A Teaching Handbook for Wiccans and Pagans (18 page)

I can almost hear some of you saying, “That won't happen in my class! Everyone in my class is my equal!” That might be true, but you are still the teacher; you are still in charge. In the back of their minds, students are ceding at least a little bit of authority and power to you, no matter how many times you tell them they don't have to. Even if you have a very egalitarian class where students' opinions are valued and there is a lot of respectful interaction and consensus decision-making, there is a power differential.

Recognizing and accepting that there is a power differential and considering it when you are looking at your own ethics will help you create a personal code that doesn't abuse it. This is a very slippery slope, though. In some cases, it's very difficult to tell where using power to help students shifts into the areas of micromanaging them, taking their power, or abusing the power.

Teachers need to be aware not only of the potential for accidentally abusing power but of the many ways in which it can happen. For example, teachers should keep in mind how much emphasis students place on their words and actions and how much influence those words and actions have, even if those teachers are trying to run an informal, democratic class. Sarah Davies commented:

I think, especially with magical groups, that the leaders of the group have a lot of influence. Students know that you know something that they don't, so if you ask them to do something or tell them to do something, even if it's really weird, they probably will because they trust you and they're there to learn. That's something that I am trying to keep in mind as a leader.

There are many forms that abuse of the power differential can take. Teachers can exert an undue influence over students' beliefs, belittle students in order to bolster their own egos, or extract inappropriate “payment” for teaching. In my tradition, there are horror stories about teachers who used their power to force students to clean the teachers' houses before and after class, do their yard work and laundry, and basically provide maid service. And in my more than two decades of time in the Pagan community, I've heard far too many stories about teachers of various paths using the power differential to coerce students to have sex or insisting that students sleep with them as payment for teaching. This is an egregious violation of the power differential and of students' trust.

Personal Boundaries

Ever heard that saying “Good fences make good neighbors”? Well, good boundaries make good student-teacher relationships. Personal boundaries denote the amount of physical and emotional space you need between you and another person in order for each of you to be yourselves and not be unduly influenced by the other. They are the demarcation of where one person ends—physically, emotionally, energetically—and another begins. Good boundaries allow you to be separated from others enough that you don't become dependent or codependent, while being close enough that you don't feel completely detached from each other.

Creating and maintaining good personal boundaries is one of the best things you can do for yourself and your students. Demonstrating good boundaries, coupled with a professional attitude, can help students with poor social skills by giving them subtle guidelines about how to behave. Boundaries can help you keep a healthy distance from very needy students while still responding to their concerns. If you are shy or an introvert, boundaries can help you interact with students in a professional, courteous way that gets them what they need while still maintaining your personal space. Good boundaries can make or break a teacher, especially one who is prone to getting too involved with students or giving them too much of him- or herself.

Some teachers hesitate to create boundaries because they believe they should be emotionally available and not have artificial barriers between themselves and their students. The ironic secret is, of course, that boundaries allow you to “be there” for students without them inadvertently sucking you dry of time or energy, so ultimately you will be far more useful to them. Melanie Henry commented about this:

Teaching involves also being able to create space for yourself so you have your own life, so you aren't getting eaten alive by your students.

Boundaries are also helpful for dealing with students coming and going. If you're too enmeshed in your students' lives, or if your identity as a teacher is so reliant on how well your students do or whether or not they stick around, you are setting yourself up for a world of hurt. A few years ago, a student I was very fond of left our group. Another teacher asked me how I could watch her go without feeling sad or as if I'd failed. We'd spent a lot of time with the student, developed trust and affinity, worked hard together, and now she was simply moving on. I told the other teacher that although I was really going to miss the student, I thought her leaving was a good thing. She got what she needed, and she didn't need to be in the group anymore. She was going off to discover new things and continue wherever her spiritual and life paths were taking her. I don't take that personally at all; in fact, I consider it a success. Boundaries allow you to let people go when they need to go.

Just as you did with your code of ethics, think about the personal boundaries you want or need before you start teaching. Consider things like putting limits on how much time per week you'll put toward teaching, when and how much you're willing to help students with personal problems, and how you prefer to be contacted (email, phone, IM, text) in order to maintain your personal space. Remember, too, that it's okay for you to change boundaries if they aren't working. If you have informed students of your boundaries (kind of like posting office hours), be sure to let them know that things are changing. What you were willing or able to handle at the beginning of a class might not be the same as what you are willing or able to handle toward the end, depending on your personal situation and your students' needs.

Ethics and Boundaries Together

You can combine your lists of ethics and boundaries to create ways to interact with students in healthy ways to mutual benefit. Here are some examples of policies that you might come up with:

• I will only hold class on these days:
  X
  ,
  Y
  ,
  Z
  .
  
• I will answer non-emergency student emails within
  X
  amount of time.
  
• My weekends are my own unless I'm teaching a class; no student business on weekends.
  
• I will treat students as equally as possible and strive to avoid preferential treatment.
  
• I will not trash-talk about students, no matter how frustrated I get, and especially not to other students.
  
• I will ask everyone to bring food for ritual so the burden doesn't fall on one or two people.
  
• I will set up a sign-up list so people can take turns hosting a class or bringing supplies.
  
• Students aren't allowed to call or come over in the middle of the night. (This might sound silly, but you'd be surprised how many people need to be told this.)
  
