Why did you want to teach?

[Gufbal1982]

I see several posters wanted to be full-time teachers, but ended up in MA instead. Not a bad deal. For me, tho, other way around. Have been a teacher of worst of the worst kids (in most people's eyes) for almost 20 years. In the beginning, lots of freedom for teachers to help kids who might bring in any manner of baggage: from every imaginable abuse, to undiagnosed learning problems/needs, to homes with no father and mother a prostitute, to all older brothers and cousins and sometimes father and mother--even grandparents--in the neighborhood gang and kid had better be too, or else--and so forth. By about 2000, the pressure was really on educators to throw out everything but academics (hard to teach academics to a kid who hasn't eaten for 24 hours--and no, the county/state safety net doesn't care; or maybe they care, but just too overloaded to be effective).

Alright, too late to make a long story short, but I'll do better now. :uhyeah: Took up martial arts in early 90s to fulfull long-time interest and burn off stress. By the time public school teaching got to be a drag, had attained fairly senior position, and soon after began reaching those very kids I'd started out to help by teaching them martial arts after school. Starting to really catch on now.

Now, do I get an honorary Ph.D. for this dissertation? Hello?...anyone still there???? No, oh well I enjoyed telling it anyway.

Wow! that's pretty cool! I used to teach children with autism and that was fun! The ADHD children weren't as fun in the beginning, but after I learned how to switch and keep them moving every 60 seconds, it was fun for me. I love teaching children. They are one of my favorite bunches to teach. I love teaching adults as well...teens however are a whole different story. I didn't like them very much. Anyone else have problems with teens?

 

[kidswarrior]

Wow! that's pretty cool! I used to teach children with autism and that was fun! The ADHD children weren't as fun in the beginning, but after I learned how to switch and keep them moving every 60 seconds, it was fun for me. I love teaching children. They are one of my favorite bunches to teach. I love teaching adults as well...teens however are a whole different story. I didn't like them very much. Anyone else have problems with teens?

Very cool, Gufbal! Good on ya'. We all have ages we're best with. I must have really made someone in charge of karma mad because teens are what I'm best at.... :shock:

 

[Dr John M La Tourrette]

Look, everyone knows you got your PhD from a degree mill and your videos stink. Why don't you go waste your time on some other forum?

Well,
Even though this fellow is now gone, many probably do wonder and they should wonder because of the false slander on the internet, so I'll tell a short version of what actually happened. The good news is you can verify for yourself the truth of what I’ll be saying.

I did receive my PhD in Sports Psychology in 1987 from ColumbiaPacificUniversity after 2 years of study and of writing my dissertation.

I also have 2 BA degrees from Southern Oregon College, which I attended from 1962-1966 (I had a 4 year stint in the Army Security Agency as a translator of the Korean Language, and cryptographer, with a Top Secret Clearance).

And again from 1970-1973. My two majors were Humanities and Spanish. My two minors were, Secondary Education and Psychology.

My MBA (Master's degree) was in Business Management.

In 1997, 10 years AFTER I earned my PhD, ColumbiaPacificUniversity lost its California state’s accreditation.

When the angry fellow attempted to discredit me on kenpotalk and a few other places, he told them about the 1997 loss of accreditation but neglected to mention that ALL DEGREES RECEIVED PRIOR TO 1997 ARE VALID.

Why did he do that? He does have his own agenda. I did kick him off of my own list 2 years ago. He is angry for many reasons. We know who he is, and where he lives. And people are working on it.

Now, what does this post have to do with the thread topic?

I love teaching and I’ve been teaching martial arts (first Kano Judo, then Okazaki Dan Zan Ryu Jujitsu back in 1957), so I went a received a 4 year degree in Education. I do NOT like teaching High School but I love teaching Kenpo Karate and I’ve been teaching it for 37 years.

I did want to earn a good living at teaching Kenpo Karate so I went back to college in BoiseID and studied Sales, Marketing and Business Management.

I love helping people, so I focused on Psychology, and because I love teaching Kenpo Karate I went back and earned a PhD in Sports Psychology.

