CHANGING CHANNELS

     A great instructor has the emotional control to always be in the proper state of mind at the proper time!  ALL INSTRUCTORS WILL EXPERIENCE DAYS WHERE THEY ARE EMOTIONALLY DISRUPTED, AND DON’T WANT TO TEACH!  As instructors, we must realize that people are depending upon you to do your job to the best of your ability!

     Imagine watching a show on television that was boring you to death.  What would you do?  You would simply change the channel to something that was more captivating!  Your emotions are not as simple to change, but with practice, it can be done!

     There is a time and place to deal with the troubling emotions!  The time and place is after you are done teaching, and away from students!

PRE-FRAMING

     Pre-framing is a technique used to get someone to see a situation from a specific viewpoint.  It is very instrumental in influencing people.

Examples of two different ways to pre-frame a class:

Negative Pre-frame:  “You guys are going to have a hard time with this next move.  It’s hard to do and frustrating to teach.”

Positive Pre-frame:  “I’m going to challenge your skill with this next move.  You are going to love it.”

     Whether you know it or not, you unconsciously pre-frame everything you teach.  So consciously pre-framing what you do will help you be the best teacher possible.
What to pre-frame?  Everything!!!  At the beginning of class. . .  “I have an exciting class planned for you today!”

When doing push-ups. . . “All right, we GET to (not have to) do push-ups.  You guys are going to get stronger if you do them correctly.”

In teaching a new self-discipline technique. . . “You are going to love this next move.  It develops your ability to . . .”

RE-FRAMING
Re-Framing is taking a situation that the student views as negative and showing them a benefit or different view.  This is a function of having good communication skills with the students as well as good rapport.  You will find that often times your students will re-frame their experience in a negative way.  For example, I was once teaching someone a kick.  We reached what I thought was a break through.  I was very excited, and told the student how well I thought she did in the lesson.  The response was “I can’t believe I’ve been doing it wrong all this time”.  This student took a positive classroom experience and positive feedback and re-framed the experience to make it negative experience.  I then had to re-frame her again by sharing with her the idea that as she progressed she would find herself able to perform at a higher level. Her instructors would then be able to give her more challenging material, as well as teach her things about the techniques she already knew because of her increased a
bility.

The ability to pre-frame and re-frame a class, student and/or parent is one of your most powerful tools as an instructor

Example:  “My 16 year old daughter is too stubborn and doesn’t do what others tell her to do.”

Response (Re-frame):  “Well, at least she’ll know how to handle aggressive dates.”



Here is a list of commonly asked questions.  How could you re-frame them?