When Teaching Taekwondo...

There was a story I know about one fine night when instructors were taking classes, as usual all doing their best to impart their knowledge to the students and at the same time cultivating important values of Taekwondo such as discipline into them. Suddenly, a loud roar came from a lady shouting out to one of the instructor. This unexpected situation surprised everyone. The lady is actually one of the student’s parent.

What happened was that she felt that her child is being scolded like an idot and that she does not agree to the teaching method used by the instructor. She felt that respect must work both ways and that respect is not given to her child. After the class, another parent ask his child to bow to the that instructor who was being shouted at, perhaps a sign of showing support that he did nothing wrong.

What the instructor did was to tell the boy to pay more attention in his usual stern manner. As an instructor, sometimes it is necessary to be stern but not abusive in their words or actions of course to drive a point across. And in this case talking about respect, shouldn’t the parent talk to the chief instructor or the instructor after the class instead of shouting across in the middle of the lesson?

Parents naturally love their children but sometimes they should entrust them to the instructor when lesson starts. Of course when noticed that instructors are weird or too aggressive, parents should question them but I seriously hope that they will have the correct judgement in understanding the instructor’s well intentions. As an instructor, I believe in motivating students in a fun learning environment. For those students who have always been well-behaved and attentive I believe good instructors will usually talk to them nicely. For those who are really too mischievious, we can talk to them nicely to make them understand but if they continued to fall on deaf ear, perhaps one can talk in a more serious manner so that they will know you are really serious. It is after all a discipline sport.

As well as the instructors want to give their best in training the student up in the values and skills of Taekwondo, they will also need the support of the parents to accomplish their mission.