Where's Sara?

Hi everyone. It's Harlan subbing for Sara this week.  She's a little bit under the weather and needs to save her strength for her trip to India next week.  I've got a very important article to share with you this week and I hope it creates some food for thought.

I recently spoke with spiritual teacher Sonia Choquette and she recommend a book to me.  I bought a copy for myself and picked one up for Sara as well.  She began to laugh because she already had the book for years and recognized it as important.  She asked me to share it with you.  The book is The Artist's Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity [10th Anniversary Edition] I've marked this book off as my Shabbat reading.  I do hope you will check it out.

What Makes A Good Yoga Teacher?

Some background for you.  I have a doctorate in Administration and Supervision in Education and did post doctoral work at Harvard's Graduate School of Education.  For nearly twenty years, my primary job as an Educational Leader was to supervise what was going on in the classroom.

My type-A personality lead me to study everything about interactions between teacher and student.  Each year, I had to evaluate teachers and help them grow.  After teachers realized I was there to help them and not take away their jobs, they looked forward to my visits.  In time, my visits became celebrations to recognize their growth.

Over time, it became easy to tell the effective teachers who were stimulating children's minds and those who were inhibiting their growth.

The effective teachers were the ones interacting with the students.  The word educate comes from the Latin root - educare - to draw out.  Teachers drew the knowledge from the students.

The ineffective teachers stood in the front of the room and lectured.  There was little or no interactivity with the students.  They viewed themselves as the source of all knowledge.

The paradigm of teaching yoga is very different from that of teaching in a classroom.  In yoga, the students are generally silent focused on their breathing as they move from asana to asana.

And yet, I've experienced great yoga teachers and poor yoga teachers.

And rather than tell you - like the ineffective teacher - I'd rather draw it out of you.

On our forum I've started a thread in the section called "Questions on our Videos and Articles" for your thoughts.

Would you please join us and share your thoughts?  I have some opinions I'd like to share with you as well.

Here Is Where You Join The Discussion

Sara and I wish you and your families a joyous holiday season.

To find out how to post and use the forum go to:

http://www.buildyouryogabusiness.com/register.html

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