A Teaching Handbook for Wiccans and Pagans (9 page)

It might also be because you have a good reputation or they feel comfortable with you. These are good reasons for students to want to study with you. But if they suck up to you or try to butter you up while you are discussing what they think you can offer them, take that as a red flag. They might only be trying to show you how interested they are in learning from you, but people who suck up to you—who are disingenuous about what they think of you or what they're after—usually make poor students at best, and can have ulterior motives at worst. It's also good to be careful with people who are sucking up to you because you might never live up to their expectations. They need to know up front that you are human, you will make mistakes, and you don't expect them to put you on a pedestal or pander to you.

What's really sad are potential students who prostrate themselves in front of you not because they're trying to manipulate you or get something out of you, but because they think that's what they're supposed to do. It's an unfortunate fact that there have been some Pagan teachers who have acted like they walk on water and like they are superior to their students and deserve accolades and adulation. This is a good opportunity to show your potential student that you are not one of those. (Because you're not, right?)

Compatibility

Screening to find out if a potential student's personality is compatible with yours and those of your other students is very important in any
longer
-term teaching situation. Sylva Markson explains:

I look for basic compatibility of personality—I mean, they have to be someone we like, because ultimately a coven is in a lot of ways an adult family. We throw around the term “family of choice” a lot, but ultimately it's really true in that these are people you're working with on a deep level. You have to be able to let your guard down with them. You have to be able to trust them. You're going to have a level of intimacy just by virtue of the fact that you're dealing with your spirituality with these people. So they have to be people that you like, that you are willing to work with on that level.

And, as Melanie Henry points out, if you are doing any sort of energy work, it really helps if the student can gel with your energy and
/
or that of your group:

We're very flexible and have very few hard and fast rules, but you have to get the energy right to work with us. That might sound like sort of a loosey-goosey boundary, but it's not really. What I find is that people who do not hang with the energy kind of get ejected. That can be painful for everybody, unfortunately, which is not something I would desire, but it's an interesting process.

Brian Rowe also talked about the importance of new members being compatible with an existing group because of the impact that group members can have on each other:

When we're dealing with a small-group coven, each personality and each communication style has the ability to magnify other traits in people in the coven. If somebody brings something forward, it can ripple through the group.

This is not to say that everyone has to be a perfect fit. Flexibility in dealing with others' personalities and quirks can be a very important trait in potential students, and willingness to meet others in the group halfway can make up for some inherent differences in preferences or opinions. Sylva Markson commented:

Open-mindedness. I've talked about how you have to allow each individual to be an individual, but they have to allow the other people in the group to be individuals too. They can't come in with such firm ideas about what everybody has to believe or what everybody has to do, because if they do, they're going to wind up having lots of conflicts with other people in the group who don't fit in their mold.

Again, it's impossible to tell for certain during a screening process whether someone will be compatible with you and your group. You can try to ensure that people have the basic qualities you'd like up front, but the rest unfolds as people get to know each other.

And you can at least rule out people who have obvious compatibility issues with your group. For example, my husband and I once interviewed a potential student who had just moved to our city. During the course of our conversation, it became obvious that she wouldn't get along with our existing group for two reasons. First, she told us that she wanted a group that was “all business,” with little socializing and chatting. However, our group is a coven, and socializing is critical to building bonds between covenmates. The real clincher, though, was when she told us that when she decided to move, she had simply
dumped
her dogs, because it was too much of a bother to pack them up and bring them along. She didn't try to find a home for them or even bring them to the Humane Society or another shelter. I was appalled and furious and practically in tears, and wanted to report her for animal cruelty. There was no way she'd ever get along with our pet-loving coven. This story also told me something about her ethics as well. It's often said that you can judge people by how they treat children, the elderly, and animals. This woman would not have passed the test.

You might not have the same ideas as I do about caring for animals, but if there are other issues that you really care about that you think will affect how you work with someone, it doesn't hurt to find out where your potential students stand before you take them on.

Stability and Commitments

Unless you're teaching a very informal class, during a screening process it's good to get a sense of what a potential student's other commitments are, where they are in their lives, and how stable things are for them. If their lives are in chaos or transition, it might not be a good time for them to be studying Paganism with you, depending on how intense or challenging your material is. On the other hand, if they are in crisis, your teaching might help provide them some stability to get them through it.

Ethics

Although you will never be able to ascertain without a doubt whether a person is ethical during a screening, asking questions about ethics is very important. The more intimate the setting of your class or group, the more you want to know that your potential students have a sense of right and wrong, and, preferably, a personal ethical code that is compatible with yours and with those of your other students. You don't have to pose ethical puzzles or grill your potential students about every little choice they have made or would make, but getting some idea of the students' sense of ethics can save you a lot of trouble in the long run. The closer-knit your group is, the more important it is to try to avoid taking on people who are either unethical or whose sense of ethics clashes with those of the rest of the group members. An unethical person in a situation like this—or in any teaching situation, really—can be a time bomb.

