A Teaching Handbook for Wiccans and Pagans (2 page)

[contents]

Chapter 1

Benefits and Challenges
of Teaching

Maybe you have always known you want to teach. Maybe you want to teach, but you're not sure you're ready. Maybe you're so excited to teach that you can barely contain yourself. Whatever your situation, it's a very good idea to have a clear vision of what you want to get out of teaching, what your motivations for doing it are, and what it will require of you before you begin. Knowing these things can help you start your Pagan teaching path on sure footing and with your eyes open to possibilities and challenges.

The Benefits of Teaching Paganism

We all know that teaching is passing along knowledge or skills to other people. But teaching—especially spiritual teaching—is much, much greater and richer than just the transfer of information. Here are some benefits of teaching that go beyond the satisfaction of increasing others' knowledge.

Teaching Is a Devotional Act

Teaching Paganism is one of the most important ways we can acknowledge, honor, and worship our gods. One of the things I like most about Paganism is that many of us have a reciprocal relationship with our gods. It's not like they live on some lofty plane somewhere and we're groveling here on earth. We interact. They benefit from our relationship, as do we. I can't think of a better way to give back or show appreciation than to pass along what we've learned from these interactions to others.

Author and lecturer Christopher Penczak talks about teaching as an act of devotion:

Divine guidance is my plan. I make ritual before, after, and during a must, even if no one else knows I'm doing it. I feel that I can be a vessel for something greater, though by no means is it mediumship or channeling. Maxine Sanders told me it's “sitting on Solomon's chair,” and that's as good of a name for it as anything. I believe each class is a ritual of service.

Stephanie Raymond agrees:

Every aspect of it is about service. Service to the earth, to the community, to my gods. So, for me, doing the rituals is really a way to express that need and that calling that I have.

And Patrick McCollum is also following a divine calling:

I had this near-death experience, and in that experience the Goddess asked me to serve her. And that's what I'm doing. So I just basically do what feels right; I open myself up to what I should be doing, and the message I get is I should be continually sharing what it is that I'm sharing.

Teaching Makes You Learn and Can
Strengthen Your Connection to Your Path

Teaching others can engage or re-engage your mind. You have to know and love your subject matter to be an effective teacher, and you will learn even more from your students as you explore their perspectives and answer their questions. Each time my group does a sabbat with a new student, I learn something from listening to the new student's experience of it. In addition, teaching can help you discover new aspects of your path that you hadn't considered before, or find new things to love about the aspects you were already well familiar with. It can give you a fresh perspective.

Melanie Henry, priestess of Green Star Grove in Washington, told me:

I have learned more since I've hived off with my own coven—not just about how to run a coven but about my own connection to the Craft. It's like having my third degree sort of released me to draw to myself people that I learned incredible amounts from…. It actually hones my own abilities a huge amount.

Sylva Markson, high priestess of a coven in the Midwest, expressed similar feelings:

I will often learn more from them than they learn from me, and I will get a great deal of insight from their different perspective of the same things that I've been studying for years, but looking at them in a way that I would never have thought to look at them.

And author, teacher, and lecturer T. Thorn Coyle talked not only about learning from one's students, but also being inspired by them:

This sounds like a cliché, but I learn a great deal when I teach. My view is always expanded by the process and by what
people
bring to the work. People's bravery inspires me, as does their wisdom. Over and over, people show up to practice, to face fear, to have deep communication with the Gods, and all of this has a profound effect on me.

Teaching Is Great for Your Own Personal Growth

Teaching can give you a sense of purpose, a feeling of accomplishment, and a boost of self-esteem. It can reveal strengths you never knew you had and give you the satisfaction of helping others. Christopher Penczak says:

I teach because it's my true will at this time. I was guided to teach by the Goddess, and I've become very fulfilled by it…. I feel like my job now is to teach teachers, and I get quite a bit of satisfaction from it, to see our community grow in healthy and meaningful ways. Students inspire my own personal practice and force me to think and feel deeply, which serves to enrich my own experience.

Patrick McCollum adds:

It fulfills you. It fulfills your spirit. There is not a time when I go out and teach somebody that I don't come back feeling really good about having done that. It isn't that you first think, “Wow, I'm really great because I went out and taught somebody and they thought I was really great.” It isn't that at all. It's rather you come back and you feel that you did something that is appreciated and you see something come out of it. That's good, and you can take that to the bank.

And Melanie Henry credits teaching with changing her whole worldview:

I think teaching is one of the things that's changed the center of gravity of my worldview. I've always loved the Craft, but watching what happens in classes is some of the stuff that has changed my center of gravity from being basically a rationalist to being, well, frankly not a rationalist. And I think I accelerated that process by teaching. Nothing will make you grow up faster—if you're willing to grow up—than teaching.

Teaching Will Bring New People into Your Life

Whether they're your students or other teachers, teaching can expand your horizons by connecting you with like-minded people whom you might not have met any other way. It will also bring people into your life who are not like you at all, but whom you will learn a great deal from.

I'm pretty sure my current crop of students—with their wildly divergent histories, jobs, family situations, and needs—would never have crossed paths if it weren't for our class. Yet they come together to learn Paganism. They don't always agree—actually, they usually don't, and it can get pretty emotional at times—but the members of the group are nevertheless richer for knowing each other and having the opportunity to see the world through each other's eyes. Together they make a vibrant—if occasionally volatile—little community.

