Teaching Teenagers in Private High Schools

Sharing Knowledge: The Workshops

Led and written by Amy Tyksinki

Getting Started:

• Find a contact in a High School. This contact could be a parent, teacher, administrator, or even a student as a way of initiating a connection to the school!

• Tailor your class to what the High School offers. Think outside the box as far as who might be interested.

• Talk with the Counseling department (relaxation, stress relief), History department (Eastern philosophy class or unit on East Asia), Physical Education department (alternative to more competitive sports; also enhances balance, concentration and flexibility so would be an interesting addition to Sport Team conditioning), Foreign Language department (if they teach Chinese or Japanese). Don’t limit yourself solely to the PE department. There may be a teacher somewhere who is doing a small unit in which T’ai Chi Chih would be applicable.

• Talk with the adult in charge of on-campus Clubs. Usually there is a presentation or announcement at the beginning of the year for open enrollment into school clubs. How about a T’ai Chi Chih club after school?!

• Don’t start at the top, hoping to get permission from the principle. Start with a teacher that you know (or who a friend knows.) Put the word out through that teacher that you are available to teach TCC.

• Be open to doing one-time presentations or small units in collaboration with a classroom teacher before you get established with the school as a known entity where a full class can develop.

• If you don’t have a personal contact, sent a letter of introduction with a small portfolio of your teaching experience, what T’ai Chi Chih is and how it could benefit or be of interest to the school in a variety of ways. Send these letters to Chairs of the departments and tailor the letters to each individual Chair’s discipline.

Working with Teens:

• Be interested in who the teens are as people. (Teens may be quick to judge but also quick to forgive.) They are amazing, interesting, and dynamic to work with! They feel the flow of the chi very quickly.

• If you have hesitation working with a large group, try working with a smaller group or even the teen child of a friend who might be interested in TCC. Be able to set calm, clear, firm but kind limits.

• Move first and foremost. Get them to feel the movement before doing a lot of lecturing.

• Use physical and concrete body cues – Ask students to “Feel your feet on the floor” rather than “Stay grounded” which is more esoteric.

• Use a multisensory approach to draw the teens into the form.

o An example of “flow” is when you’re driving to school and you hit all green lights effortlessly.

o An example of softness is bringing a very soft cloth to class (Amy Hackenberg did this in Amy T’s class and it really made an impact. Amy T. has used it ever since and the kids love it.) Pass the cloth around and have the kids try to embody the softness from the inside out when they start to move.

o Have a practice with music.

o Ask the kids to come up with images that demonstrate “letting go”, “the effort of no effort”, “softness”, “circularity”, and “polarity.”

• Requiring teens to interact with one another about the movements deepens their own understanding and body connection. Asking a teen to “teach” the class as if the class had not yet learned a movement connects the student differently to their own practice.

• Work large group, small group, one-on-one. Change the configurations. Sometimes Amy has the students practice facing the wall in individual spots around the room. Because they rarely practice outside of class, this is one of the only times they have an opportunity to practice the form “by themselves.” It is powerful to observe how deeply they can go when they focus inward without the distraction of their peers.

• Sprinkle the class with exposure to Justin via Justin Stone Speaks on T’ai Chi Chih audio cassette tape. (At Amy’s school, she plays a few minutes every few classes. Other days she plays one segment of the video Interviews with Justin Stone and Carmen Brocklehurst. Class meets three times a week, 50 minutes a session, for 18 weeks.) Read segments from Spiritual Odyssey.