Grizabella said:
Well, I think Umbrae meant can you teach Tarot specifically. You may have a leg up by being a professor, but teaching Tarot is somewhat different. Like if you're a professor of English Lit you might have trouble crossing over to teaching Physics or football or something.
Respectfully, I disagree. I've taught many subjects at major universities (and tarot privately) and teaching is teaching.
If you know your subject matter well and you know how to teach, you can teach it.
If you don't know your subject matter well, and you know how to teach, you will have trouble but can learn the subject matter as you go as long as you have a leg up on your students.
If you know your subject matter well, but don't know how to teach, you will have trouble teaching, but can learn as you go if you are inclined to teach.
Some people are naturally good teachers, some are naturally bad teachers and will never learn, and some have great potential if they know their subject matter well and are willing to learn *how* to communicate it.
I've taught in state universities, community colleges, private tutoring, extended studies ... the biggest variable are the students. Anyone who has ever had to teach a class of 20-30 white upper middle class students who have never heard the word 'no' and have been given everything they have ever asked for, having had to work for none of it, who are there because they *have* to be, not because they *want* to be, will pretty much have seen most of anything that students can dish out, save for working in an inner city K-12, for example.
Having 6 or 12 students who are taking a class because they *want* to learn tarot does not frighten me. I'm comfortable with my knowledge of the tarot. I have written a comprehensive syllabus. Teaching is teaching. If you know how to teach, you know how to teach any subject matter that you have intimate knowledge with. And if you are a good teacher, even if you don't, you are capable of giving a good class and learning along with them, as long as you are a step or two in front of them.
I honestly don't think teachers get enough credit for what they do. Teaching *itself* is a skill. It's something that is learned and honed over many years just like any other profession. The subject matter is just the root of it. Teaching tarot is functionally not any different than teaching anything else. As long as you are organized, know your subject, prepared and can communicate the subject, those are the qualities of a good teacher.
I'll get off my high horse now.
Caat
