Notes for Curricular Goals Meeting
With our meeting looming this Sunday, I thought I would share some of my thought process with you all to help save some time in the meeting.
A black belt must be of strong moral character first and foremost and, for the most part, I am satisfied with this aspect of the vast majority of our candidates. So it is the physical shortcomings that continue to be my greatest concern.
For me it is always the basics that I am most frustrated about in our black belt gradings. Stances, kicks, forms, etc. I rarely am super satisfied with our candidates performance of these basic techniques. We have tried several strategies to improve our outcomes on these shortcomings but, to date, nothing has had a satisfying impact on improving these techniques.
We have tried simplifying our syllabus so that the students would have more time to practice the basics. This is a solid strategy but it also is dependant upon the student actually practicing on their own. So far - failure.
We have tried moving to a rotating syllabus/curriculum to ensure proper exposure to the techniques happens, along with regular review. This has seen an improvement of overall knowledge in our candidates but only a slight corresponding improvement in skill followed. Probably due to a lack of meaningful practice on the student part.
We have removed student access to the syllabus with the goal of getting them to work more on skill and less on knowledge. This strategy has definitely worked as we are seeing a refreshing and effaceable approach by our Level 1 students who have never seen the syllabus. It will be a while before this change translates to better black belts because the next few years are going to be candidates who have copies of the old syllabus at their disposal.
So moving forwards I have a couple of ideas to share, along with where I would like to see a shift in focus.
A rotating curriculum/syllabus is definitely something we have to pursue. It organizes our classes better and it ensures that all the students, no matter what program they are enrolled in, are learning the same things at the same time. This will make for an easier transition when they change classes.
There is a certain amount of synergy between different syllabus stripes that will allow us to exploit for a more efficient rotation schedule. I see a strong relationship between:
White (6 harmonies) and Yellow (Vocabulary of motion),
Blue (Traditional Tenets) and Red (Keystone Principles),
Black (Wuxin) and Orange (Dynamic Control).
I am committed to double down on the traditional aspect of our curriculum/syllabus. It is the adherence to traditional values and techniques that makes our school unique and strong. With that in mind, I feel very strongly about expanding our Lion Dance syllabus to improve our students’ lion dance skills and to bring us closer in harmony with the international lion dance community.
In the past we have shied away from doing too much lion dancing in class because that takes away from the core basics that the grading board is so concerned about. However if we recognize the close correlation between lion dancing and our Keystone Principle techniques, then shifting our focus to more lion dancing should actually improve our students’ core basic techniques.
I hope these notes help generate ideas and engagement within our group. See you all Sunday.
Black Belt Grading Process 2022
After decades of adjusting and amending our grading process to improve student outcomes, we find ourselves continually struggling to solidify a process that addresses all the problems and roadblocks being experienced by our black belt candidates.
We all are in agreement that the biggest issue our candidates face is mental, not physical. They tend to intellectualize their training and consistently fail to take physical action with their intellectual breakthroughs. As their teachers we can tell them where they are lacking but we have no control on how they ultimately go about addressing our feedback.
An ideal process acknowledges and embraces certain absolutes and values:
Not everyone is able to earn a black belt.
We (teachers) tend to be too involved.
Our grading process should provide bread crumbs to help the candidates find their way. It should not be providing stepping stones.
A candidate should always question their skill, never their effort.
Our students tend to channel their focus to serve the grading process as opposed to pursuing mastery.
There is a black belt standard and that standard is absolute for each individual. It is about each candidate's effort, not just their skill. When we say effort, we are talking about more than just their blood and tears. We're also talking about the sustainable process they use to achieve mastery. This defines their standard:
Ideal - 60% test result after 100% effort.
Not ideal - 90% test result after 60% effort.
Mastery of the curriculum - not just the syllabus.
Moving forward, we have agreed upon an approach to address historical challenges while reinforcing the ideal of mastery over mindless training to pass a test within our students
We will eliminate student access to the CPRS fitness document so that, ideally, a candidate's first exposure to the specifics of the fitness test would be their grading day.
We will remove absolutes for the students. All quantification of their progress will be only for the Board, not the candidates.
The I Ho Chuan year will be the main tool the Board will use to decide Pass/Fail.
The grading day will be the main tool the Board will use to convince the candidates that they earned their promotion or that they did not earn it.
Rather than always seeking to modify our grading process to improve outcomes, we will leave the process alone and focus on modifying our teaching to reinvest in the tools we already have at our disposal by improving their efficacy:
Bring three main focuses into every class:
Warmup
Skill drills with intensity
Main lessons/meat
Continually focus on curriculum in our teachings and redirect and encourage our students to do the same in their learning. Remember - we have a curricular standard, not a syllabus standard.
Jeff Brinker