice in multiple ways, to meet varied learning styles. You don't have to cover every learning style in every assignment—you can hit on the kinesthetics one week and the visuals the next—but do provide variety.

Make sure assignments are relevant.
Don't add a bunch of subjects you're not planning on covering in class. Assignments should reflect what the student is learning in your class and provide opportunities for practice or further study. Adult learners do not like to waste time with activities that they feel aren't relevant.

Make sure your assignments are doable in the time allotted.
This takes some practice, but try to find the sweet spot between giving assignments that are too large to do in the time frame between classes and those that don't take enough time. You want to make sure your students have some success with the homework (and to adult learners, part of success is often completion), but you want them to have enough to do so that they will engage with the material more than once between your class sessions.

Always give feedback.
Whether you're discussing homework as a group or responding to each individual student, always remember to let students know how they did and provide suggestions for improvement if appropriate. Students don't like to do homework without getting credit for it (“credit,” in this case, being feedback and/or praise).

Getting Ready

Practice Makes (Almost) Perfect

In teaching, there is no such thing as being overprepared. Any time you spend getting ready to present your material is time well spent, and it will pay off during your class. Being articulate is very important, and practice is the best way to accomplish that. As Patrick McCollum put it, “People don't give a lot of time to someone who doesn't appear to be able to explain what they're trying to tell you.”

One thing to consider before you start to teach is to take a public speaking or theater class. It isn't necessary to do this, and many great teachers never do it, but if you're nervous or soft-spoken, it can be a very big help. Doing improvisational theater helped me immensely with presenting confidently and reacting to students' needs in the moment. Stephanie Raymond states:

If you don't have that background [public speaking], I think it's worth it to learn a few techniques, do some instructor methodology research, or even theater sports or the kinds of things that make you comfortable standing up and speaking in front of a group of people. Because if you don't present confidently, or if you're reading a paper instead of presenting a workshop, that really can turn your audience off. And finding ways to engage your audience—finding ways to make it relevant, make it interesting, making sure you have vocal inflection—I mean, there are some really basic mechanical things that don't have anything to do with the topic you're presenting that are pretty critical to capturing your audience and making sure they're not going go to sleep on you.

When I asked T. Thorn Coyle about how her theater background has influenced her as a teacher, she made an excellent point about projection of energy:

Theater helped me learn voice modulation and how to work with presence. These both come in handy when I need to bring a group to focus quickly and also assist with pathworkings. My theater training included music, staging, and props, which come in very handy for running ritual. Combining theater with energy work and group participation can make for a powerful ritual experience.

The thing I had to
unlearn,
or retrain myself from, was projection of a presence that was too far from my core. This sort of glamoury can unbalance the priest or teacher in ways that distance us from other ritual participants or students, making the whole experience less authentic and causing some of the rifts we see in Pagan communities sometimes, where someone might be a great ritualist but doesn't treat her people very well. The core is too far removed from the projected presence. I've had to work hard to unite the two, becoming more fully myself on many levels. This helps my teaching now, I think.

Projecting your energy too far from your core is one of the biggest pitfalls I believe teachers encounter, and it is one of the easiest to slide into accidentally. Always make sure you check in with yourself during a presentation. Are you grounded? Are you extended too far? Are people responding to your energy, or is it dissipating because it's disconnected or distant from your core? Really take some time to experiment with keeping your energy and core in sync. Consider having some friends sit at the far end of a room while you do a trial presentation, and ask them to give you feedback about your energy. If you project too far, it's easy to get lost or confused, or lose control of your class.

And if the theater thing isn't for you, you might also want to consider joining Toastmasters. I know what you're thinking—it's for old, boring businesspeople—but actually I have several friends who are neither old nor boring who have gotten a lot out of the program. But whether you take a class or not, there are some other things you should definitely do:

Rehearse.
Practice in front of some friends. Get their feedback. Can they hear you? Do they understand what you're saying? Does the order of the material make sense to them? Are they able to do the exercises you have planned? Are they bored?

Time yourself.
It's an unofficial rule of thumb that a rehearsal is 20–25 percent shorter than doing the presentation in front of an actual audience. Time yourself, and use this information to adjust your content. Remember that when you're actually teaching the class, people will be asking questions, shuffling papers, and moving into and out of groups, so allow time for those things.

Make a video.
Have a friend make a video of you rehearsing. Watch it and notice where you are clear and where your presentation can use some work. Notice your body language. Are you being welcoming and engaging, or are you doing things that will turn off your students?

Before Your Class

Organize your notes.
If you are using any kind of notes to guide you through your class, such as a script, PowerPoint, or note cards, prepare and number them.

Prepare for questions.
Think about the parts of your presentation that students are most likely to question or have questions about. Ask the friends you practice in front of if you can't think of any. Get backup information or references to support the points you think students might quibble with, and prepare answers to questions you anticipate them asking.

Gather materials and equipment.
Make or get handouts, slide presentations, and video(s). If you're teaching somewhere other than your own home, find out if the space you'll be teaching in already has the media equipment you'll need, such as a projector, screen, speakers, DVD player, or computer. If it doesn't, make sure you can bring these yourself, or rework your class to avoid using them.

Consider putting media on a USB flash drive.
If possible, put any audio, video, or slide presentations you're going to use on a USB flash drive or your computer hard drive and play them from there rather than streaming them from the Internet. This way, if you don't have Internet access in your presentation space, or the Internet is slow, you can still use your media. If you're using PowerPoint, you might also wish to load the free PowerPoint viewer on the drive so you have that available.