The Two Approaches

Generally, there's two ways to teach something: Talking a lot, or talking a little. One can attempt to explain everything, provide the theoretical underpinnings, carefully set the building blocks neatly in a row. At some point, after a lot of explaining has taken place, the student confronts an unfamiliar situation and puts what's been learned into practice (or fails to do so). Or One can simply toss the student into situations, repetitively, and let the student learn what they will learn in the process of dealing with said situation. Talking is limited to the aftermath, mostly; the teacher be in "reactive" mode, as a rule -- answering the questions that have arisen the student from having gone through the situation.

The funny thing about this in a D/s context is that while in other walks of life we're highly aware of how the student's learning style affects what is learned. In D/s matters, I find that the Teacher's teaching style matters a lot more.

I've known a lot of very good Dom/mes who were extremely talented, but simply not very strong formal thinkers, and as a result, not very good explainers. This is complicated by the Dominance issue. Control, ownership, are in many ways incompatible with effective teaching. The things that make One a strong Dom/me often is at odds with the qualities that make One a good teacher. Being a good teacher often puts One in a position where it's helpful to let go of One's will in service to the lesson being imparted; the necessary patience, flexibility, the ability to put One's own self in the same boat with the student, for instance . . . are things that will not come naturally to many Dom/mes.

Whereas the student, in this case, being submissive, is sort of in a natural learning position at all times. s/he's (hopefully) always more or less open, receptive. his or her learning style matters, of course; and obviously to be an effective teacher the Dom/me has to be aware of how the sub learns and either tailor the lessons to the sub's unique learning style. But in the end, learning is going to happen or not happen based largely on how the Dom/me teaches, precisely because flexibility often isn't Our strong suit.

So which approach One veers toward is overridingly important. Mostly as something to be aware of, not necessarily because one approach is inherently better than the other. Both approaches, practiced consistently, lead to the same ultimate result. But the Dom/me being aware of how S/he teaches, and the way in the sub tends to learn, allows the Dom/me to see more easily when things might be going astray and take corrective action (which often is simply just putting a given topic aside until another time).

I am oversimplifying for the sake of discussion, of course. No one (I hope!) embodies one approach to the total exclusion of the other. It's always a blend. For instance, if I were teaching someone how to cook a roast, I will tell them to let the roast sit for twenty minutes after its cooked before carving it, with a short explanation of why that's important, but it's hardly necessary to go into a discussion of the physics that support the technique. So while all teaching is a blend of the two approaches, the effective Teacher is always feeling not only the sub's pulse, but His or Her own, too . . . and is prepared to adjust and try more the other approach.