The Importance of Taekwondo Instructors
by Dr. Theresa Ferg
As an instructor of mathematics and chemistry in junior high, high school and community college, I am aware of the importance of the influence that a teacher has on students. I am also a teacher of art and an artist. I know art elements, design, materials and methods. I can attest that there is a fundamental requirement to be creative for humans as that is how we have survived as a species. However, humans have a great deal of growth and maturity ahead of themselves to become masters of their own emotional selves for sustained higher level consciousness, such as, compassion.
An excellent guide that helps individuals to go in this direction of growth are the Taekwondo (TKD) Tenets. These tenets are courtesy, integrity, perseverance, self-control and indomitable spirit. It is the learning and practice of these tenets that is missing in the lives of many academic students in America. As a teacher in the US I can model and encourage exemplary behavior but the information is not an explicit curriculum practiced in the schools.
Since a number of my art commissions over the years have been for those individuals active within TKD, I am familiar with the dedication of the TKD instructors to the martial art itself and their commitment to the integral use of the tenets. This duality concept, I think, is what separates the TKD learning from other sports that are also steeped in the visualization process that is our natural homeostatic stabilizer. The TKD instructors are following the guidelines to model personal responsibility and behavior as set by the TKD founder, General Choi Hong Hi. The transcendence of a TKD student to rise above the physicality of the sport and to be a better person is a key to the popularity of TKD in the US. Grandmasters and Master instructors all have an immense responsibility to be great examples for the TKD youth.
Introducing TKD into the general curriculum for physical education (PE) classes in the US public schools may help to fill the gap students are experiencing in their personal lives. Many factors are converging in American life to cause this sense of isolationism and rebellious behavior for attention. Students need the TKD class quality of a strong sense of belonging and more than just shallow school participation in the classroom. Students require the sense of. moving in unison (as in dance) with the other students performing the memorized patterns that help them to gain a sense of physical strength and confidence in themselves. The effect of this transformation will flow into a tangent of academic improvement.
