Post-Congress Musings
In Honor of All Those Doing Their Best to
Train Future Generations of Alexander Teachers
Part II
The Nine Peas of Progress
As a little girl my daughter loved peas. But she would not merely eat them. First she would arrange them on her plate in pattern after pattern. Then she would eat them, like a raccoon, slowly, one by one.
Why the letter P arose as my letter of alliteration in the attempt to organize my thoughts on how we can save our teacher training programs within our Alexander community from extinction, I do not know.
I do know that the mysterious symbol of the enneagram has on many occasions helped me to organize my thoughts on diverse subjects and difficult processes, and I will use it here as well.
My premise is that in order to survive, in order to get off of the endangered species list, we need to think outside the box, to become more creative, more experimental. Our professional societies play an important role but ultimately, it is society at large that gets the final vote; that runs the show. It is the public that ultimately assesses us, recognizes us, approves us, qualifies us and supports us. Or doesn’t.
The survival of our work rests squarely upon the shoulders of our directors of training. Because it is we who train the teachers and it is the teachers who disseminate the work. The buck stops with us. Alexander cannot save us. Our professional societies, as wonderful as they are, cannot save us. Our splendid Alexander Congresses cannot save us. It is up to the directors of training to figure out ways of being successful, of filling up their own schools.
Here are the nine Peas of Progress I think are worth thinking about slowly, thoroughly, and creatively if our training programs are to survive and thrive. They correspond to the points on the enneagram, which I will elaborate on in this hopefully helpful essay.
Point One – Principles
Point One is about principles, standards, dignity and decency. Actually, it is the only point that I feel must be common to all our training programs. In Body Learning, Michael Gelb succinctly articulates what every training program must address.
Use and Functioning
The Whole Person
Primary Control
Unreliable Sensory Appreciation
Inhibition
Direction
Means Whereby
Every training program must have high standards, whether they are the exact standards agreed upon by a professional society, or their own personal and professional standards. Directors, teachers, and trainees must do their best to honor, respect and act benevolently toward one another. Upon graduating new teachers must commit to doing so toward their students.
Point Two – Pedagogy
Point Two is about pedagogy, and love, and service. Pedagogy means to lead a child, that is, to guide a child, to raise up a child. Pedagogy, in my opinion should differ from school to school. Procedures are part of a teachers pedagogy. Which procedures teacher trainers choose to transmit Alexander’s principles through should be up them. How they integrate observation, language, movement and touch should be up to them. Alexander implored us, “Don’t teach how I teach; teach what you know.” Our trainees are not children, but in comparison to their teacher trainers, they are young to the work. They need to be raised up with the love and attention all children deserve.
Point Three – Profit
Point Three is about profit, about having the executive wherewithal to make a living. Many training programs are closing because they cannot make ends meet. Most people who begin training programs are not independently wealthy and need to earn a living. If they can’t, they have no other recourse than to close up shop. Point Three has to do with image, with appearance, with promotion, with being able to sell the work, make it attractive, relevant, appealing. This means beautiful, classy websites full of great images and contemporary language that speaks to people in their own language. It helps to know how to teach in groups and how to appeal to many different populations. Teacher trainers must possess some business acumen or get help from people who do. This may mean designing effective training structures that make it possible for more people to train, as so many universities have done by creating itinerant programs. How directors succeed in making a living should not be the same. Social, cultural, and economic factors must be taken into consideration, and respected.
Point Four – Profundity
Point Four is about profundity, about deep insight, about transformative experience, about getting to the source, to the core of the self. Has our profession reduced itself to the body, to posture, to movement? Is that what the public thinks our work is entirely about? Do they have any idea that our work is more about being than it is about the body, more about meaning than it is about movement, more about how it feels to be alive than about use and functioning, more about the quality of experience than about effectiveness and efficiency? Why are we afraid to speak publically about the spiritual depth of our work? Why are we selling ourselves and the work short?