Red Flags and Obvious Nuttiness

“Red flags” are clues—usually odd behaviors or weird comments—that tip you off to the possibility of undesirable behaviors or traits in a potential student, or that the person is not in possession of a full set of marbles. Some of these can be fairly obvious, scary, funny, or all of those combined, like one that Melanie Henry mentioned in our interview: “The guy who told us he was a bounty hunter and that we had to have him in the class.” Anne Marie Forrester also mentioned an obvious red flag she encountered:

Not everybody who writes us are people we end up being willing to meet … like one person who told us all about their Michigan vampire tradition and how they already knew everything there was to know and we could just initiate them via the mail.

And some of the red flags are more subtle, such as when people you're screening contradict themselves, repeat themselves a lot, or are generally twitchy. This can be an indicator that they are withholding information or even lying.

When we were talking about red flags in our interview, Melanie Henry commented, “It's not the obviously insane ones that'll get you. It's the subtly insane ones that'll get you.” Although she said it half-jokingly, we laughed about it more because it's true than because it was funny. People who are obviously unbalanced aren't likely to make it past your screening, so they're less of a danger. People who are able to hide symptoms, or whose condition creeps up on them so even they don't know what's going on until it's too late, are much more problematic than the person claiming to be Elvis or an ambassador from Venus.

Unless you're a psychiatrist, chances are you aren't going to be able to tell if someone is “subtly crazy” during a screening. But one thing you can look for in advance that can be an important key to determining if someone's behavior is going to be a problem or not is empathy. If students display a lack of empathy—an inability or unwillingness to be aware of and sensitive to what another person is feeling or experiencing in a situation—chances are their ethics and behaviors aren't going to meet your standards. Lack of empathy can be an indicator of anything from an overinflated ego or selfish nature to full-blown narcissism. It can also be a sign of other mental health issues. In my experience, of all of the problems you can come across when working with people, lack of empathy—people who just don't give a damn about others—is probably one of the most subtly destructive and difficult to work with.

Remember, though, that sometimes people do weird things when you meet them for the first time not because they're nuts but because they're nervous, or, if you're meeting them in person, because they just don't interview well. So you need to take wacky behavior during a screening with a little bit of salt sometimes. And you need to think about your own behavior—how you might be coming across to the potential student—and how that might influence how he or she acts.

As Sarah Davies points out:

As far as mainstream society is concerned, what we [Wiccans] do is freaking weird. You bring people into your home, and you're pointing knives everywhere and making geometric shapes. I can see where someone can go, “This is not what I signed up for.”

We had one potential student who met us for coffee and attended one class. During both the coffee and the class, she repeatedly told us that her friends knew exactly where she was, what she was doing, and who she was with. It was obvious she wanted us to know that she'd be missed if we decided to kidnap her, indoctrinate her into a cult, and use her as a ritual sacrifice. After the first class she never came back, and she never called or emailed to let us know she wouldn't be returning. We can only assume we scared the hell out of her—not at all surprising, because she was already nervous and we're a loudmouthed, strong-willed group of people, and we were very vocal during the one class she attended. She probably wasn't a good match for our class, but even so, we knew she was nervous, and we should have toned down our discussion a notch. The point is, yes, she was acting a little weird, but our behavior didn't help.

This is one of those areas in which you really should rely on your gut. If you are uncomfortable with a behavior a potential student is exhibiting during screening, don't ignore that feeling, especially if you think they are being disingenuous or lying. They don't need to tell you every little detail about their lives before you take them on, but what they do tell you should be the truth.

Mental Health

Screening for mental health is tricky. On one hand, your students' medical situation is none of your business. But on the other hand, it
is
your business, because it can affect their behavior and ability to do well in your class, it can have an impact on your other students, and you as the teacher will need to deal with it directly if their illness causes problems. The phrase “mental health” spans a wide range of meanings, and most people don't like talking about their mental health status for fear of judgment or because they consider it private. But the more intimate your teaching setting is, the more important it is to at least know the basics of your students' mental health status.

Christopher Penczak told me:

I have a questionnaire that I use for my long-term classes, and mental illness is not necessarily prohibitive to taking the class, as some of my most amazing students have had some serious clinical diagnoses, but the questions allow me to see if they are aware and are receiving support or will try to minimize or deny it. Some have been a problem in short-term public workshops and even a couple in long-term training. Usually when the person refuses outside aid or support from the mental health community it tends to end badly, and all you can do is bless them and hope they find a healing path.

There is more information about dealing with students' mental health issues in
C hapter 10
.

Drug and Alcohol Use and Addictions

If you are going to be involved in students' lives in any more than a passing way, it's a good idea to ask students about their drug and alcohol use and whether or not they have any addiction issues. There is more information on dealing with students' drug and alcohol issues in
C hapter 10
.

Arrest or Prison Record

It might seem extreme, but for your own safety and the safety of your other students, it's a good idea to ask potential students if they have an arrest or prison record. As with the mental health and addiction issues, you can decide on a case-by-case basis whether or not you're willing to take on someone with a prison record or rap sheet. In some cases, Pagan teachings can be very helpful to ex-cons and people who have committed crimes in the past who want to get their lives going on a better track. Just be aware of what you are taking on.

Screening Methods

So now that you know what you're looking for, how do you screen students? There are several useful techniques. Which one(s) you use will vary depending on what you're teaching and in what context you're teaching it.

Informative Emails