I’ve been teaching for over 30 years. One thing I have noticed over that time is that many people have a lot of anxiety around learning environments. A lot of adults remember really awful classroom experiences from their childhood, where they were shamed for having a different learning style, endured test anxiety, or were expected to just sit there all day breathing in information and never being given the opportunity to breathe out any questions or opinions or doubts.
Those past experiences, when carried into the present day, can really spoil an amazing opportunity to re-frame the experience of learning. To allay as many fears as I can in advance, I like to provide a blueprint for what people can expect during the Therapeutic Hand & Foot Reflexology Professional Certification.
So here is what the Academy instructors strive to create in the classroom:
Our intention is to provide ample time for the study and experience of Reflexology within a safe, stimulating and supportive environment.
We will begin each day preparing ourselves for the work that we do. There are many ways: quiet contemplation to focus attention on what’s important; a body-scan while following the breath; simple body movements relative to the day’s studies; a chance to “check-in” – report anything of significance in our lives that we need to clear before we can be present.
Working from a holistic model of education, we have designed this program to nurture, not control. The Therapeutic Hand & Foot Reflexology Professional Certification is a feast for learning that uses a variety of teaching methods that will grab your interest and guarantee your success in grasping the program’s extensive content. We seek to encompass and integrate multiple layers of meaning and experience, rather than narrowly define human possibilities.
The classroom space will be what is termed both bounded and open – the instructor will guide discussions towards the topic, while at the same time allowing students the space to formulate and share their own ideas. The environment shall be open to the voice of the individual and the collective; shall honor the “little” stories of the individual as well as the “bigger” stories of the world’s disciplines and traditions, and shall respect speech and solitude as essential to the full realization of what the inner teacher is trying to say.
The quality of relationship within the community is held to be sacred, dynamic and authentic, not manipulative or hierarchical. Participants will take responsibility for co-creating the classroom experience along with the instructor. Respect and kindness are assumed. Sacredness, humor, silence, seriousness and fun co-exist smoothly.
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