Point Five – Philosophy
Point Five is about philosophy, and about the love of truth, whether we look for that truth through science, or psychology, or theology or art. We need to be able to think intelligently about the work and to be able to speak intelligently about the work. We have to be able to understand and speak about our work as a unique field of study, as Ted Dimon so eloquently does. We need to become physio-philosophers. We teacher trainers need to continue studying, questioning, learning, experimenting, and not just within our own discipline but across disciplines. David Moore is a good example.
Point Six – People
Point Six is about people and about community. Abraham Heschel writes, “To be is to be with people. Existence is co-existence.” People seek community, a place to belong. I cannot tell you how many Alexander teachers have told me how isolated they are as Alexander teachers. They have no web of support. They graduate and they are on their own. They sink or swim. There is no lifeguard, no buddy system. My experience tells me we need to create not only teacher training programs, but Alexander communities, communities that continue to support their graduates. We need Alexander refuges where teachers feel welcomed and supported, sanctuaries where they can be reinvigorated and re-inspired. What I see is that the schools that survive and thrive are most often the schools that are community/schools and not merely vocational schools.
Point Seven – Planning
Point Seven is about having a plan, a vision, not a narrow vision but an expansive vision, and a joyful vision. It’s about seeing possibilities. It’s about dreaming. And it is about having fun along the way, about not just studying and practicing the work, but celebrating the work. But it is also about planning out how to turn our visions into a reality. Point seven is also about communicating that vision to others. This requires, as Marjorie Barstow once told me, “a little bit of showmanship.” Directors need some charisma. Some pizzazz. They need to put themselves out there. It takes chutzpah. It takes courage, confidence, guts, but without it having a thriving school is hard to make happen.
Point Eight – Politics
Point Eight is about politics in the original sense of the word, about the city and citizenship, and about governance. We teacher trainers need to know how to govern, how to lead. We need the courage to use our peaceful power to serve others. Here is a piece I wrote, now long ago, that still rings true. This is my personal manifesto as a teacher and director of training.
A Teacher Who Doesn’t Teach
Many teachers teach what they know.
Teachers of the Way,
Teach what they do not know, and need to understand.
Some teachers think highly of themselves.
Teachers of the Way,
Think highly of their students.
Many teachers teach to their students.
Teachers of the Way
Study with their students.
Some teachers teach to be the center of attention.
Teachers of the Way
Teach centered in attention.
Many teachers teach to escape.
Teachers of the Way
Teach for entrance into existence.
Some teachers want to be worshipped.
Teachers of the Way
Teach as a way of worshiping.
Many teachers need to prove they are the best.
Teachers of the Way
Teach not needing to prove or reprove.
They approve.
Some teachers teach mainly for money.
Teachers of the Way
Freely choose what is required of them,
Doing so with gratitude and pleasure.
Many teachers teach to be seen as attractive.
Teachers of the Way
Teach because within everyone
There is beauty longing for itself.
Point Nine – Peace
Point Nine is about peace. Peace is the absence of war, but not only the absence of war. In times of peace resources become available for education, for science, for the arts, for social services, for infrastructure, and for recreation. A teacher trainer is responsible for creating a peaceful environment conducive for learning, for research, for contemplation, for fun, for creativity, for maturation and for fellowship.
There You Have It
There you have it, the nine peas of progress. Progress means to walk forward. If we are to walk forward with vitality into the future, as a community, if our teacher training programs are to survive and thrive, we teacher trainers need to rise up to our task, which is a formable one. We need to show up. Big time. Directing a successful school requires much more than a deep understanding of Alexander’s work and the ability to skillfully pass on that understanding. My 36 years of training teachers, of running a thriving community/school tells me that we must know how to create peace and kindness, we must know how to build community, and we must change with the times.
It is worth the effort. I know, because I have had the good fortune of having lived my entire adult life within a creative and caring Alexander community. Looking back, it has been one of the greatest blessings in my life.
May this blessing be bestowed upon us all. And in the meantime, let’s make it happen.
