By Angelo Ross, PSIA-AASI Education Development Manager
PSIA-AASI’s American Teaching System—our curriculum—is an evolving body of work, continuously assessed, field-tested, and refined. The quality of our national certification standards aligns with that of the international community of expertise and reflects a uniquely American twist, namely our pioneering push in the 1980s toward a student-centered system. This approach allows us to accommodate a wide range of student goals, including, and not limited to, competence in bumps, big mountain skiing and riding, racing, park and freestyle, on-piste, and off-piste, for both recreational and professional participants.
Rooted in best practices in psychology, sociology, and education, our People and Teaching Skills Fundamentals emphasize effective two-way communication, trust, collaboration, adaptation, and reflection to allow for learning environments that support our students’ snowsports goals regardless of what they are.
Society rightfully demands teachers with subject-matter expertise who ethically foster student learning, safety, and growth through sound judgment, empathy, and adaptability. Teachers, therefore, should hold themselves to that professional standard, and certified teachers of snowsports, as a subset of the profession, should do the same—a tall order and a noble charge.
Bookended between a global community of expertise and a student-centered curriculum on one hand and the motivations, expectations, and goals of students on the other, what mindset best serves a teacher—including a teacher of snowsports—to do well by all stakeholders? Below are thoughts for consideration about how to think like a teacher.
CURIOSITY
As an orientation toward learning, curiosity provides a spark; it compels us to learn. As snowsports educators, we can dig deep and examine one discipline vertically. For example: “I want to fully understand cross country skiing, including its history, vocabulary, equipment, technique, tactics, training methods, movement patterns, terrain use, waxing and preparation, fashion and clothing options, cultural traditions,everything it offers participants.” We can study multiple disciplines horizontally, “I want to know similarities and differences in efficient technique of every snowsports discipline.” Or a combination of the two: “I want to know everything about cross country skiing and enough about the other snowsports disciplines and pedagogy to work with any student who comes to our snowsports school.” Curiosity, often expressed through questions, is an indicator of intrinsic motivation—be on the lookout for it in yourself and others and nurture it.
EMPATHY
As an orientation toward students, empathy facilitates connection, cooperation, and collaboration. Empathy requires attentive listening, emotional awareness and regulation, and the ability to step outside oneself. It is diminished by ego and self-absorption, identity protection (defending one’s own self image to be “right”), making assumptions about others, and attribution errors (blaming students for a lack of learning: “They’re not athletic.” “They don’t care.” “They’re not trying.”) Empathy is challenged by time constraints and cognitive load—when we’re busy, rushed, or distracted. Empathy is augmented by mindfulness. From our People Skills Fundamentals, we must be able to identify, understand, and manage our emotions and actions so we can engage in meaningful, two-way communication to recognize and influence the behaviors, motivations, and emotions of others so we can develop relationships based on trust.
PRESENCE
As a mindset and habit, presence is the ability to be in the moment, emotionally regulated, and in tune with what is in front of us. Presence allows for composure, clear perception, and sound decision-making. When present, we are more aware of signals and cues from our students, we are functioning in real time, and more likely to engage with others. We can develop our ability to be present through mindful practice and deliberate strategies such as purposeful pausing (slowing your roll), anchoring our attention to a specific focal point (e.g., our own breathing, the words our students are saying, or the path and orientation of our students’ skis or snowboards when we are assessing their performance). Cognitive clutter precludes presence; think in terms of less is more; simplify goals and instructional language to make space for paying better attention and responding to what you’re observing.
RESPONSIVENESS
In a previous article, I wrote about presenting versus teaching. Think of what tour guides do as presenting, delivering information with little regard—aside from answering the occasional question—for the specific interests, motivations, and goals of the tourists in front of them. That is not a disparagement of tours; rather that is the function of tours. The goal is implied by those purchasing the ticket—we are paying to learn about this place or thing. Teaching, as described in the PSIA-AASI Teaching Snowsports Manual and supported by our National Standards, Teaching Skills Fundamentals, and Teaching Skills Performance Guides, is a different type of interaction entirely. Teaching is a cooperative art, intended to create outcomes through collaboration with others, as opposed to operative arts, like playing an instrument, woodworking, and performing skiing and snowboarding, in which skill depends on individual competence. Even though some of our students may be tourists, the teacher’s mindset is to treat them like students during their time with us—listen and respond appropriately.
REFLECTION
Looking back on one’s own performance and behaviors objectively and honestly is exceedingly difficult and can be emotionally unsettling. We challenge our own competence and self-worth by acknowledging mistakes or shortcomings. We are prone to focusing on aspects of our performances that confirm our own biases and that can occur in two ways. The Dunning-Kruger effect demonstrates the tendency of those with low skill to overestimate their own competence and the tendency of highly skilled people to underestimate theirs. Feedback from others—friends and loved ones, students, and qualified trainers and mentors—increases the accuracy of a performance assessment. And that’s when the real work begins. It can be comfortable to hide behind, “Well, that’s how I do it” [read in an indignant tone], but the teacher mindset is to dig in, prepare for a challenge, and to strive for improvement. This is about real professional development, prioritizing personal growth, and being a true student of your subject matter.
HUMILITY
As a mindset, humility is having a modest view of oneself, which makes it possible to focus on students’ goals, experiences, and takeaways. Expertise is provisional and fleeting if not maintained through diligence, honest self-work, and effort. In the teacher mindset, one never “arrives”; there is always more to learn, always someone who does it better. For all the students we have hooked, what happened with those that got away? Humility demands we reflect on how our decisions and behaviors impacted their experience negatively and take steps to prevent it from happening again. Humility never brags, attacks, or trolls. It is open-minded, the willingness to say, “I don’t know,” to work to learn the answer, and to receive and respond to feedback from others—peers, mentors, and students.
STEWARDSHIP
The American Teaching System, like any canon, doesn’t belong to any one person. Our curriculum has been developing for 65 years and has a foundation in other systems predating it by decades, perhaps longer. Countless people—including presently the hundreds of volunteers donating thousands of hours of combined work on our national alignment—have contributed to make it better during the tenure of their involvement. As practitioners, teachers, including snowsports instructors, preserve and pass on the body of knowledge. As association members, we have the right to question and refine the body of knowledge, and the responsibility to be involved and see it changed for the better. Teachers are stewards—caretakers—of content.
PROFESSIONALISM
There is an expectation of all teachers to exercise sound judgment, act with integrity, and place student safety, learning, and growth above personal convenience, ego, or preference. Professionalism shows up in preparation, reliability, and accountability; and in making decisions that are aligned with best practices. For us, that includes understanding body mechanics, human development, pedagogy, and equipment design framed within our sports. Professionalism also means representing the profession, the association, and our employers well—on snow, off snow, and online—understanding that our words and behaviors influence how students, colleagues, and the skiing and riding public judge and value us.
The preceding is not a comprehensive list or description of “good teaching.” It is not an exhaustive account of how to teach. Rather, these are aspirational goals, guiding principles that serve as lofty targets to help us prepare, perform, and reflect on the job.