• I will not abuse the power differential by sleeping with my students or encouraging them to form any romantic attachment to me.
  

If you're going to make only one ethical rule for dealing with your students, consider making it something along the lines of this last one. Pete “Pathfinder” Davis told me that he has banned teacher-student sexual relationships at the Aquarian Tabernacle Church:

If you're going to be teaching somebody in a sort of semi-
formal setting, there's a couple of things that you need to realize, and one of them is that this is not a license to troll for bed partners. If you have a formal teacher-student relationship, you cannot have a personal intimate relationship until that is over.

It's true that the Pagan community tends to have a more flexible idea of what is okay in the arena of sex than the mainstream community does, and that the “rules” around sex are not black and white. But having open or flexible sexual mores and practices isn't an excuse to be predatory. If you are a teacher who is attracted to one of your students, you need to be thinking about what your motives are for entering into a sexual relationship with him or her. Sexual relationships with students can—and frequently do—plummet straight down the slippery slope of the power differential. Some students have a tendency to develop sexual attachments to people they look up to or whom they perceive to be in authority. Depending on the circumstances, these attachments might or might not be healthy. Some people believe that as long as there is a power differential, there is no truly consensual sex. I'm not sure I buy that, but I do think it's imperative to keep the power differential in mind.

There might be exceptions, such as if you were already lovers before you entered the teacher-student relationship, or cases where sleeping with a student is less of a taboo, such as within Pagan paths that practice sex magic or sacred sex. But in these latter situations, there are often also guidelines for circumstances under which the sacred sex is done, informed consent being high among those guidelines. Just remember: the power differential makes students vulnerable. The degree of vulnerability will vary with the student and the situation, but it's neither fair nor ethical to take advantage of vulnerability for sex.

Whether you adopt the sex rule or not, make sure you use the ethical and boundary policies you create as consistently as you can, so students learn them. If students are aware of your limits, they might even help you enforce them.

Creating a Positive Learning Environment

There are things you can do as a teacher to create a positive learning environment where problems are less likely to happen. Establishing yourself as a trustworthy leader and your class as a safe, respectful place where people can learn, express themselves, and walk further on their personal spiritual path will greatly enhance your students' learning experience and your teaching experience, and it might also help you head off some interpersonal issues.

Model and Expect Respect

As I've said countless times already, adult learners aren't the same as child learners. However, like child learners—and whether they're aware of it or not—adult learners look to teachers for cues about how to behave and what's expected of them in a class. The teacher's behavior sets the tone, so one of the most important things you can do to create a great learning environment is to model respect. This means doing some of the things I mentioned in the information on presentation: remembering to be friendly and courteous to students, greeting them as they come to class, listening to them carefully when they speak, and not interrupting. It also means dealing with disruptive people respectfully and swiftly, and not allowing students to disrespect each other. Don't complain to students about other students. Don't let your temper get the better of you. Be calm and level-headed.

The flip side of modeling respect is expecting respect. Don't allow students to disrespect you in front of other students. Defuse situations politely and quickly. Show students that courtesy is the norm in your class.

You can build mutual respect by using consensus for decisions that affect the class, when possible. Consensus isn't appropriate for all teaching circumstances, but using it even for small things, such as deciding jointly when to take a break during a long session, can help build trust and the feeling of respect. Consensus can also be challenging, both for teachers and students. Some teachers don't like to give up control, and students who don't trust others are sometimes reluctant to embrace a consensus model. Melanie Henry talked to me about consensus in her group:

We just basically work through stuff by consensus. It can be really scary for people who don't have a high level of trust going on and don't necessarily trust us as a group, but I find that bringing everything to the table and getting everyone to talk through stuff—if people are willing to do the process—works. If they're not willing to do the process, they're with the wrong people.

Do Your Best to Create Stability

Over the years, several of my students have told me that they were surprised at how “normal” and stable my husband and I appeared to be when we met them for the first time, and that those qualities helped them trust us enough that they could begin studying with us. You don't have to be normal—whatever that means—to be a good teacher. As a matter of fact, I don't think my husband and I are that normal at all, although we can pass for mainstream with a little effort. However, stability—or perceived stability, anyway—
is
important. Being fairly stable and creating a stable learning environment will help your students feel that they're in a place that's safe enough where they can be vulnerable and try new things. Paganism deals with a lot of subjects and concepts that mainstream society thinks are pretty weird. Teachers who project stability by being patient, consistent, and reliable help give students the sense of security and confidence they need to explore things that are unseen or intangible, such as deities, magic, and energy.

Patience with students is vitally important, and it's one of the hardest things for many of us to achieve. Some students have annoying habits. Others don't move forward as fast as we want them to. Still others ask endless questions or seem to forget everything we've just told them. The trick is not to stop yourself from feeling impatient; rather, it's not
letting
your impatience show (well, not too much, anyway). When you feel impatient with students, or when you want to hurry them along faster than they're ready to go, breathe, count to ten, and remember what it was like for you when you were learning. Think of a teacher, parent, friend, or mentor who helped you learn something important by being patient, and try to do what he or she would have done. Use self-talk. Tell yourself to chill, get over yourself, relax, or knock it off. You don't have to be perfect and stuff your feelings in situations with students that make you feel impatient, but try to calm yourself down. You'll feel better, and so will they.