Hosting a TCC Teacher Training

I recently planned and facilitated a seven month course for preparation of candidates, followed by hosting a teacher training course in New Jersey for 18 candidates. I have been asked to write up some ideas and suggestions for the Vital Force which might be helpful to referring teachers and hosts of training courses in the future. It is not my intention to prescibe a definite plan for anyone, but rather to tell about what I did that seemed to be helpful.

First, I think it is very important that as teachers, we do all that we can to impart the proper perception of the process of becoming a new teacher to the candidate. The referring teacher is perhaps the most important person in a candidate’s preparation until the actual arrival of the course. If a referring teacher does not have the time to give to a student candidate, then it would be wise for that teacher to refer the student to another teacher who does have the time. As a course host, I have encouraged the student candidates to meet with their referring teachers as often as possible, and to enroll in any intermediate level courses or Seijaku if such is available.

I do not think it is sufficient or wise to simply observe the movements of the prospective candidate, and then sign the referral form. There is always more refinement to be done. The student will benefit more, I believe, if the referral form is signed later rather than earlier. The student also needs to know that there is no guarantee that attending the teacher training will result in accreditation. The teacher might also need to say to a candidate for future referral that he/she will be happy to work with the student, but cannot guarantee that the referral will be signed. Paying a registration deposit does not necessarily mean acceptance into the course. There is an important but delicate balance between the encouragement of the student candidate and the importance of them demonstrating their readiness and commitment.

If you are a teacher in an area convenient to a number of prospective candidates for teacher training, you can do a helpful service to TCC either as course host or together with the course host, by setting up a preparation course. Together with Sr. Antonia Cooper, and utilizing space at her place of residence and work, I set up six Saturday sessions, once a month for morning and afternoon. A minimum fee of $20 was charged per day which was split for use of the space and as a stipend to myself as the course facilitator. There was no fee required of area teachers who were encouraged to attend, and many did regularly, which was of great benefit to the student candidates. The availability of ideas and suggestions from teachers other than those with whom students had previously worked proved very valuable to them. These sessions also served as regular opportunities for the local TCC community to come together as well. In addition, we opened these sessions to students who were thinking about becoming teachers sometime in the distant future but who felt they were not yet ready to commit to a specific teacher training course.

The mornings were spent moving. We usually started with a full practice. Following this, we began breaking down the movements, and then allowing the student candidates to work in small groups with the available teachers, preferably with whom they had never worked.

Following lunch, we spent time talking about the training course itself, the presentations, and sharing of questions, experiences and helpful suggestions. I also used this time to speak about the importance of the use of supplementary materials in their preparation, in particular, Justin Stone’s instructional video, his phototext, and his audiocassette, “Justin Stone Speaks On TCC”.

Finally, I offered optional instruction in Seijaku (2:30 to 4 pm) for the candidates who desired this, and I was assisted by other teachers accredited in Seijaku. (It was important to impress on other teachers who had never studied Seijaku that they could NOT take this course — once accredited, they can only LEARN Seijaku from Ed Altman or Justin Stone).

In some cases, the referring teachers were not able to or chose not to attend these preparation sessions. It was important that the responsibility of discerning readiness and the signing of the referral form remained a matter between the referring teacher and the prospective candidate. I did not see it as my job to take over the individual preparation of the candidates in offering these sessions, as helpful as they did prove to be.

As I was also to be the training course host, a specific timeline for taking care of business matters also proved very helpful, and I would highly recommend this to course hosts. I do so strongly for the simple reason that the less business you have to attend to during the actual course, the better off you will be for focusing on important matters of your role during the training week itself.

To this end, I set three payment dates for the training course fee, as well as a deposit date on room and board and balance due date for the same. In this way, all of the financial business was closed a month before the start of the course, and the commitment of each individual was firm. People do sometimes drop out for various reasons. For this reason, a non-refundable deposit might be in order to be sure that all bills are paid and such does not end up coming out of your own income for all of your hard work! (The course host agreement recommends that up to 50% of the training fee be retained in advance as a possibly non-refundable deposit).

I recommend getting the list of course host details from Ed Altman early on, and plan ahead as much as you can.

Finally, as there is no local distributor of Good Karma products, it was my responsibility as course host to provide those materials. I informed everyone in the preparation sessions, or by mail, of the one-time opportunity to obtain Good Karma products (to sell to their future students) at the 40% discount, plus the added bonus of having no postage or handling fee. I put together a list of the basic products and books available with their retail and teacher discount prices, and had each student candidate return it to me in advance with their order. (Payments would not be due until the items were picked up at the course, but orders were pre-organized and packaged for distribution, and each buyer knew in advance the exact amount they would owe in payment). This was a great time saver during the actual course week. I still had ordered some additional products to be available for auditing teachers or candidates who decided they needed extra.

I hope some of this will be valuable to some of you in the future!