Brian Rowe, a Wiccan new to teaching, talked about teaching to create and experience a sense of community:

One reason I teach is a connection with a small-group community. And when you get a group of people together, there is such potential to work together—and to take the best aspects of one another and build off of those—that it's very different from doing solo practice or individual work. I'm somewhat driven by that small sense of trustworthy, intimate community.

Teaching Can Expand Your Tradition and Practice

Want to find others who practice your particular flavor of Paganism? One of the best ways to do that is to teach them yourself! I speak from experience here; when my husband and I moved to our current city, there was nobody here who was practicing our tradition. Ours is a path that works better with more people, so our best option was to teach others and have them join us. Sylva Markson had a similar experience:

I want a group of people to work with who are as excited and engaged in the Craft as I am. And I feel that I have not been able to find that. I want to do it within my tradition. I mean, there are people who are engaged and excited about what they are doing in every tradition, and that's great, but I want to do it in
my
tradition, and I'm at a point where I need to make it in order to have it.

Melanie Henry talks about finding others who share her love of ritual:

Teaching brings me new ritual partners, which is huge. There's just nothing like doing really beautiful ritual with people who really know what they're doing on an energetic level…. Teaching is my doorway to doing that.

Teaching Is Being a Steward of
Pagan Knowledge and Traditions

Many of the people I interviewed for this book told me that one of their prime motivations for being a teacher was not just to educate others about Paganism but also to preserve and transmit Pagan traditions.

Patrick McCollum commented:

One of my big motivations is to make sure that we don't lose the knowledge we already have, because we're expanding so rapidly as a community. It is far easier to lose the knowledge than it was in the past, even in the very ancient past, because we move forward at a rate like fifty or a hundred times faster than everybody else. Modern society teaches you to skip and make shortcuts to get from point A to point B as quickly as you can, and so we have a tendency to cut through stuff…. Ours is not a tradition that works well under that model, and so I just want to help preserve the knowledge.

Ellen Evert Hopman had a similar take that is focused on our rich Pagan history:

I think it's really important that Pagans have a sense of how old these traditions are. My concern is that if we are going to be considered a great world religion, then we all need to know our heritage, and know that our heritage is as old and older than what the Christians have, what the Muslims have, and perhaps even what the Jews have. So we are one of the great world religions, but we don't always act like it.

Anne Marie Forrester spoke about stewardship of the Craft, not only to preserve our past but also to ensure its survival:

Teaching helps preserve the Craft, and I get a great deal of satisfaction knowing that the Craft is going to grow and thrive and continue.

Teachers Experience “The Light Bulb”

Once in a while when you're teaching and everything is going smoothly—or even somewhat smoothly—there comes a magic moment when your student or students have a breakthrough. They make an important connection, they have a personal epiphany, they have a paradigm-shifting insight, and the light bulb goes on over their heads like in a Bugs Bunny cartoon. It's an incredible rush for them, but it's even better for the teacher, knowing that you helped facilitate this discovery. Many teachers I know, including Sylva Markson, say that the light-bulb moments are what keeps them inspired and doing the work.

Markson comments:

I find great satisfaction when people come to great realizations on their own. And if I've had some small part in guiding them or giving them the opportunity, then I feel great reward in that. I feel very strongly that each individual has his or her own path, so it's not like I'm taking credit for it. I don't feel like, “I've done such a great job, look at how spiritual this person is!” But at the same time, as an initiator you are offering them an opportunity to explore a certain path, and to go along with them on that path—to walk alongside them—is really exciting.

When I asked Patrick McCollum what inspired him to teach, he had a similar answer:

The excitement of people learning something they didn't know and seeing that mental connection go on. The light in their eyes when they connect something that they know and something else that they know, but they were missing a link between those two things, and all of a sudden the things connected, and then they realize that they have a wealth of knowledge already that they couldn't tap into because they didn't know the connections.

Stephanie Raymond talked to me about wanting to create ritual that could be a catalyst for participants to have spiritual discoveries:

I know when I came to my very first Pagan event, it just made my head spin how in those four or five hours that I was there, so many of my preconceived notions of how the world was—that this is just how things are, and how people act, how they have to be—were just completely tossed out the window, but in a way that wasn't confrontational…. That still stays with me, and I think about that with what I'm trying to create with my rituals. It's like, “How can I make that happen for
people
—take something that everybody assumes ‘this is how it is' and turn it on its side?”

And T. Thorn Coyle talked to me about helping each student make one important discovery:

In each class, I hope someone will get one thing they feel they can work deeply with. Overall, my hope is that people will become more themselves, commit to their lives, walk further and further toward integration and wholeness, and become more effective in their work on this planet. But that all begins with making a deep commitment to that one practice, that one insight, that first step.

Teachers Have a Reason to Be Proud

Almost everyone I interviewed for this book mentioned the joy and pride they took in seeing their students succeed, both while they were teaching the students and afterward. When I asked him what inspired him to teach, Oberon Zell-Ravenheart—author, teacher, and Pagan elder—answered:

Seeing my students go forth into the world and put into practice the things I've taught them. Seeing them become effective and beloved leaders and teachers in their turn, with students of their own. Seeing the legacy of my life's work and studies becoming manifest in succeeding generations. (I've now taught three generations!) And having my students come back to me decades later and tell me how grateful they were to have learned from me.

Anne Marie Forrester had a similar point of view:

I feel so proud when I see former students casting a circle, invoking the gods, or stepping up to take leadership roles
in the community. They do such a good job, I just burst with pride. I love it when they become my equal (or better),
because then the relationship changes from “master and pupil” to simply good friends who share a common bond. It's been a real privilege to have these quality people in my life.