// Network Blog
Recent Posts
Post Categories
aRCHIVE
TAG CLOUD
Written by Network and select guest authors, this blog is designed to keep you up to speed with everything fitness industry related. Contribute and help shape the industry.
Are you an empty preacher or a great teacher?
by Ryan Hogan | Tuesday, December 29, 2009
The following post is written by Network's Online Trainer Skye Jones.
Before I get my ‘intellectual’ cap on, let me just preface this blog post by saying that I have followed two career paths in my life – one being an artist and visual arts educator with my specific focus being community arts projects, and the other being a fitness professional. I am a personal trainer and a group exercise instructor.
Recently I had a personal trainer say to me, ‘Kudos to you for being a group exercise instructor. You really are fit – we just get paid to look fit’. This statement raised all sorts of interesting questions and theories of ethics and model behaviour; that is, our actual conduct, work attire, morals and professionalism. A profession involves a social service, intellectual techniques and activities, a code of ethics and independent judgment relative to professional performance. It fosters growth and individual autonomy with a high level of work commitment, whereby leisure and other activities are often restricted.
Having spent time teaching in a high school, one thing that I found was how much the environment is like a fitness centre. In my analogy the personal trainers and group fitness instructors are the teachers and the members are, of course, the students. The governing body Fitness Australia is just like the Department of Education or the Catholic Education Office. And furthermore, the classroom is the group fitness studio and the gym floor is the school playground.
When you teach fitness classes there are the greyhounds in the front row. They are attentive, do exactly what you say and are there to learn. The middle pack is the main body of students. They learn at their own pace and go through the motions. They will follow orders and participate. Then there are the people who sneak in late and hope that you will not notice them in the back row. While they seem like underachievers – they really are eager to learn.
The playground is the gym floor as it is the place to be ‘yourself.’ There are the students who mark their territory by training in certain areas. There are students who hog the playground equipment. There are even students who sneer and jeer and then there are students who are quite happy to do their own thing.
The task for the teacher is difficult as he/she must understand and model ethical behaviour. If ethics can be divided into two strands there would be the ethic of justice and the ethic of care. The ethic of justice is where the teacher is impartial or neutral. The ethic of care is where the teacher shows feelings of empathy or support.
As teachers we teach by what we do as well as by what we say. There is a modelling process and direct instruction in ‘our classrooms’. The skilful teacher can develop shared learning experience without resorting to empty preaching. The teaching of values and morals is about raising questions – not giving answers and offering crude didactics.
Are you a fitness professional who oozes moral influence? Do you show respect, decency, equity, civility, integrity, responsibility, freedom, justice and the rule of law? Or are you aloof and disrespectful of colleagues and members? Do you dress yourself up in the cloak of fitness pretending to be a super hero when in actual fact you are the villain?
If YOU are a personal trainer or group exercise instructor who looks the part but is far from it, why don’t you set yourself a New Year’s Resolution to get fit and be a great teacher, rather than an empty preacher?