Dr. John M. La Tourrette

 

[Dr John M La Tourrette]

Now, do I get an honorary Ph.D. for this dissertation? Hello?...anyone still there???? No, oh well I enjoyed telling it anyway.

I liked your post until the INTENTIONAL "slur".

I'm surprised you are gullible enough to swallow "bad information".

You want to talk privately?

Dr. John M. La Tourrette

 

[Clapping_tiger]

I started teaching because I knew that my version of Kenpo was the one and only way Mr. Parker wanted it taught.:wink2:

Just kidding. I started teaching because I really liked helping people learn what I learned. I knew what it was like to be the new guy/gal and wanted to just pay my experience forward and help others progress. Now I teach because I need training partners.

 

[Dr John M La Tourrette]

I started teaching because I knew that my version of Kenpo was the one and only way Mr. Parker wanted it taught.:wink2:

Just kidding. I started teaching because I really liked helping people learn what I learned. I knew what it was like to be the new guy/gal and wanted to just pay my experience forward and help others progress. Now I teach because I need training partners.

Nice,
I especially liked that first one.

I've must have heard it at least 1,000 times by now. "I'm the one and only true disciple of Guru XXX", and of course, they are all doing their kenpo differently. Loved your humor.

Thank you for giving me a great launching start to a new day.
Dr. John M. La Tourrette

 

[tellner]

John, the question was "Why did you want to teach?"

It wasn't "Why is my style the best thing since crunchy peanut butter".
It wasn't "Please give us an example of your advertising copy."
It wasn't even "How well do NLP verbal techniques translate to the printed page?" (to which the answer is "poorly").

It was pretty simple and phrased in clear words of one syllable.

So what's your answer to the question he or she actually asked?

 

[terryl965]

[playnice]TerryStoker[/playnice]

 

[stone_dragone]

I first started teaching because I knew that to teach something well was to truly know it. I kept teaching because I love handing down the arts.

 

[Clapping_tiger]

Thanks John, I knew most Kenpoists would get that humor. Those that didn't are part of the problem.

 

[KenpoDave]

When I began college, I was struggling with that whole "What do you want to do when you grow up?" thing. My father told me that the secret to being happy was to find that hobby that you liked doing so much that you wanted to do it all the time, everyday, for the rest of your life.

Then figure out a way to get paid to do it.

He was right.

 

[Dr John M La Tourrette]

Thanks John, I knew most Kenpoists would get that humor. Those that didn't are part of the problem.

You are welcome.

I did find your post amazingly funny...and real.

Dr. John M. La Tourrette

 

[Dr John M La Tourrette]

When I began college, I was struggling with that whole "What do you want to do when you grow up?" thing. My father told me that the secret to being happy was to find that hobby that you liked doing so much that you wanted to do it all the time, everyday, for the rest of your life.

Then figure out a way to get paid to do it.

He was right.

Yep.
A bit different here, but really close to what you went through.

I had two college degrees and I was getting tremendous flack from all sides "to go out and teach high school...to use my degrees...to make money"...

...But I loved martial arts so much (it was taekwon-do at the time, 1973) that I would rather die than do anything else.

But that insidious money thing kept creeping in. How can I make enough money to pay the bills by doing something like teaching martial arts?

Then I saw the Joe Lewis/Tracy ad, and went to work for one of their franchises at slave wages...and I found out "how to make money" and do what I loved doing, at the same time. I am eternally grateful to Jim and Al for that.

Then I went out on my own, and virtually every family member (with the exception of my wife) knew I was stupid, crazy, a loser, blab, blab, blab, so getting start up funds for that first business was difficult.

How I got the minimum finances is a book in and of itself, which I will not cover here, and should be on a different thread any how.

The good news is, 6 years later (1980) I did retire...until I started going crazy with lack of "doing martial arts"(which was Kenpo Karate)...

Which I found out, "doing Kenpo Karate" was much more important to me than anything else.

Even though the sells from my books (now DVD's, manuals and CD's) was doing rather well since 1978.

Thank you Dave for reminding me of that really important aspect.

Dr. John M. La Tourrette
www.realspeedhitting.com