Teaching Philosophy

1. Progress is not linear

According to a contrarian author, Nicholas Nassim Taleb, progress is never linear but ups and downs and bursts. In both his track and field as well as education journey, the tutor has had ups and downs and bursts.

He knows that if you weather the downs, the bursts will come. He is not discouraged by what appears on the surface as what may seem to some as a long time of no growth.

He believes that with patience and perseverance, there will be periods of sudden and almost miraculous (if you believe in miracles) bouts of progress.

He believes that with consistent input and will, results would come naturally especially when you are not focused on them.

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2. The Pygmalion or Rosenthal Effect

The Pygmalion effect is what may be otherwise known as a self-fulfilling prophecy.

If a teacher believes in you and speaks affirmatively to you, you are bound to view yourself more positively and perform in accordance with his good opinion of you.

The converse is also true. The tutor’s track and field experience was influenced largely by his teacher who was also a renowned track and field coach. She picked a bunch of kids from a neighbourhood secondary school who had never won medals in primary school and turned them into medal winners at the national level in 5 to 6 years.

The tutor often dreamed of standing on a podium getting a medal in his primary and secondary school days. Each year, as he participated in the inter-school track and field championships, he watched with awe how the same few athletes blazed the track to win time and again.

He wanted badly to be among them but struggled to believe he was in their league. This coach was not as fazed as he was by intense competition. She was cool and she believed. She kept telling her athletes that they had it in them. Having been the unlikeliest of medal winners, the tutor himself now is a firm believer of this coach’s training philosophy.

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3. Flowing and not Striving

The Tao Te Ching teaches ‘Wu Wei’ or the principle of not striving. While making no claim whatsoever to understand what this profound principle is, the tutor believes in not striving.

His priority is to avoid a frustrated state of mind. He thinks frustration can be avoided while working towards progress by getting into a state of flow, which has been described at length by psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi.

This eminent psychologist has found what he claims is the secret of being so productive that you are oblivious of time passing. He suggests this is always possible if what we are working on is slightly above our current skill level, there are always higher stages of difficulties to graduate to and there is timely feedback on current performance.

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